On the Ground with Tactical Iraqi

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On the Ground with Tactical Iraqi

• Elizabeth Losh
• University of California, Irvine

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Mission Game

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Skill Builder

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Arcade Game

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What are the core problems that Tactical Iraqi is
designed to solve?

• A chronic shortage of Arabic speakers among
  military personnel
• A combat environment in ambiguous urban warfare
  settings of occupation and reconstruction
• A resistance to classroom language instruction in
  the planned population of learners

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A Pre-History of Tactical Iraqi
It originated at the Center for Advanced Research
in Technology for Education (CARTE) at the
Information Sciences Institute of the University
of Southern California. Researchers at CARTE had
previously authored a range of imaginative but
seemingly disconnected distance learning
initiatives that featured computer generated
animated agents, software capable of expressive
speech analysis and synthesis, and programs
organized around the presentation of pedagogical
drama.
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A Pre-History of Embodied Language Learning
Georgi Lozanov Suggestology and Suggestopedia
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The Commercial Market for Language-Learning
Software
The Living Language series models norms of
politeness in which interactions are highly
regulated and proprietary rights to the physical
space is not contested.
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Knock and Talk Missions

• How do soldiers learn to follow very different
  rhetorical rules?
• How is personal space negotiated?
• How do strategies and tactics differ?
• Is there a role for politeness?

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The Concept of Politeness
Are there universals about politeness?

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Social and Perceptual Realism

What common rituals make us more likely to
identify a given situation as realistic?
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What are the norms of commercial game engines?

Hobbesian Realism as the operative principle in
Unreal Tournament
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Virtual Tourism

• What are the effects of architectural pastiche?
• How is the area of game play constrained?

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The Rhetoric of Walking

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A Rhetorical History in Classical Rome The
Method of Loci / The Palace of Memory
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Virtual Iraq
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What concepts get ejected during the design
process?

• 1) Measuring success by face-preserving
  interactions is deemed too complicated.
• 2) A female player version with Major Kate
  Jones is never built.
• 3) A damaged water plant becomes a damaged girls
  school.
• What do these cryptohistories show us?

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What would a game based on face look like?

• Multiplayer games and online environments
  involve cooperative action based on reputations
  earned in raids, from the creation of impressive
  digital artifacts, and virtuoso performances of
  skill or demonstrations of strategy.
• How is the notion of fame or reputation
  different from face?

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How are trust-based games different?

• The Prisoners Dilemma
• The Closed Bag Exchange
• Friend or Foe
• The Commons Dilemma
• Byzantine Generals and Non Zero-Sum Games

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The Trust-Meter in The Thing (2002)

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The Trust-Meter onTom Clanceys Splinter Cell
Double Agent (2006)
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The Trust-Meter on Global Conflicts
Palestine(2007)

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Trust in the Experimental Situation

• Reluctant Players
• Cheat Codes
• Good Subjects and Bad Subjects
• Teenagers Added to the Mix

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What about how identity categories of race,
class, and gender relate to linguistic identity?

• Narratives about professionalism and military
  labor
• Samia Faris as a cultural hybrid
• John Smith as a cipher
• Language and gender difference

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Mainstream Media Coverage and Secondary Audiences

• Newsweek
• USA Today
• The Los Angeles Times
• The New York Times
• National Geographic
• Forbes
• BBC
• National Public Radio
• ABC News

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The Society of the Spectacle

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Showing pervasive problems being solved

• The shortage of Arabic speakers
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among the veteran
  population
• The difficulty of locating improvised explosive
  devices

Ambush! from BBS, another DARWARS project
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How is the multi-lingual voice recognition of
Sergeant John Blackwell different from
videogames and simulations?

• This life-sized
• projection claims to
• Speak Farsi,
• Pashto, Arabic,
• and Korean

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Making Things Public

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The Debate in the Serious Game Development
Community

• Instrumentalism and the question of how the game
  functions as a tool
• Is linguistic competence an absolute good?
• How are politics and serious gaming related?