Enunciation and identification in video game spaces.
Towards a semiotics of identity

Enzo D'armenio

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# Enunciation and identification in video game spaces

## Towards a semiotics of identity

Énonciation et identification dans les espaces des jeux vidéo. Vers une sémiotique de l'identité

Enzo D'Armenio

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URL: https://journals.openedition.org/signata/5902

DOI: 10.4000/14rhp

ISSN: 2565-7097

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UNIVERSITÉ
DE LORRAINE

**Electronic reference**

Enzo D'Armenio, "Enunciation and identification in video game spaces", *Signata* [Online], 16 | 2025, Online since 15 September 2025, connection on 28 September 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/signata/5902 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/14rhp

This text was automatically generated on September 26, 2025.

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# Enunciation and identification in video game spaces

## Towards a semiotics of identity

Énonciation et identification dans les espaces des jeux vidéo. Vers une sémiotique de l'identité

Enzo D'Armenio

## Introduction

<footnote n="1">¹ In the scientific literature devoted to video games and virtual reality, the concepts of interaction and immersion continue to be central (Ryan 1999; Catricalà & Eugeni 2020). The notion of “interactive medium” usually refers to the difference between a traditional medium, for example a book or a movie, and a digital medium such as a video game or a VR or AR experience. According to this commonsense understanding, a traditional medium would not allow for intervention in the unfolding of the text; the latter, on the contrary, would allow the viewer to intervene and actively participate in the construction of meaning. The degree of participation within the interactive media would be much more significant so as to open the field to a new type of experience, one in which the viewer is to some extent also co-creator of the meaning of the text. For instance, within semiotics, Meneghelli (2007, p. 97), following in the footsteps of Giovanna Cosenza (2004, p. 51), has proposed to consider face-to-face verbal dialogue as a benchmark for establishing the degree of interactivity in video game experiences. However, if we go back to a now classic concept of semiotics and narratology, the concept of the model reader elaborated by Umberto Eco (1979), this difference does not appear fundamental. When faced with a written text, readers continuously make interpretive moves, try to anticipate events, identify with certain situations and let themselves be deceived by false leads set up by the text in order to experience surprising effects.¹ The same happens during the so-called interactive experiences, where an interpretive interaction is always at work. The result is that the concept of interaction risks being conflated with several general dynamics of meaning</footnote>
construction. As pointed out by Eric Landowski (2005), for instance, interacting is reducible to communicating.²

2

Similarly, the concept of immersion is widely discussed with respect to virtual reality experiences and video games. Video games and VR experiences would be able to build an effect of presence based on the stimulation of multiple sensory channels: going beyond the simple cognitive involvement of literature and the auditory-visual regime of cinema, adding a tactile and bodily dimension, these experiences would be globally more immersive and thus engaging. However, the correlation between perceptual participation and overall viewer involvement is not so obvious. A book can involve us deeply in its plot, activate mechanisms of identification, for instance through emotional connection, like empathy towards its characters. There are few elements that allow sensory involvement to be directly correlated with identity, emotional or narrative involvement.

3

Both of these concepts have received important refinements within the scientific literature devoted to video games and, more generally, to virtual experiences (Aarseth 1997; Ferri 2015; Calleja 2011). On the one hand, interaction has been understood as ergodic literature, in which texts require a reading practice that imposes a work of configuration. As pointed out by Espen Aarseth, compared to the reading of a verbal text, whose work of turning pages and of visually traversing them is negligible, ergodic literature requires the material negotiation of its physical medium, and the choice of some possibilities of traversal at the expense of others:

> The performance of their reader takes place all in his head, while the user of cybertext also performs in an extranoematic sense. During the cybertextual process, the user will have effectuated a semiotic sequence, and this selective movement is a work of physical construction that the various concepts of ‘reading’ do not account for. This phenomenon I call ergodic, using a term appropriated from physics that derives from the Greek words *ergon* and *hodos*, meaning ‘work’ and ‘path’. In ergodic literature, non-trivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. (Aarseth, 1997, p. 1)

4

On the other hand, immersion effects have been articulated into a series of sub-concepts that specify their meaning. The first is that of the presence effect, derived from Marvin Minsky's (1980) elaboration of the term *telepresence*. Minsky has in fact investigated tele-operative systems involving the control of robots at a distance in physical space, thanks to the use of special gears. Through a sensory feedback system, the user has the experience of being present in the remote location in which the robot acts. Recently, this proposal has been extended by Andrea Pinotti to virtual reality experiences, and to the consequences that this effect builds with respect to image history:

> Immersivity and interactivity in virtual environments are able to elicit in the user an intense feeling of ‘being there’, namely of being embodied in an independent and self-referential world. Images are consequently transformed into habitable environments, which tend to negate themselves as representational images of something—i.e., as icons: they are veritable ‘an-icons’. (Pinotti 2017, p. 1)

5

The second concept is that of *flow*, first elaborated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and employed in the context of virtual experiences to describe different ways in which immersion operates and is generated in conjunction with interaction. Laura Ermi and Frans Mäyrä (2005) developed an important typology of immersion articulated in three modalities, widely taken up in the subsequent literature.³ *Challenged-based immersion* is
closest to the concept of flow and in a sense is opposed to the presence effect: a state of
near trance in which the user narcotizes his or her own self-awareness and of the
surrounding world as a result of an involvement in an articulated challenge. This is
followed by *sensory immersion* caused by the vividness and realism of virtual worlds.
Finally, *imaginative immersion* pertains to the user's involvement in the narration.

