From Arkngthand to Wretched Squalor: Fictional place-names in The Elder Scrolls universe

T. Fekete, Ádám Porkoláb
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract In this article we would like to examine an area of onomastics that has not received much scholarly attention. We aim to provide an adequate linguistic analysis of the place-names found in The Elder Scrolls (ES) video game series. For our analysis, we rely chiefly on the methods of linguistic statistics, which have not yet gained widespread use in onomastic research. Our goal is to give a boost to linguistic and onomastic research into video games and to develop related aspects of its research methodology. Two main methods of place-name formation can be observed in our results: one is when the fictional names are coined on the basis of the lexical elements of already existing non-fictional languages (we call these mimetic names), and the other is when the game developers create so-called speaking names. In our article we demonstrate that the toponyms of the ES universe in part conform to the conventions of non-fictional place-name formation (e.g. they can be sorted into the two main categories of habitative names and topographical names), and in part they contradict such conventions, because around 14 percent of the names we analyzed are purposefully coined as semantically obscure toponyms, which does not happen in the case of non-fictional names.
《上古卷轴》宇宙中的虚构地名
在这篇文章中,我们想研究一个尚未受到太多学术关注的领域。我们的目标是为《上古卷轴》系列电子游戏中的地名提供充分的语言分析。在我们的分析中,我们主要依靠语言统计的方法,这些方法在词汇研究中尚未得到广泛应用。我们的目标是推动电子游戏的语言学和象限学研究,并开发其研究方法的相关方面。在我们的研究结果中可以观察到地名形成的两种主要方法:一种是基于已经存在的非虚构语言的词汇元素创造虚构名称(我们称之为模仿名称),另一种是游戏开发者创造所谓的口语名称。在我们的文章中,我们证明了ES世界的地名在一定程度上符合非虚构地名形成的惯例(例如,它们可以分为居住地名和地形地名两大类),而在一定程度上它们与这种惯例相矛盾,因为我们分析的地名中约有14%是故意创造为语义模糊的地名,这在非虚构地名的情况下不会发生。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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