本研究以社會語言學的觀點探討大型多人線上遊戲 (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) 中參與者們是如何透過言談以創建一虛擬的實踐社群 (Community of Practice)，又團體中是如何協調彼此的角色定位或身份認同 (Identity)。科技變遷，網際網路早已成為許多人不可或缺的生活伴侶，而大型多人線上遊戲尤其是當今文化中主流的社交場域。儘管如此，該互動平台卻甚少於學術界探討；在網路論壇和即時通訊應用程式漸漸為社會語言學者關切的同時，令人好奇的是，通常被視為休閒活動的線上遊戲是否亦乘載著豐富的社會訊息。
本論文採人種誌研究法 (Ethnography)，研究者以「田野調查」的方式深入線上遊戲世界，共同參與該虛擬社會中的活動，並觀察紀錄玩家之間的互動模式。語料來源為英雄聯盟 (League of Legends) 此款於全球風靡已久的多人在線競技遊戲 (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)，共蒐集了一百場遊戲間玩家在對話窗口的互動情形。從玩家們的言語行為 (Speech Act)，和其所透露的立場表達 (Stancetaking)，我們得以推衍出該實踐社群的成員是藉何種互為主體性的策略 (Tactics of Intersubjectivity) 以認同自我及他人的社會角色。
身份認同的概念在以往被看作是個體生理或心理素質的體現，直到後現代主義時期成為能夠透過言談建構的社會意涵，進而發展為二十一世紀的學者們口中，社會互動及意識型態編織下的結晶 (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004, 2005)。本研究以此對社會認同之現代觀點為跳板，視線上遊戲中玩家們之間的言談為相互定義及塑造個體社會形象的重要媒介，以進一步探究該社群網路中的人際與社會動態。
研究結果指出，英雄聯盟玩家為一實踐社群的假設不僅可從該團體中對彼此的行為規範 (Norms of Conduct) 見端倪，成員們之間所使用的語言亦是有力的證據。不管是就語言形式或功能來看，英雄聯盟的玩家似乎有著一套共通且獨特的用語，外界的人不易理解。在此社群中最常見的語言溝通模式包含戰略消息通報、情緒反應、情勢分析、遊戲表現評論，以及行動策劃；大部份的成員尤其會用命令的口吻要求隊友配合執行任務，或因為遊戲中的挫折而責難他人，說明著他們習慣用較具攻擊性 (Aggression) 的態度來展現自己相對專業的玩家身份。值得注意的是，本研究所討論具攻擊性的行為表現不應標籤於全體的英雄聯盟玩家，而需被視為區辨該社群內一次團體的重要因素，此類型的玩家視遊戲內建的聊天系統為遊玩時行使社會權力 (Social Power) 的最佳途徑。
本研究試圖藉著對言談詳細的描述來帶出線上遊戲玩家遊玩的過程中社會意義的協調 (Negotiation of Meaning)，包括該實踐社群理念與目標的共建，以及成員間社會地位的相互認同。我們從調查中得知線上遊戲對某些人來說並非如想像般「休閒」，反而牽涉嚴肅的人際議題，也就是說，線上遊戲這個社交平台可以被看作是玩家與他人、更是與自我對話的學習基地。

As technology thrives, the Internet has become a life partner for almost each person in this modern generation; we also cannot deny that massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) play an important role in social networks for some of us. Despite that, this social platform has barely been touched upon in academia. While online forums and instant messengers have been heatedly discussed among many sociolinguists, little attention has been paid to the question whether massively multiplayer online games, well known as a type of leisure activities, are also imbued with social meaning. From the perspective of sociocultural linguistics, the present study aims to examine how online game “inhabitants” construct a community of practice and negotiate social positions and identities through discourse.
We follow the ethnographic method of conducting fieldwork, immersing ourselves in the online game world through participation in gameplay activities and observing participants interaction with each other. I chose the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game League of Legends (LoL) to be my data source, because it is one of the most popular MMOGs around the world in recent years; I recorded one hundred matches of the game and focused my analysis on the textual communication in their game chats. It is expected that the speech acts performed through the exchange of talk could be interpreted as stancetaking moves that implicate on the intersubjectivity tactics used by the players to establish identity relations.
The concept of identity had previously been seen as a representation of an individual’s physical or mental character; it was not until the era of postmodernism that it started to be treated as interrelated with discourse, which opens a channel to the 21st century view that identity is a product of both micro-empirical interaction and ideology. This viewpoint serves as a springboard for the present study, which treats the game chats as an important medium for the co-construction of players’ personas and thus their interpersonal dynamics.
The result of the study shows that the sense of community of practice characterizing LoL players can be evident in not only the members’ shared norms of conduct but also their use of language. It seems that LoL players as a social group have a specialized register for communication that is esoteric to outsiders, with regard to linguistic forms and pragmatic functions. The communicative practices that are most frequently seen in the community include tactical reports, expressions of feelings, analyses of the current situations, appraisals of previous plays, and plans of actions. Among them, most players are involved in the use of directives for asking for allies’ cooperation and negative appraisals against others’ bad performances, which shows that they are used to taking aggressive stances to display their professional gamer identities. What is worthy of notice is that such aggressive verbal behavior should not be over-generalized to all LoL players but serve to distinguish a subgroup within them, who tend to exert their social power via the in-game messaging service.
The current study attempts to bring out the negotiation of social meaning among a group of MMOG players, including the joint enterprise and its members’ intersubjectivity. It seems that, for some, playing MMOGs is not so much a leisure activity as a way of life where they engage in serious thought on the matter of identity; that is, an MMOG is not only a platform for players’ mutual communication but also a social learning system for their communication with themselves about what kinds of gamers they shall present.

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