CNIE 2008: problems arise when people use different language - especially when they use the same words to mean different things

1. Lightning Bugs & Spectacle Cleaning: Language Barriers in Serious Game Design Katrin Becker, PhD

4. Step 2: about that title... The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. Mark Twain

7. Games are hot.

10. Whorf-Sapir and Game Design ‘ Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.’ ... ‘We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.’ ~ Benjamin Whorf

11. Definitions are important. "We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, Richard Feynman (1963) 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on."

16. My definitions are different from yours. Simulation is an implementation of a model: which could be a mathematical construct that bounds the possible properties and activities of the hypothetical objects being described. Which need not be restricted by the bounds of the known universe – but which still must have integral consistency.

19. Communication fails if we mean different things while using the same words. Comparing Conceptual Structures Terminology Attributes Same Different Same Different Consensus Experts use terminology and concepts in the same way Correspondence Experts use different terminology for the same concepts Conflict Experts use same terminology for different concepts. Contrast Experts use different terminology and different concepts Shaw, M.L.G. & Gaines, B. (1989)

21. The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. George Bernard Shaw

24. Thanks!