In this paper, we intend to provide a new perspective on the relationship between interaction and immersion rethinking these concepts starting from the matters of enunciation and identity. As far as enunciation is concerned, it is a question of verifying whether it is possible to identify a formal apparatus that allows the functioning of video games to be studied in a manner similar to verbal, visual or audiovisual languages (Benveniste 1970; Fontanille 1989; Dondero 2020; Metz 1991; Paolucci 2020). Semiotic studies carried out through the filter of the theory of enunciation have already analyzed the phenomena of immersion and interaction in video games in a more articulate manner. For instance, Valentino Catricalà and Ruggero Eugeni (2020) have proposed a typology of immersion and interaction in digital worlds. The classification criteria relate to the perceptive and narrative involvement of the viewer in the enunciation, and the sensory presence offered by these technologies. To simplify, the resulting typology is made up of four forms of media ordered according to an increasing degree of immersion: traditional media such as cinema, video, and television, which do not allow the viewer to manage perceptual points or narrative developments; non-immersive video games and interactive texts, where the viewer remains in front of a screen but can participate in the narrative and sensory unfolding of the experience; media that generate a moderate immersive experience, where the real world is expelled through the use of a virtual reality headset and, as a result, perception in the diegetic world is controllable, but not the construction of the narrative; and, finally, radically immersive media, where the viewer also contributes to the construction of the narrative.⁴

With respect to these studies, we intend, on the one hand, to propose a complementary
line of research based on the role played by movement in the mechanisms of
enunciation inherent to video games, in order to examine the role of grammaticalized
actions within video game productions. And on the other, to examine a dynamic
constitutively interrelated to immersion, which concerns a reflexive posture. The
challenge is to examine not only the moments in which players are immersed in the
video game performance, but also and especially the moments in which they exercise
an interpretive posture with respect to their actions, the role of the avatar, secondary
characters, and digital architectures. We believe that these two dynamics of immersion
and reflexivity are constitutively at work during the practice of gaming, and that they
result in processes of identification: processes in which a personal management of the
relationship between the grammatical constructions of video game practice and the
interpretive positioning that takes place in relation to digital entities is exercised.

In the first part of the paper, we will return to the theories that define video games in
accordance with a kinetic enunciation (D'Armenio 2014, 2024): the way in which, in
order to access virtual experiences, the user has to make movements on the interface
that are transformed into virtual movements. This hypothesis opens up new paths of
investigation, because kinetic enunciation leads to a complex interplay between kinetic
incorporation and interpretive distancing. Kinetic enunciation does not only occur as a
result of the exploitation of the kinetic syntax typical of the particular interaction set
up by virtual experiences – the grammatical actions in every video game – but works in close interrelation with the visual and narrative qualities with which virtual spaces and characters are imbued. Overall, kinetic qualities and visual qualities configure, in our view, what we propose to define as image-movements: expressive systems that intertwine the relationship between movement and image syntaxes in new ways.

In the second part, we will discuss the relationship between kinetic enunciation and identity. We will return to the enunciative relationship between the production of discourse and the emergence of subjectivity. Our thesis is that in order to understand video game semiosis, it is necessary to consider not only the work of an enunciating subject or instance, but also that of an identity. By exploiting the user's obligation to step into the shoes of one or more avatars, and subjecting this obligation to further constraints, video game experiences elicit identification processes: it is not the process through which we identify ourselves to something or someone (e.g. the avatar), but rather the processes through which the work of an identity manifests itself in semiosis. In the case of video games, it is the negotiation between kinetic incorporation and interpretive distancing. This management produces signs—hesitations, repetitions, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, attitudes—that open up practices of observation and self-observation. In our view, it is in this articulation between kinetic incorporation and critical distancing that video game experiences configure an unprecedented practice of meaning in comparison to traditional media. The cases of *Shadow of the Colossus*, *Ico*, and *The Last of Us* will allow us to illustrate this identity dynamic and formalize the experiential possibilities opened up by the relationship between enunciation and identity within video game semiosis.

# 1. Virtual experiences as image-movements

The concepts of interaction and immersion we have just discussed seem to imply one another: for ergodic interaction to be successfully produced, it must be capable of generating some form of immersion in another world, through a sense of presence. And conversely, for the immersive sense of being elsewhere to be generated, the digital world must allow for some form of interaction. In our view, this conceptual concatenation derives from a common origin of the two phenomena, which can be identified in the realization of mediated movements, and more specifically, of an unprecedented kind of language purport, which we have called, in a series of previous works, an image-movement (D'Armenio 2022, 2024). We chose to place the concept of movement at the center of our study and to approach it through the lens of enunciation theory. We believe that analyzing their relationship can help identify a type of formal apparatus of enunciation in video games, in contrast to what can be found in other kinds of semiotic productions.

## 1.1. Time, space, and movement in semiosis

The semiotic modelling of video games was carried out on the basis of a genealogical path describing the evolution of the relationship between movement and images (D'Armenio 2025a). The famous dichotomy proposed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in *Laocoön* (1767) didn't take into account movement. As is well known, Lessing distinguished the arts of time from the arts of space. Poetry belongs to the first group
by virtue of two main characteristics: its primary mode of expression is temporal, being
constituted by successions of words, and access to meaning is categorical, because it
starts from the general cognitive contents expressed by language to reach sensitive
emotions on the basis of particular concatenations. The plastic arts, on the contrary,
among which Lessing included painting and sculpture, have a predominantly spatial
mode of expression, because they sensitively express specific occurrences, related to
the shapes and volumes that constitute them, rather than expressing general concepts
through verbal occurrences. In a sense, these two arts build an inverse path of
meaning: from cognitive content to sensible perceptions through verbal successions for
the temporal arts; from sensible relations to general concepts and emotions for the
spatial arts. This does not mean that temporal arts cannot express spatial concepts and
vice versa, but to do so, they must use specific procedures, exploiting their secondary
mode of expression. According to Jean Petitot (2004), painting and sculpture can rely
on non-generic configurations, showing various phases of an action frozen in space in
order to convey a narrative unfolding and even general concepts, as in the case of
allegories in painting (Dondero 2020). Similarly, the interplay of rhyme and rhetorical
figures allows poetry to build sensitive images, transcending the generality and
temporality of their primary mode of expression.

