Understanding Second Language Users as Gamers: Language as Victory

by Raúl Alberto Mora (Editor)

Overview

Featuring #TeamLaV from the Literacies in Second Languages Project.

This volume documents how gamers use second languages in games and gaming communities, and how gaming interacts with literacy and language learning.

Grounded in an innovative longitudinal research study involving gamers not only as participants but as active researchers, this book offers insights into the new interactions that arise from gaming and language learning and addresses the needs for English learning in the context of video games. Exploring the roles of meaning-making and experiences across genres, this volume offers an original window into the essential and overlooked role that gaming can play in second language learning.

It is essential reading for researchers and scholars in literacy, TESOL, applied linguistics, and technology education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032434131
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/22/2025
Series:	Expanding Literacies in Education
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Raúl Alberto Mora is Associate Professor in the School of Education and Pedagogy and the chair of the Literacies in Second Languages Project research lab at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia

Table of Contents

Prologue  Acknowledgments  List of Contributors  Editor and Contributor Bios  Reading Quests, or Four Possible Ways to Read this Volume  Foreword: Toward Victorious Futures  Preface  Act I: The LaV Project  1. #TeamLaV’s Origins and Our Idea of Gamer  2. The LaV Framework  3. Our Design, Gamified  Act II: LaV as (Re)Conceptualizing Language  4. The Linguistic Dimension of LaV  5. The Semiotic Dimension of LaV  6. The Aesthetic Dimension of LaV  Act III: LaV as (Re)Contextualizing Victory  7. The Identity Dimension of LaV  8. LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Users  9. LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 1: The World Warriors  10. LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 2: The New Challengers  Act IV: LaV as an Expanding Framework  11. The Missing Link: LaV as a Multiverse Gaming Framework  12. LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Teachers: The LaV Gamification Initiative  13. A Transcendent Approach to LaV: LaV Beyond  Epilogue  14. Conclusion: LaV as Evolution, Communication, and Adaptation  Afterword: “We Play Together, We Win Together, We Die Together—#TeamLaV 4 Life”

Editorial Reviews

“I am excited to see the work of the #TeamLaV represented in this volume. These chapters address two existing gaps in the expanding field of gaming literacies: 1) gaming practices with second-language users, and 2) game play and strategies to attain victory and sustain commitment. Core threads in the LaV framework that weave throughout the chapters are learning, playing, identity, and networking. These core threads support all learners, not just second-language learners. Even for non-gaming students, these concepts offer substance for developing how they move through their worlds and learning spaces. To that end, they offer educators a framework for supporting all students in a variety of literacy spaces. This excites me about introducing this work to my own students.”

Jennifer S. Dail, Ph.D., Professor, English Education, Kennesaw State University, USA

 

“This volume showcases research from Colombian gamers and second language learners, contributing these much-needed perspectives to the field of game studies and literacy learning. Readers will appreciate the gaming expertise and insightful analysis showcased across these chapters written by gamers themselves. The communal, cross-cultural, and polylingual Language-as-Victory framework – highlighting concepts of learning, playing, identity, and networking – is a useful lens for gamers, teachers, and researchers alike. This volume challenges the field to reconceptualize gaming not as a trivial form of entertainment but as a collective, transformative, and deeply humanizing collective movement bending toward transcendence.”

Karis Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Secondary English Language Arts, Baylor University, USA

From the Publisher