What are the core problems that Tactical Iraqi is designed to
solve?
A chronic shortage of Arabic speakers among military personnel
A combat environment in ambiguous urban warfare settings of occupation and reconstruction
A resistance to classroom language instruction in the planned population of learners
A Pre-History of Tactical Iraqi
It originated at the Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California. Researchers at CARTE had previously authored a range of imaginative but seemingly disconnected distance learning initiatives that featured computer generated animated agents, software capable of expressive speech analysis and synthesis, and programs organized around the presentation of pedagogical drama.
Social and Perceptual Realism
What common rituals make us more likely to identify a given situation as realistic?
The Commercial Market for Language-Learning Software
The Living Language series models norms of politeness in which interactions are highly regulated and proprietary rights to the physical space is not contested.
“Knock and Talk” Missions
How do soldiers learn to follow very different rhetorical rules?
How is personal space negotiated?
How do strategies and tactics differ?
Is there a role for politeness?
The Concept of Politeness
Are there universals about politeness?
What constitutes a “virtual offense”?
Brown and Levinson
Negative politeness is generally the less risky strategy than positive politeness
“It is safer to assume that H prefers his peace and self-determination than he prefers your expressions of regard.”
But many serious games involve restricting the movement of others to quarantine, question, search, and sometimes detain them.
What are the norms of commercial game engines?
Hobbesian Realism as the operative principle in Unreal Tournament
Virtual Tourism
What are the effects of architectural pastiche?
How is the area of game play constrained?
What concepts get ejected during the design process?
1) Measuring success by “face”-preserving interactions is deemed too complicated.
2) A female player version with “Major Kate Jones” is never built.
3) A damaged water plant becomes a damaged girls’ school.
What do these “cryptohistories” show us?
What would a game based on face look like?
Multiplayer games and online environments involve cooperative action based on reputations earned in raids, from the creation of impressive digital artifacts, and virtuoso performances of skill or demonstrations of strategy.
Is the notion of fame or reputation different from face?
How are trust-based games different?
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
The Closed Bag Exchange
Friend or Foe
The Common’s Dilemma
Byzantine Generals and Non Zero-Sum Games
Trust in the Experimental Situation
The Value of Information Sharing
Reluctant Players
Cheat Codes
Good Subjects and Bad Subjects
Teenagers Added to the Mix
What about how identity categories of race, class, and gender relate to
linguistic identity? Narratives about professionalism and military
labor
John Smith as a cipher
Samia Faris as a cultural hybrid
Language and gender difference
“These guys aren’t going to sit in class learning Arabic.”
Mainstream Media Coverage and Secondary Audiences
• Newsweek• USA Today• The Los Angeles Times• The New York Times• National Geographic• Forbes • BBC• National Public Radio• ABC News
Showing pervasive problems being solved
The shortage of Arabic speakers
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among the veteran population
The difficulty of locating improvised explosive devices
Ambush! from BBS, another DARWARS
project
How is the multi-lingual voice recognition of “Sergeant John
Blackwell” different from videogames and simulations?
This life-sized
projection claims to
Speak Farsi,
Pashto, Arabic,
and Korean
The Debate in the Serious Game Development Community
Instrumentalism and the question of how a game functions as a tool for individual action
Functionalism and the question of how a game reinforces societal norms
Is linguistic competence an absolute good?
How are politics and serious gaming related?
Does the SonicJihad fiasco tell us anything about that relationship?