12

As regards this dichotomy, not only interactive media such as video games, but also
audiovisual media constitute a significant exception, because they are able to rely on
other modes of expression than the purely spatial ones of still images. In his works
dedicated to cinema, Gilles Deleuze rightly insisted on the particular purport of cinema,
understanding it as an inseparable fusion of image and movement: "In short, cinema
does not give us an image to which movement is added, it immediately gives us a
movement-image. It does give us a section, but a section which is mobile, not an
immobile section + abstract movement" (Deleuze 1983, p. 2). By isolating this
theoretical passage from Deleuze's thought on cinema, one could already assert that in
order to understand audiovisual productions, one must take into account the
articulations between the qualities of the image (the system of points of view, the
plastic and figurative readings) and the qualities of movement (the movements within
the shot, between the shots, the rhythms, the tensions, the accelerations, the
hesitations, etc.). However, these assumptions were used by Deleuze exclusively to
explain cinematic imagery and to propose his classification of the forms of montage
that have followed one another since the classical age.

13

More recently, Andrea Pinotti (2017) has insisted on the explorable character of digital
images, proposing the notion of environment-images. They are in fact images that call
to be inhabited and that generate an effect of presence rather than attempting to
represent something.

14

Given the preeminence that we find movement to assume in the user's access to video
game semiosis and his or her participation in its articulation, we have proposed to
invert the movement-image (*image-mouvement* in French) formula proposed by Deleuze
in order to define video games as image-movements (*mouvements-images* in French):
expressive systems based on the interrelation of visual and kinetic qualities.⁵ In order
to access video game experiences, in order to make them work, the user must perform
movements on the interface (by means of joypads, gyroscopes, motion sensors or
virtual helmets) that are transformed into movements within the virtual world (e.g.
running, jumping, shooting or looking). On the one hand, *movements upon* the interface
are usually abstract and plastic, because they are not expressed through recognizable
figures or themes, but through abstract commands such as up, down, left, right, or
using other activation keys (A, B, X, Y) and progressive triggers. *Movements within* the
virtual worlds, on the other hand, often translate the abstract movement upon the
interface into a system of figurative and thematic movements that are specific to each
video game (running, jumping, shooting, climbing, etc.). Between these two types of
movements, a *kinetic diagram* associates the abstract commands on the interface with
more or less figurative and thematic movements within the virtual world.⁶ This
diagram of kinetic relations establishes the rhythmic and aspectual resonance between
the two systems of movement: for example, punctual movements such as jumping
within the virtual world may be matched with equally punctual movements on the
interface, while durative movements such as running require prolonged activation of
the commands. We think that the notion of *gameplay*, used to describe the mechanics of
a video game, is employed to explain this kinetic diagram that organizes the grammar
of actions available in each specific video game (the structure of the *game*), before a
user appropriates it to perform personal game performances (the actual realizations of
*play*).

15

And yet, the image-movement is not only marked by the kinetic syntax we have just
described—because movements are figuratively visualized and must take place by
audio-visual means within the digital world. In addition, digital space is deployed and
organized in a complex architectural and figurative manner, and each virtual
experience combines phases in which the player has control over the action with
filmed audiovisual sequences in which he or she assumes a position of spectator. We
will speak in this regard of an (audio)visual syntax that contributes, in close correlation
with the kinetic syntax, to defining the image-movements of virtual experiences. In
other words, there are two main forms of grammaticalization as regards video games
and virtual reality: on the one hand, a visual syntax that regulates the degree of
figurativeness and the architecture of virtual spaces; on the other, a kinetic syntax that
regulates the interactive micro-language through which the player exists within each
specific video game.

16

The video game *Assassin's Creed II* (Ubisoft, 2009) may serve to exemplify these formal
features (Fig. 1).
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. *Assassin's Creed II* (Ubisoft, 2009).</figcaption></figure>

A screenshot from the video game showing Ezio Auditore in Venice.

17 It is a video game set in a series of Italian Renaissance cities, including Venice and Florence, which we could summarily describe as a historical conspiracy thriller similar, in its plot, to Umberto Eco's *The Name of the Rose*. This is, however, if we limit ourselves to considering only the visual syntax and audiovisual narration, because the interaction system requires the player to make acrobatic movements, perform vertiginous chases, climb famous monuments, and assassinate key figures in order to unravel the international conspiracy. The meaning-making process is thus linked to two interrelated levels: on the one hand, the international conspiracy depicted with "traditional" images and the figurative dressing of virtual spaces; on the other hand, the practical narration imposed by the kinetic system—a kind of *parkour* to be performed in a historical setting, characterized by rhythms and thematic movements such as running, climbing, and killing.⁷ Rather than stopping at the simple fact that these are interactive media, this approach makes it possible to analyze directly the kinetic micro-languages (offensive, defensive, contemplative) specific to each virtual production.

18 It is important to emphasize the fact that the two syntaxes work in interrelation and do not correspond to the traditional division between gameplay and narration. One might think that visual syntax solely pertains to narration: the forms of visual storytelling and its genres used within virtual experiences, cutscenes, character depictions, and so on. But in a video game such as *Assassin's Creed II*, when we press the jump button, the avatar performs nearly at the same time the animation that allows us to climb a roof: we are thus perceiving, interpreting, and acting at the same time. The visual realization of movement is not a simple correlate of movement, but partakes to the complex superposition of our physical movement with our exploratory and visual movement in the digital world. It is for this reason that the two syntaxes do not mirror the division between gameplay and narration. The game mechanics cannot be produced without a visual movement in the game world that embodies, transforms, and fully realizes the player's movements on the interface. We cannot say that jumping, in its visual dimensions, does not belong to gameplay. As gamers, we also and especially play
through the visual representation of our motor performance. In other words, there are
certainly elements that separately concern the two syntaxes: cutscenes are only visual/
narrative, whereas navigation through menus will be predominantly kinetic because
the images have a low figurative density. But the action underlying the game
mechanics, which is the exploration of virtual spaces through movement,
interdependently concerns the visual and kinetic syntaxes.

1.2. Kinetic enunciation

19 The theory of enunciation proposed by Émile Benveniste (1966), originally elaborated with respect to verbal oral language, allows us to analyze the consequences of this hypothesis. In open opposition to structuralism, enunciation pertains to the mediations that take place between the virtual system of language and the discourses actually produced. It is no longer a question of focusing the analysis exclusively on the meaning structures of utterances or on the structure of languages, but rather of examining their relationship to utterance production: enunciation is “the very act of producing an utterance and not the text of the utterance that is our object. This act is the act of the speaker who mobilizes language for his own purposes” (Benveniste, 1970: 13, our translation). This is why Benveniste speaks of enunciation as a formal device that mediates between the language and dialogical experience.

