The use of deictic terms of place such as here, there and in SL reflects a Resident's conception and awareness of their virtual surroundings. It is hypothesised that expressing an awareness of virtual surroundings regarding place contributes to the process of acquiring a virtual identity, as identity can be "indexed" (Ochs, 1990) by the linguistic stances one adopts. Place indexical expressions index contextual aspects of virtual identity relating to place and distinguishing between the two places: the 'real' and the virtual. A person is considered to be in two places at once when engaged in the virtual world: the 'real' world and the virtual. If a person regards themselves placed in the real world and converses about the 'real' world as if it was the other or an outside concept, then this is a characteristic of SLidentity. Linguistically, this can be observed by investigating the use of the deictic place expression here and comparing it to the collocation in SL.
There is a distinction between here and in SL. The former occurs more frequently (530 occurrences in the corpus) but can be rather ambiguous. Quite often one does not know which here the speaker is referring to, whether it refers to the immediate surroundings in Second Life or in the 'real' world, and clarification is often needed. Hanks states that the meaning of here "depends upon its contrasts with other related terms including 'there', 'this' and so on." (Hanks, 2005: 192), and in SL can be added to those related terms. Here can refer to the immediate virtual context and surroundings or the 'real' world. When it does refer to the immediate virtual surroundings it is almost synonymous with in SL.
106. <AVPQresOCT10.BM>
1 [22:19] AV: people say that they are more "themselves" here 2 ....what do you think?
3 [22:19] PQ: yes and no 4 [22:19] AV: how so?
5 [22:19] PQ: yes, because it is hard to not be yourself 6 [22:20] AV: and no?
7 [22:20] PQ: no because some peope come here to be 8 someone or something else
In an interview with PQ, when asked about identity, the identity that the researcher was referring to is the one in SL, and hence this is clear from the context, and PQ replies accordingly. The deictic word in line 1 can be replaced by in SL, and in her reply in line 7, can be replaced by to SL.
107. <PClar's3AUG2011.IE>
[06:57] RY: oooh it so cold here !!!! oh, is it, where you live ?: Greenland.
duh
In 107 however, here needs clarification. One may argue that because it refers to climate and temperature that cannot be felt in SL, it can only refer to real life, but the role-playing nature of SL permits a reference to the virtual. If it was stated in a virtual context that included snow and an avatar was not dressed for the cold, then a different referent would be perceived. RY wants to make it clear that it is her real world geographical location that she is referring to, but she seems unaware that this can be ambiguous. Based on the corpus, one can claim that when the subject is the weather, the reference is usually a 'real life' one.
108. <ADARstacey'sJULY2011.CC>
[18:36] AR: you dropped the call
[18:36] AD: sorry. all i heard was a bleep and then no call :-(
[18:36] AD: its raining kinda hard here now, might be the cause
If it was "raining kinda hard" in the virtual context, there would be no effect on the cellular network that is apparently faulty. AD and AR are talking about an attempt from one to call the other over the telephone as they have taken their relationship beyond the borders of Second Life. The deictic words here and now clearly refer to the real world context.
A distinction that can be made between here and in SL is that the former can refer to the immediate virtual surroundings, a place within a place, or in SL in general, whereas the latter refers to the virtual world in general only. In the next example, the use of here as referring to the immediate context would be too specific as it would refer to the context of an academic discussion meeting place.
109. <VWERampitheatresMAY-JUL2011.AD>
PF: when I bought a bathtub in SL, it provoked a huge amount of thinking – why I thought I needed it – but I digress further
PF uses in SL as here would obviously be ambiguous, imprecise in Gricean terms, and would possibly raise humourous questions. The point is that here is not synonymous with in SL in this context, as in SL is wider than the context for the specific setting of the discussion. Table 15 shows the frequencies of here and in SL in the corpus, also mentioning that the most frequent cluster associated with these terms is here in SL (Figure 35).
