Second Life, a virtual world that has captivated some students and scholars, could soon be getting a facelift.
Some professors have used Second Life as a laboratory for testing social and economic behavior patterns, but the online community hasn’t yet achieved the mass popularity of similar digital worlds like World of Warcraft and Everquest. One reason that Second Life hasn’t quite caught on, analysts say, is that the game’s graphics are fairly clunky and unwelcoming. But Linden Lab, the creator of the virtual world, may be able to fix that problem: The company has just received an infusion of $11-million from a venture-capital firm. (CNET News)
For more on Second Life, see an article from The Chronicle by Andrea L. Foster.
12 Responses to Second Life’s Big Score
MarjoryMunson - January 23, 2012 at 6:59 am
Words – they have fascinated me since I was very young. I recall a very moving experience when I was about 10 for which I knew no words. So I thought that perhaps I should invent some. I soon realized that what I wanted to do was to communicate my experience to others and that my made-up words would not accomplish that because they would have no meaning to anyone else without a long discussion that would destroy the mood of the communication. I felt myself to be a very lonely logophile at that moment but realized that this is the impetus that inspires poets and other writers.
Sanchit Kumar - January 23, 2012 at 7:18 am
Sounds like there are some commenters who ought to consider reading ‘You Are What You Speak’ by Robert Lane Greene – at least for a introductory yet comprehensive overview of the different debates about language, and what the different linguistic camps stand for.
Mary Davenport Davis - January 23, 2012 at 10:39 am
A nice post, thank you, especially as I generally don’t follow the comments. I find this blog right up my ally; the various views on language and what to do with it found here are good foils for my own contradictory relationships with language. Professionally, I write, I teach, and sometimes I edit, and in all of those roles I treat formal English (to the best of my ability) as though it were a divinely mandated and unchangeable phenomenon. Personally, I’m fascinated by language study as a descriptive discipline, and to me the evidence that language changes (and that’s okay) is incontrovertible. So it’s nice to hear about both of these fractured halves.
Stephanie Lovegrove - January 23, 2012 at 11:15 am
I, for one, adore this blog, though sadly it seems that the complainers are typically the ones compelled to comment. Just know that there’s a silent army that applauds you. :)
nordicexpat - January 23, 2012 at 11:59 am
I’m not sure if anyone here has been saying that only professional linguists have the authority to discuss language, but that there some claims about language that require some degree of knowledge of linguistics in order to make or discuss. It’s the same with any field of study: expertise counts for a lot with some claims and not a lot with others. If you say that a particular use of language irritates you to no end no one will dispute you. But if you make empirical claims about language or language use based solely on your subjective opinion, you’re probably going to get called on it.
Nathaniel M. Campbell - January 23, 2012 at 12:29 pm
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one for whom “In principio erat Verbum” serves as more than just theology. I had once feared that I was being irreverent to claim so high a verse as the personal mantra of a language lover; but I’ve come to realize that the divinity of Logos lends the languages I relish their own superreality. Languages themselves emanate from the Divine Word as does all being from the One; and as a translator, I find that my task often takes on resonances of Mary’s response, “Behold, I am thy servant; be it done unto me according to the Word.” (For more of my thoughts on this, see my essay Verbum de Verbo: On Translation and Its Act of Faith.)
As for pedantic detractors (of which I am occasionally one; glass houses and bricks, you know): the pleasure of this blog is often in the analysis and dialectic, no matter the prescriptivist’s charges or the descriptivist’s counterclaims. Thank you to all of the LF bloggers for provoking thought!
cdandrea1 - January 23, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Amen.
marcleavitt - January 23, 2012 at 1:20 pm
At the risk of overstating the obvious; language is what separates us from other life forms. Talking about it helps.
bookwomanca - January 23, 2012 at 2:32 pm
As the penner of the first bullet I would like to clarify that I was most definitely NOT addressing this blog in my comment. I LOVELUVLOOOVE Lingua Franca. My comment was addressed to the opacity of too much writing in academic journals. To all of you I say keep up the good work!!!
ricker91 - January 23, 2012 at 4:38 pm
When I was younger, I didn’t concern myself much with the intricacies of how we use language. But over the last 5-10 years, I’ve become fascinated by how we use (and misuse) language; and also with the ‘evolution’ of languages, perhaps because of my background in studying biological evolution. I enjoy this blog quite a bit because it causes me think more deeply about various issues and topics involving language, and I rarely miss a post. Thank you all.
Guest - January 24, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Who speaks FOR the words? Those who speak the words, in speaking, speak for the words.
It is not the LOGOS of language study for which you speak: it is the ETHOS, ethos grounded in TASTE: as when Henry James declared the elision of consonants “a mere helpless slobber of disconnected vowel noises” (_The question of our speech_, p. 27).
There is no pretense of linguistic scholarship (no logos) in James’s virulent putdowns: what persuasion there may be is purely at the level of character, ethos. James urges the graduating class of Bryn Mawr to imitate the pronunciation of their betters, to avoid ugly and slovenly vowels, and finally to become “models and missionaries, perhaps a little even martyrs, of the good cause” (p. 52).
This was the creed of English departments and their handbooks of English grammar and usage for a full century. The 21st century is now well under way, and _The Chronicle of Higher Education_ offers us another round of scholars vs critics, or intelligent design vs evolutionary science.
It would be a great joy to have an opportunity to speak to Henry James again. Just not on the subject of the logos of language.
[I've lifted without attribution some of the language of this post from an article I wrote a long time ago, "The Ethos of English Departments: Henry James and H. G. Wells Continued."]
Lucy Ferriss - January 25, 2012 at 9:30 am
Just FYI, the title was a wee bit of a joke. Dr. Suess, THE LORAX.