20 At the center of this theoretical device lies the formal apparatus of enunciation: special categories of language that only take on their full meaning in a dialogical situation. These include personal pronouns, spatial deictics, and verb tenses. Indeed, the triptych of “I-here-now”, which is related to an experiential situation of co-presence, projects “non-I”, “not-here”, “not-now” in verbal utterances. It is therefore necessary to study the way in which enunciation relates the places, times, and actors of the dialogical experience with the places, times, and discursive actors projected by verbal utterances. One of the fundamental differences identified by Benveniste concerns the opposition between two regimes of enunciation: enunciation-discourse and enunciation-history. The first regime takes place when the interlocutors establish a dialogue based on the assumption of the personal pronouns “I-you”: cases in which the locutor establishes him or herself as an “I” within a dialogue and addresses a “you”. This regime is characterized by a symmetry and interchangeability of the enunciation positions: the “you” to whom the speaker addresses him or herself can in turn become an “I”. Similarly, spatial and temporal marks will be organized with respect to the time and place of co-present enunciation. In contrast, in the enunciation-history regime, pronominal marks appear in the third person, and spatial and temporal deictics adopt an impersonal style, narcotizing the effects of subjectivity. This is the typical case in historical accounts and scientific texts. In other words, the theory of enunciation makes it possible to identify the forms of subjectivity that are constructed in every speech act.

21 Generative semiotics (Greimas and Courtés 1979), and in particular post-generative visual semiotics (Fontanille 1989; Dondero 2020), have extended the analysis of enunciation to visual languages. In particular, with respect to still images, an adaptation of enunciation theory has been proposed with respect to configurations of the gaze: if a represented figure looks towards the viewer, this gaze replicates an “I-you” regime of enunciation-discourse through the gazing. On the contrary, if the
figures are not addressed to the spectators, the events represented are in accordance with the regime of historical enunciation: in the absence of an address to the viewer, events seem to take place in an impersonal way and in a space-time that is represented as not shared with the viewer. More generally, visual enunciation concerns the way in which an image is able to show, hide or propose paths of vision to the viewer. The actant pair of *observer* and *informer* has been elaborated in order to analyze how images can convey knowledge in a non-verbal manner, organizing a polemical regime that relies on vision rather than on a formal apparatus based on linguistic categories.

22 Bruno Latour (2012) has emphasized how each expressive system is capable of projecting us, as spectators, into different places, times, and spaces in different ways, a process that we believe corresponds to semiosis. On the production side, there is certainly a subject who produces an utterance capable of projecting other places, times, and spaces—those of the text-utterance itself—with respect to dialogical interaction. And yet, on the reading or receiving side, we equally become subjects by interpreting utterances that project us elsewhere with respect to our own experience.

Music begins, a text is read, a drawing sketched out and 'there we go'. Where?
Elsewhere, into another space, another time, another figure or character or
atmosphere or reality, depending on the degrees of verisimilitude, figuration, or
mimeticism of the works. (Latour 2012, p. 246)

23 In the case of the reading of a book, we are projected elsewhere through an inferential and translational activity that solicits the coded visual features of language—the verbal utterances on the page—to turn them into meanings. In front of an image, however, another scene opens up through perception, inviting us upon visual paths. When watching a film, this projection takes place through the perception of sensible audio-visual qualities, which are structured to build, for instance, an audiovisual narration. André Gaudreault (1998) used the term *monstration* to describe the way in which film is capable of narrating stories on the basis of its substances of expression, differently from verbal language, which is characterized by its *saying*. For his part, François Jost (1987) has developed two instances that are able to account for the perceptual doing internal to the utterance, going beyond the registration of the cognitive doing to which literary narratology had limited itself. These are the instances of *ocularization* and *auricularization*, which respectively describe the visual and auditive anchoring within audiovisual texts.⁸ Claudio Paolucci (2020) speaks in this regard of prostheses of subjectivity to describe the formal apparatus of enunciation in audiovisual media, understood as “perceptual/cognitive/narrative prehension points within which one knows, sees and narrates” (p. 321, our translation).

At the level of the theory of enunciation, a prehension point is the opposite of a simulacrum, according to whose logic the text (the utterance) would present within itself the images (the simulacra) of the enunciation. On the contrary, the audiovisual text presents itself as a successive distribution of perceptual/cognitive/ narrative prehension points within which one knows, sees, and narrates: points of viewing and listening that manifest their own sensorial grasp [...]. (Ibid.)

24 More generally, the semiosis resulting from the production or reception of an utterance builds a duplication of the experience, which semiotically projects its spectators into other places, times, and in front of other characters, those produced by the semiotic utterance, according to specific modalities.

25 In the case of virtual experiences, the semiotic projection is not limited to perceptual and cognitive prehension points, because the user has to intervene with his or her
movement. As users, we access the virtual world audio-visually, thanks to the relative syntax we spoke of earlier, which concerns the figurative and structural articulation of virtual worlds and non-interactive sequences. But we also access them through the specific kinetic grammars set up by each virtual experience: the system of correspondences between movements on the interface and movements of a digital prosthesis (a character, an object, the mouse cursor). In other words, if we take the theory of enunciation as a theory that studies the relationship between experience and semiotic interactions, we can identify the way in which the user becomes the subject of virtual experiences, appropriating kinetic micro-languages and using them in order to enunciate. In the case of a platform game like *Super Mario Odyssey*, the kinetic micro-language will involve movements such as walking, running, jumping, performing acrobatic sequences between jumps, throwing Cappy (Mario's hat), etc. In the case of a war game such as *Call of Duty*, it will involve movements such as running, crawling, shooting, throwing grenades, etc. In a strategy simulation such as *Age of Empires*, these will be indirect commands, via the selection of actions from a menu, enabling one to move troops and build defensive bases, for example.