Table 15: Frequencies of here and in SL Indexical Freq
Here 530
In SL 185
Here in SL 20
Figure 35: Here in SL Wordsmith-produced clusters
The fact that here in SL is the most frequent cluster fortifies the view that here sometimes needs disambiguation. Here is useful for referring to place in place (nested places), especially when preceded by in, such as a specific room in a building as in 110 or a shop in a marketplace as in 111:
[15:23] AV: u can even get free furniture?????
[15:23] SW: everything in here is free
112. <VWERampitheatresMAY-JUL2011.AD>
BLM: I am Bxxxxxx Jxxxxx, chief librarian at Johnson & Wales University.
I have two libraries here in SL and one on Jokaydia Grid Lifelong Learning Library
112 provides a good case of the clarification of the deictic reference. If BLM had not mentioned in SL, then one would come to perceive that she had two libraries at Johnson and Wales University, which would be odd taking into consideration that she is an employee and cannot claim ownership of the libraries. BLM also mentions that she has another library "on Jokaydia Grid" which is a different place in SL. Other place expressions such as there also provide insight into how place is perceived in SL.
Deictically there refers to a certain object that is of a more distal (Diessel, 1990) 3 avatars... I believe I saw a couple in the rave section though 4 [17:44] AV: rave .... wheres that?
5 [17:44] Dy: I can show ya 6 [17:44] AV: please
7 [17:44] Dy: click rave there
8 [17:45] Dy: there's a couple tails there 9 [17:45] AV: thanks alot for your assistance
Dy leads AV and his friend to teleport devices on the ground, each leading to a different department of the shop. The occurrence of there in line 7 refers to the close proximity functioning as a "pointer" (Mey, 2001: 54), whilst in line 8 there refers to objects that are physically as well as "psychologically distant" (Verdonk, 2012). As all SLers have the same default view, and each avatar is facing in a different direction, it is difficult to give instructions, to go left and right for instance, to another SLer without being ambiguous. Therefore, it is the norm, and SLers are aware of this, for a person who knows the whereabouts to instruct another person to follow them. This instruction is part of the learning process of becoming virtual (discussed in Chapter Five). When the SLers have arrived at the desired location, and the object being asked about appears in the vicinity, then a pointer is normally used. In 113, the location is the teleport device labelled with the word rave that takes AV and his friend to the desired department in the shop. The instruction comes to click the word rave (line 7), operating the teleport to the department, where the psychologically distant 'tails' can be found there (line 8). The word there appears 397 times in the corpus, but about 50% of occurrences refer deictically to a distant location, which can either refer to a 'real' world location or a SL location as in 114:
114. <AVZZleedsuniNOV10.INT>
[18:03] ZZ: ok u know charltina's couture and culter center [18:03] ZZ: i will meet u there
Other place expressions such as above, below, and on X are also important in showing an awareness of the virtual context. An Arabic example here shows the collocation on top of a table. In 115 H has landed on a game table when being invited to the game and teleporting in (while others are having a conversation). Having good control of movement is part of being virtual. Sometimes inappropriate movements cannot be avoided, and hence acknowledgement of this and perhaps an apology is needed.
115. <PCaaJAN2011.cheezy3>
Sorry, I'm very sorry.
This example does not do justice to the inappropriateness of the situation, but a visual element can enhance our view (Figure 36). Upon being teleported in by S, H lands on top of the cheezy game table, but he takes time to realise due to the rezzing process.
Once he does, he wants a confirmation from S and immediately apologises for standing in an inappropriate place, even though it was out of his control. This realisation by H reflects a good sense of whereabouts and a knowledge of what is and is not appropriate movement in SL.
Place expressions such as here, in SL, there and others that are indexical and deictic in nature reflect awareness of the contextual space in the virtual world. These expressions refer to place and enable distinctions to be made between the 'real' and the virtual. Here can refer to the immediate space as well as places within places in the virtual environment as well as referring to the 'real' world place that the user is located in. In SL usually refers to the wider grid of Second Life in general. These distinctions have implications for identity as they reflect an awareness of being situated in the virtual world and even inhabiting the virtual digitally as opposed to being physically located in front of a computer.
Figure 36: Get off the table