Are Video Games really a language?

In James Gee’s book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, one chapter focuses on the use of video games and semiotic domains. He begins to tell us, that the world needs to reevaluate their definition of the word “literacy” to include video games within the definition itself. His first argument says that “language is not the only important communication system.” Throughout the college class of Introduction to Writing, we have discussed the ways that writing and language has evolved over time. One of the things we discussed was the issue of symbols and images and how they have become a form of language. In ancient times, writing was in the form of symbols and images painted on cave walls or tablets of stone. At the moment in time, it was technically considered writing and even today, we consider that some of the earliest workings of language.

Gee discusses that how important it is to understand images that regardless if you, the reader, have text within the image or next to it, one cannot comprehend or understand the text unless he/she understands the image. In other words, when it comes down to it, we need to grasp the concept of images. They were used in previous times and now our world is becoming technologically advanced and video gaming is on the ways to keep up to date with that technology. Gee’s second argument focuses on print literacy and how it has become multimodal throughout the years. Nowadays when we read print, more often than not it is incorporated with other texts and other ways of communication. This further proves Gee’s point of being able to use images as a form of language which further allows it to become a form of literacy.

Add a comment 11/12/2009