## 1.3. Kinetic micro-languages

26

Three issues must be clarified in relation to the kinetic micro-languages of video games. Firstly, in our view, the immersion effects derive from this correspondence between movements on the interface and movements in the digital world: in short, it is, in our view, a kinetic incorporation effect.⁹ It is based on an analogizing prehension between the aspectuality of movement on the interface and the aspectuality of virtual movement: in *Super Mario Odyssey*, pressing and holding down a direction on the stick corresponds to making Mario run in the same direction, while the punctual activation of the jump command produces an action that is also punctual. This analogizing prehension is also based on *pars pro toto* mechanisms: the user produces a partial form of movement on the interface—for example, the stylized start of an action—which will be fully realized by the movement of the virtual character. In the case of a fighting game like *Street Fighter*, for example, a flying uppercut towards the opponent will be performed by a combination of commands that synthesize and iconize the initial direction of the movement (forward, down, diagonal down, fist button). In other words, an incorporation mechanism, albeit partial, acts as a consequence of the kinetic correspondence between “moving on the interface” and “moving something” (the avatar, an object or a cursor). This incorporation mechanism associates moving on the interface with moving a digital entity, through the continuity and correspondence between these two movements.

27

The second point concerns the status of these kinetic micro-languages. In our opinion, as with visual language, these micro-languages are not characterized by an isolated semiotic life: a new *platform game* is neither produced nor played in a vacuum, but is fed by the video game tradition of *platform games*. Following in the footsteps of Maria Giulia Dondero (2020), we defend the idea of a third way in relation to the identification of a universal system of visual language composed of all possible perceptual configurations, proposed by the Group μ (1992), and to Greimas' (1984) implicit proposal that each image constructs an autonomous micro-language. The grammaticalizations of a visual language, like those of video games, need to be identified at the level of genres and statuses. The portrait genre, for example, constitutes a kind of sub-language in relation
to more or less specific practices (art, fashion, politics), and each new image negotiates these configurations in a new enunciation. This proposition is also echoed in game studies, as proposed by Espen Aarseth and Sebastian Möring (2020): each video game is part of an ontological genealogy relating to video game genres; for example, the genealogy of the *first-person shooter* or that of the *platform game*.

28

Finally, it should be pointed out that these micro-languages function as interactive grammars, as they guide and structure the experience without completely determining it. Each player may develop his or her own style, make mistakes, exercise different rhythms, become more and more proficient or become disinterested in the explicit goals of a video game. A group of users may choose to ignore the objectives of a game such as *Call of Duty*—for example, eliminating all opponents in a deathmatch—and decide to improvise a hide-and-seek session. In order to do so, they will still have to use the kinetic grammaticalization established by this video game in order to walk, run, duck, and stretch on the ground, but will bend its rules in view of different goals. In other words, the kinetic syntax constitutes the grammatical framework, the micro-language composed of movements through which players exist and act in the digital worlds, but its appropriation can be realized according to different styles, strategies, and tactics.¹⁰

## 2. From enunciative subjectivity to identification in semiosis

29

The kinetic enunciation we have identified with respect to the image-movement of video games allows us to avoid certain implications linked to the concepts of interaction and immersion. Indeed, assuming the concept of interaction leads us to try to identify the degree of interactivity, according to a predominantly quantitative criterion. If virtual experiences are interactive, to what extent are they interactive? Where does the degree of manipulability of the virtual world and thus the player's freedom end? On the contrary, the concept of immersion, even in its different narrative and challenge declinations, pushes us in the opposite direction: what ensures the player's immersion, what breaks it down?

30

With respect to the first group of questions relating to the interactive freedom of the user, a preliminary observation pertains to the fact that virtual experiences always begin with an obligation. Sébastien Genvo (2011) speaks in this regard of an action imperative in video games. Contrary to the commonly held view about the possibility of intervening in the experience, a player is actually forced to intervene through his or her movements in order to ensure the progress of the experience. Secondly, the digital spaces, and in most cases also the characters and avatars, are already predisposed upstream by the designers of the experience. The spaces play the dual role of accommodating the kinetic grammars that will articulate the experience of traversal and manipulation through the ludic enunciations, and, at the same time, they are figuratively dressed, and contribute to the construction of the fictional world and to the development of the narration through indexical procedures. No virtual experience simply begins in a vacuum, and none gives the player the opportunity to realize any kind of movement, simply because without a figuratively and architecturally arranged virtual world, virtual experiences would not be interesting. A virtual experience, in other words, situates the player—via the avatar—in an already organized figurative
world, which the user can discover and manipulate thanks to an already established kinetic grammar.

31

As for immersion, this concept is often discussed as if it were the only desirable effect within a virtual experience. And yet, in most cases, the effect of immersion is momentary and is articulated by moments in which the interpretive work is realized through critical and reflexive stances (Barnabé, Delbouille and Dozo 2019). Moments in which we forget that we are participating in a virtual experience, and in which we forget the interface that allows us to project ourselves into the digital world, alternate with moments in which we admire the quality of the graphic realization, judge the behavior of a character, evaluate our actions, or anticipate future moments.

32

This articulation leads us to discuss a final issue related to enunciation and more specifically concerning subjectivity. As is well known, Benveniste takes a radical position, arguing that it is only as a consequence of an act of enunciation that a subject can constitute itself as such: it is enunciation that generates both the utterance and its subject. Firstly, we argue that a subject is constituted not only from the enunciations he or she utters, but also as a consequence of the reading or interpretation of utterances, be they verbal, visual or multimodal. On the issue of subjectivity, Latour argues that it is in semiosis—which he calls the mode of existence of fiction—that subjectivity is produced: “If the work needs a subjective interpretation, it is in a very special sense of the adjective: we are subject to it or rather win our subjectivity through it” (Latour 2012, p. 241). In other words, it seems that for Latour, it is through semiosis that we discover and conquer our subjectivity:

> If listeners are gripped by a piece, it is not at all because they are projecting their own pathetic subjectivity on it; it is because the work demands that they, insignificant amateurs, brilliant interpreters, or passionate critics, became part of its journey of instauration—but without dictating what they must do to show themselves worthy of it. (Ibid.)

