All six respondents agreed that actions or poses, as textually
portrayed on the MU*, were synonymous with body language in their
view, giving me a 100% agreement rate amongst my respondents (Table A). All six also
believed there was a distinct difference between on-line, typed dialogue
and on-line, typed poses, with one caveat from Dimitri, who wrote
Sometimes I use a pose to lead into dialogue. It
then becomes a more literary media, and more enjoyable to play
and read. However, anything said, in either a pose or say,
is put between quotation marks. Again, this has more literary
roots.
In this case, Dimitri refers to using a pose with included dialogue
(i.e. Santiago jumps up, and says, "Hello!"), and notes that the
body language portion of the pose is kept distinct from the dialogue
portion via use of quotation marks.
All six agreed that poses are used to communicate ideas or concepts
that are definitely not only textual dialogue, although Horatio
noted that poorly written body language is simply confusing. Four of
my respondents, or 66.67%, felt that on-line kinesics improved the
quality of CMC by adding a level of detail, subtlety, or intensity;
while one noted that he used body language primarily for gestures and
flirtation. Half my respondents found body language easier to use on-line;
as Dimitri succinctly noted, "It's much easier than in RL because for
the character it's conscious and defined. You have to make the character
pose it, it just doesn't happen naturally or unconsciously." Horatio
declined to answer the question, stating, "Hrm... I don't think I can
answer that. Body language in RL is something natural, we do it without a
second thought. On-line we have to consciously use it." One correspondent,
Morgan, believed there was no difference. Finally, according to Rokhan,
RL body language was much easier to use, because
I read what the previous entry was, and then look at the
little 'movie in my head,' and visualize what Rokhan's response would be,
then write it down. What made it hard was the sheer volume of typing I
had to do to get this across, and sometimes the pauses would 'cool the
moment' ... Usually it was the speed [i.e. he could not respond fast
enough on-line].
This theme of the on-screen text as internally visualized occurs
repeatedly, and I will examine it more closely in the Discussion section
of this paper.
Use of on-line body language did not seem to facilitate RL kinesics for
half my correspondents, although Horatio felt that he noticed RL kinesics
more since his use of on-line body language. On-line body language was
considered an excellent place to explore kinesics by 33.33%, or as Carroll
noted, "I can experiment with things online with less repercussion than
I can RL." Rokhan felt the two had no correlation, noting, "I use the
body language I have in RL mostly subconsciously. With Rokhan, I am
watching a performance of a character I control, and reporting it."
Approximately 83% of my respondents reported used emoticons (some
more than they wished to), and one respondent did not know if he did
so. Only one respondent did not report seeing emoticons as an OOC
form of body language. All six reported using say-verbs at one time
or another, although two thirds of them noted they found incongruity
between the say-verb and the dialogue to be jarring, and that ordinarily
they would not use the say-verbs in order to maintain flexibility in
their communications. Unsurprisingly, all six found differences between
communicating on-line, as opposed to RL communication, with five of
the six also noting the difficulty of communicating accurately on-line,
and one of them also noting that in some ways VR allowed one a greater
measure of control as to how one portrays oneself.
Socialization and improved chances of role-playing gaming was cited as
the reason for being on-line by 83% of my respondents. Of those five, one
mentioned how much 'safer' VR was, allowing one to portray a more perfect
'persona' than one could iRL, and both he and another correspondent
noted the advantage of anonymity as well. The last respondent was on-line
specifically for the advantages of on-line gaming over FTF gaming.
Finally, it should be noted that during the interviews, there was a
constant use of gestural kinesics by all my respondents (i.e. 'scratches
his head,' 'hmms,' 'nods,' 'shrugs,' 'looks blank,' etc.). Also, after
the interview my friend Maki posed, spoke, and used an emoticon
to tease me:
Maki kisses the back of your hand. "Happy to be
of assistance, m'lady."
Maki sneaks a goose with his other hand. ;)
while Rokhan, to my fascination, behaved during the whole interview
as if he were in character:
Rokhan settles forward in the chair and steeples his
fingers, looking above your head for a moment in thought, before he
meets your gaze again. Mildly, he says, ....
Furthermore, even as we interviewed I found myself also reacting
to my correspondents' use of body language, and adding poses to my own
dialogue with them.
After the interviews I analyzed the logs for nonverbal communication
by the 'speaking' person, i.e. I did not include their use of clarifying
examples, but only what they themselves performed. The most common
form of body language was gestural in nature, with 143 examples of
kinesics. Of those examples, 62 were body-related kinesics which all
my respondents used, and 81 were facially oriented, as used by 5 of
my respondents. Playful use of body language occurred on four separate
occasions, as evinced by 50% of my respondents. All of my respondents
used emoticons (a total of 37 occurrences), but only one had a say-verb
set. One respondent, as has been noted earlier, remained IC throughout
the interview.
