INCIDENTAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THROUGH VIDEO GAME NARRATIVES: AN INFORMAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The growing ubiquity of video games as a leisure activity has prompted researchers to reconsider the boundaries of language learning environments. While formal instruction remains central to foreign language education, a significant portion of learners' linguistic development occurs outside the classroom – through exposure to authentic language in digital media. Video games, particularly those of narrative genres, represent a rich and largely underexplored context for incidental foreign language acquisition: the unintentional learning of linguistic material as a by-product of engagement with another activity. Despite a substantial body of research within Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), the mechanisms through which game narratives facilitate incidental acquisition remain insufficiently examined from a pedagogical perspective.