33

According to Latour, subjectivity is not only the result of a discursive act but of any semiotic event, because it is capable of turning us into subjects and making us experience fragments of our subjectivity.

34

Secondly, even if we were to limit the field of subjectivity to discursive production, a problem of range emerges. The subjectivity described by Benveniste seems to focus on single enunciations or single semiotic situations. However, the meaning of a video game experience brings into dialogue entities that are more than subjects: the avatar is often a proper character, the subject of multiple enunciations, who persists in the virtual world and undergoes profound transformations. Similarly, the user is more than a subject, because in each digital experience, he or she manages his or her role differently with respect to the narrative and kinetic role of the avatar. Stefano Gualeni and Daniel Vella, adopting the philosophical perspective of existentialism, have rightly stated that:

> According to this structure, the player simultaneously inhabits a subjective standpoint *internal* to the gameworld (the ludic, or virtual, subjectivity) and her own subjective standpoint as an individual *external* to the gameworld. Crucially, the internal perspective (and, hence, the virtual subjectivity) is always experienced through the external perspective [...]. (Gualeni & Vella 2020, pp. 12-13)

35

Finally, if we consider the extension of the theory of enunciation proposed by Jean-Claude Coquet (2007), his typology of the enunciating instances that articulate the effects of subjectivity requires the integration of a work of negotiation between these
instances. Coquet identified different degrees of responsibility of the subject in relation to his or her utterances. The quasi-subject of assertion speaks without fully implicating his or her responsibility, while the subject of assumption invests him or herself in what he or she says. This theoretical framework also takes into account what Coquet calls somatic predicates, i.e. the “predicates” expressed by an individual’s body, which define the instance of the non-subject: the way in which the body expresses emotions, moods and “pathemic” charges. And yet, in any practical situation, including a semiotic practice involving a video game, these enunciating instances describe only portions of semiosis and enunciations. A non-subject expressing passions through its face and body can and often will have to be constituted into a quasi-subject attempting to express him or herself through grammaticalized forms (the verbal language or the kinetic system of a video game). This same quasi-subject may also have to strive to constitute itself as a full subject, taking responsibility for its semiotic enunciations or actions. In other words, when considering a semiotic practice, we find that the management between different subject positions and different enunciating instances necessitates the work of a negotiating identity, which allows the transition from somatic “predications” to verbal or other (in our case, kinetic) enunciations.

36

We will speak in this regard of identification processes: the way in which, within any semiosis, the work of an identity is manifested through the negotiation of different valences of meaning (experiential, linguistic, social) and different instances of subjectivity (non-subjects, quasi-subjects, subjects). These three valences are inspired by the epistemological cartography proposed by Pierluigi Basso Fossali (2017), who identifies four fundamental spheres in the negotiation of meaning—experience, enunciation, communication, and transmission—and which correspond in our view to four different engines of semiosis, systematically interrelated through circuits of meaning (Basso Fossali 2024). From our perspective, any process of semiosis is exercised through the negotiation of these different engines and therefore involves a constitutive work of identification. This process relates to the way in which, in any semiosis, we have to position ourselves in relation to the actors that surround us or inhabit the environment or the text we are reading, through operations that are not always produced through languages. These lived operations are at the same time an opportunity for the self-observation of both ourselves and our reactions, which can trigger a modal control and an evaluative activity. The notion of self that we are invoking here is in no way intended to indicate an instance of origin for semiosis, but rather its consequence: it is through one or multiple semiotic events that the activity of an ego manifests itself and can thus be observed or self-observed.

37

While reading a novel, a character may unsettle us, make us think that their actions are exaggerated or overly virtuous, that their perspective is controversial, or that, all things considered, we understand them—even if we would have acted differently in their place.

38

The same happens in practical situations that are not characterized by such a clearly defined interactional framework. If we’re walking in a park and come across a group of individuals fighting, and one of them is a child, we might hesitate about what to do. Should we intervene or move on? What’s the best way to intervene? Should we talk or cry out? Should we physically protect the child? Here too, our action or inaction, as well as our hesitations, allow us to experience fragments of our identity through the
negotiation of the pressures exerted on us by the practical situation and our potential
reactions and enunciations.

39

Finally, even in the case of a fully enunciative situation, this pressure must be managed
in accordance with an identification process. If we have to speak during a talk at an
academic conference, for example, our enunciations take place under the pressure of a
specific type of social situation, that requires the personal execution of shared scripts:
staying within the allotted speaking time, maintaining an appropriate rhythm,
responding convincingly to criticisms and questions. Under this social pressure, we
may experience slips of the tongue, hesitate, nervously repeat ourselves, show
embarrassment, or display arrogance. These are all signs that reveal *how* we are
managing, in real time and in a personal manner, the realization of the actualized
social role—that is, how we carry out an identification process involving the
relationship between experiential, verbal, and social valences. Drawing from these
three examples, we can conclude that identification processes are linked to all forms of
semiosis.

40

This concept is consistent with Claudio Paolucci's (2020) recent proposal to understand enunciation on the basis of a broader human faculty: "that semiotic capacity that makes the subject an instance capable of making itself the object of its own reflection" (p. 51). Rather than being interested in this faculty that would be presupposed to enunciation, we are instead interested in its consequences. If processes of identification concern the management between experiential, linguistic, and social valences that takes place in every semiosis, and if this management concerns not only semiotic actions related to languages but also involuntary behavior, bodily actions, and silent reactions during a reading, then processes of identification extend beyond enunciation as a discursive initiative, be it verbal or multimodal. On the one hand, a verbal enunciation is already the result of a process of identification, because it is a matter of negotiating the relationship between experience and language by means of an initiative: every enunciation exhibits lexical choices, rhythms, and registers, as well as being characterized by possible hesitations, repetitions, and idiosyncrasies resulting from the social pressures that a given situation places on our semiotic action. On the other hand, this means that even involuntary behaviors, which are not the result of the use of a language, exhibit processes of identification without thereby falling within the range of phenomena pertaining to enunciation. In other words, it seems to us that identification processes concern semiosis more globally, and indicate the possibility of analyzing other signifying dimensions, beyond linguistic initiatives.

