Developing Pragmatic Competence in Digital Game Worlds: A Systematic Review

We present a systematic review of the literature on the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVE) on the development of pragmatic competence in second language (L2) learners. Specifically, we reviewed studies examining the potential of L2 pragmatic development through synthetic immersive virtual environment (SIE) and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Although a small but growing number of research has identified MUVE as a beneficial context for L2 pragmatic development, there are only a few review studies that have critically assessed this body of work (Sykes & Dubreil, 2019; Reinhardt & Thorne, 2020). Our review of 16 studies examined the affordances that digital game worlds provide for developing pragmatic competence. Specifically, we sought to answer four research questions: 1. Which aspects of L2 pragmatic learning have been examined in game-mediated contexts? 2. Which types of research paradigms have been used? 3. Which types of research methods have been implemented and finally what are the major findings? Results indicated that previous research has identified the potential of MUVEs for promoting learners' pragmatic awareness and production as well as interactional skills. This review concludes by identifying gaps in the previous literature as well as potential areas for future research.