Lauren Collister

Electronic Publications Associate
Ph.D., Sociolinguistics
Specializing in open access, ethnography, CMC, virtual worlds, multimodality

About Me

I am the Electronic Publications Associate at the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing at the University of Pittsburgh. I specialize in open access policy and e-journal administration.

I am also an active scholar in sociolinguistics, digital gaming, and semiotics. I hold a Ph.D. Sociolinguistics from the University of Pittsburgh. I have particularly focused on the study of multimodal discourse analysis in online environments. My dissertation project was an ethnography of World of Warcraft. I am particularly interested in the intersection of multimodal communication strategies and identity.

Curriculum Vitae

Find out more about my education, publications, teaching experience, invited talks, and more!

Click here for a PDF of my Curriculum Vitae. The document includes links to publications and videos of presentations.

I have provided some proof copies of my publications below. If you need any other PDFs, please contact me directly.

Collister, L. (2012) “The Discourse Deictics ^ and <-- in a World of Warcraft Community.” Discourse, Context, and Media, 1:1. PDF.

Friedline, B., & Collister, L. (2012) “Constructing a Powerful Identity in World of Warcraft: A Sociolinguistic Approach to MMORPGs.” In Call, Voorhees, and Whitlock (eds.), Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens: The Digital Role-Playing Game. New York: Continuum. PDF.

Social networks

• WordPress blog talesofanelinguist.wordpress.com
• GMail lbcollister@gmail.com
• Twitter twitter.com/parnopaeus
• Preziprezi.com/user/parnopaeus/
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/lbcollister
• Academia.edu pittsburgh.academia.edu/lbcollister

World of Warcraft Research

This project started in 2007 as a collaborative ethnography by Benjamin Friedline and myself. We created characters within the game World of Warcraft and interacted with the communities we encountered as part of being regular players of the game. The project was originally done for our Master's Theses and I have continued my participation in the game community for my dissertation and other academic pursuits.

I am interested in the ways that players use novel linguistic constructions for particular purposes in the game world. I have done conversation analysis on text-based turn-taking, semantic shifts of symbols like * and ^ as lexical items, and the use of multimodal communication for social goals.

I am also interested in identity in digital worlds and the relationship between the player and the avatar. The meshing of "virtual" and "actual" is an ongoing subject of fascination for me.

Contact