41

However, an identification process, though constitutively related to any semiosis, and
despite exhibiting identity work, is nevertheless not an identity. For the latter to be
constituted, a sedimentation of identification processes capable of establishing an
identity with a more or less extended social range is necessary.

42

To return to video game semiosis, which results from a semiotic practice partly fixed
upstream, it seems necessary to analyze not only the positions of subjectivity, but also
and above all the identification processes accomplished by the user in relation to
characters, the avatar, and the digital world. This leads us to discuss what is in our
opinion the most interesting feature of video game experiences: the ability to produce
identification processes due to the need to manage kinetic incorporation with an
avatar, and the interpretive distancing resulting from the fact that the avatar, the
characters, and the world we are exploring are different from us and from our own
world. On the one hand, kinetic enunciation builds unprecedented incorporation effects. Being able to control through one's own movements the movements of a virtual avatar elicits cognitive effects of incorporation (Grodal 2003, Wilhelmsson 2008): we control, through our own body movements, the movements of an entity different from ourselves—the avatar, be it a character, a pointer or an object. On the other hand, precisely because the avatar is an entity other than ourselves, limited in its movements and narrative rendering, and immersed in a world that is just as imperfect and marked with respect to an imaginary, we are pushed to maintain an interpretive control, which is often exercised in a critical and reflexive manner. In other words, an identification process is generated between kinetic incorporation and interpretive distancing: the user must kinetically manage an interface and an avatar, but must also position him or herself with respect to the avatar's own characterization and to the fictional situations in which it is situated.

43

In the following section, we intend to present the discussion of three video games that limit the freedom of the player in order to construct—through kinetic identification and interpretive distancing—a meaningful experience. These three video games have been selected for the exemplary manner in which they exhibit identification processes: they push users to explicitly manage their relationship with the avatar and other digital characters according to a reflexive and critical posture.

## 2.1. Modal conflicts

44

A first example of a meaningful experience generated through restrictions on the degree of interaction granted to the player is represented by modal conflicts, and more specifically, by conflicts between what a virtual experience forces the player to do, but that he or she does not necessarily want to do.

45

In *Shadow of the Colossus*, a fantasy video game released by Sony in 2004, the avatar Wander—and with him, the user—must kill sacred monsters called “colossi” in order to awaken his beloved Mono. However, these sequences turn out to be dramatic for multiple reasons. The colossi are sacred beings and possess gargantuan dimensions and majestic movements. The player must often climb these sacred monsters, locating weak points, and hitting them with arrows and sword strikes until they die (Fig. 2).
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. *Shadow of the Colossus* (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2005/2018).</figcaption></figure>

A screenshot from the video game showing Wander facing a colossus.

46 On the one hand, the difference in size is dramatic, forcing a kind of frantic exploratory combat: the user has to climb these giant beings, as they are at the same time characters and moving spaces to be explored. On the other, once the sacred beasts have been slaughtered, the semiotic project of the game is to invite the user to question this action of killing, through the use of dramatic music and animations of the giants' own suffering in their last moments of life. And yet, for the experience to move forward, Wander and the player must continue to exterminate them one after the other.

47 In *Shadow of the Colossus*, we thus find two meaningful oppositions. On the one hand, the audiovisual syntax characterizes the colossi as sacred, majestic, and innocent beings. On the other, the kinetic obligation forces the player to kill them one after the other, in a kind of dramatic ritual. The second opposition more directly concerns the player's actions: through kinetic enunciation, an incorporation with the main character, even if partial, is realized. And yet, what the character must and proceeds to do—kill the colossi—is realized in a contradictory manner, because it is not necessarily what the player wants to do. In short, this dramatic conflict is fueled as much by the kinetic incorporation with the avatar as it is by the interpretive distancing that allows the user to undergo the boundless determination of the virtual protagonist. On the one hand, the action of killing could possibly generate a sense of guilt in the player. On the other hand, he or she is pushed to take into account the identity of Wander, to understand, in a critical manner, his determination that transcends any sense of guilt.
## 2.2. Responsibility effects

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

A second strategy through which video game experiences limit the player's freedom relates to the generation of responsibility and dependency effects towards secondary characters.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

In the video game Ico—developed by Team Ico, the same team responsible for *Shadow of the Colossus*, and published in 2001 by Sony Computer Entertainment—the responsibility effect on the user is achieved through the relationship between Ico, the avatar, and Yorda, the secondary character that the player must protect and accompany during the adventure.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

The fairy tale plot revolves around a young boy named Ico, who was born with horns on his head, a feature considered cursed in his village. For this reason, Ico is imprisoned in an abandoned castle as a sacrifice. In the castle, Ico manages to break free from his prison and discovers Yorda, a mysterious ethereal girl trapped in a cage. Yorda speaks a language unknown to Ico, but the latter decides to help her escape. Together, they must traverse the castle infested by shadow creatures who try to kidnap Yorda (Fig. 3).

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Ico (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2001).</figcaption></figure>

A screenshot of the video game featuring Ico and Yorda.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

Their bond is central to the game experience and is constructed through a series of narrative choices and kinetic enunciations that emphasize the mutual dependence between the two characters. First of all, Ico and Yorda possess complementary traits that make their collaboration imperative. Ico is stronger and capable of fighting the black shadows that attack Yorda, in addition to being able to overcome physical obstacles. Yorda, on the contrary, is completely defenseless, but has the ability to open magical doors, which is required to advance through the virtual spaces. This interdependence creates a dynamic of protection and collaboration, in which the player must constantly worry about Yorda's safety, but at the same time, needs her to escape the castle.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

One of the commands that underlie the kinetic grammar of the experience—and more specifically the user's control of Ico—is the need, via a specific key on the interface, to
call Yorda vocally and to take her by the hand as they walk through the castle rooms together. The articulation between the sequences in which it is necessary to protect her from the shadows, the sequences in which Yorda opens a passage beyond the magic doors, and the moment-to-moment interactions that require calling her to get her attention or holding her hand help to install in the player a sense of responsibility, affection, and dependence that is consistent with the avatar's affective state.

53

In addition, many sequences in the game are designed to separate the two characters, forcing the player to find ways to get them back together. This contrivance increases the tension and one's emotional involvement, as Yorda's safety is continually threatened by dark creatures trying to kidnap her. Each reunion after a forced separation also strengthens the bond between Ico and Yorda, potentially increasing the user's resolution to protect her.

54

In comparison with the *Shadow of the Colossus*, in *Ico*, the virtual experience does not aim to build a conflict between the player's intentions and those of the avatar, but rather to install a resonance between them. The sense of responsibility and the dependence toward a secondary character are not built through interactive freedoms, but through a series of narrative and kinetic constraints: the avatar cannot advance on his own, as he needs Yorda to open up the passage. At the same time, Yorda needs the avatar to be protected. In other words, in this virtual experience, the kinetic and visual syntax contribute to build a unitary meaning trajectory: the sense of responsibility and that of dependence expressed by the user's control of Ico are at the same time narrative sequences that express, through kinetic actions, the story of their relationship.

## 2.3. Controversial identity-related positioning

55

The last example concerns virtual experiences capable of constructing an explicit breakdown of immersion by placing the player in the shoes of characters who are in opposition within the narration. This is the case of *The Last of Us*, a video game saga belonging to the third-person shooter genre.¹¹

56

One of the main gameplay mechanics consists in taking part in real-time gunfights, in which the avatar must take cover to defend him or herself from enemies and eliminate them using weapons and objects available in the environment. However, in this kind of video game, and in *The Last of Us* in particular, the narrative development plays a fundamental role within the experience, as the user follows the actions of one or more characters whose existential conditions and relationships with other characters are made to change dramatically.

57

The world in which the events of *The Last of Us* saga take place is a post-apocalyptic one in which American cities have been devastated by an epidemic caused by a variation of the cordyceps parasitic fungi. Most humans have been infected and mutated into aggressive zombie-like creatures, capable in turn of infecting other humans. Healthy individuals are organized into factions of varying size and hostility.

58

In the first episode of *The Last of Us* (2013, Sony Computer Entertainment), the user follows the actions of Joel and Ellie. Joel protects and cares for Ellie, a 14-year-old orphan, in a relationship that quickly takes the form of a father-daughter relationship (Fig. 4).
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4. *The Last of Us* (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2013).</figcaption></figure>

A screenshot of the video game showing Joel and Ellie.

59

As in the case of *Ico*, this bond is not only told through filmed sequences in which the user cannot intervene, but also through interactive actions that require collaboration between the two characters: in the first and longest part of the adventure, the user controls Joel and protects Ellie from attacks by mutant beings and hostile humans. The exploration phases, in which it is often necessary to find a way forward by manipulating the environment, require Joel and the user to open a path for Ellie, establishing an effect of responsibility and attachment that reinforces the diegetic affective bond through a coherent extradigetic experience.

60

*The Last of Us* also poses an ethical question: Joel and Ellie discover that Ellie is immune to the virus and that the Fireflies could develop a vaccine through surgery. However, if she undergoes the operation, she won't survive. Although Ellie is not against the procedure, Joel, under the control of the user—who has no choice as to what to do, as he or she is obliged to follow Joel's intentions—kills the surgeon and carries the unconscious Ellie out of the hospital. In the dramatic finale, Joel lies to her, claiming that the Fireflies have found dozens of other immune humans and that her sacrifice is no longer necessary.

61

*The Last of Us Part II* (2020, Sony Computer Entertainment) shows the dramatic consequences of this choice. Four years later, Joel and Ellie are living in Jackson, Wyoming, in a large human colony. Their relationship has deteriorated: the user later learns that the reason for their distance is due to the fact that Joel had to reveal his lie to Ellie.

62

While on patrol, Joel and his brother Tommy rescue a young woman from an attack from infected creatures. The young woman, Abby, turns out to be the daughter of the surgeon killed by Joel, a member of the old Firefly faction. Abby had been tracking Joel for a long time, seeking revenge for the death of her surgeon father. She attacks Joel and, in front of Ellie, who has arrived with her girlfriend Dina, kills him violently. Ellie is spared and after a few days, she decides to leave, accompanied by Dina, to hunt Abby down and seek her own revenge (Figs. 5-6).
<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figures 5-6. *The Last of Us Part II* (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2020).</figcaption></figure>

Two screenshots of the video game: on the left, Ellie and Dina; on the right, Lev and Abby.

63 From this point on, the narrative follows two parallel paths, giving the user two points of view and control over two characters. First, it follows Ellie's actions as she pursues Abby. Ellie is ruthless in certain key moments, when she kills the people closest to Abby (Owen, her ex-boyfriend, and Mel, his pregnant girlfriend).

64 The user then takes control of Abby, discovering her past, her relationships with those closest to her and, in particular, with her father. Abby's actions are guided by human values: she doesn't hesitate to betray her faction to save two young people belonging to the Seraphites, another faction driven by a strong religious cult. In particular, she takes care of Lev, a young transgender boy—whose first name was originally Lily—repudiated by his mother.

65 Discovering the bodies of her ex-boyfriend and his pregnant partner, killed by Ellie, Abby joins the theater where Ellie, Dina and Jess—Dina's ex-boyfriend, with whom she is pregnant—are camped out. She kills Jess but is persuaded by Lev to spare Dina and Ellie.

66 A year later, Ellie and Dina are living on a farm and raising Dina's son (JJ, in memory of Joel). Ellie is still suffering from the trauma of Joel's death and decides to leave to seek revenge on Abby, despite Dina's protests and threat to leave her. Ellie is captured by a group of marauders who have also captured and tortured Abby. After freeing herself and releasing Abby, Ellie forces her to fight, but ends up sparing her. Back at the farm, she finds it abandoned.

67 *The Last of Us Part II* illustrates in an exemplary way how the user, by having his or her freedom restricted, and by being forced not only to perform specific actions, but also to step into the shoes of opposing characters, is pushed towards the realization of identification processes: to critically manage the relation between kinetic identification and interpretive distancing. Three sequences help to clarify this proposition.

68 In the final moments of *The Last of Us Part I*, Joel arrives at the hospital where the Fireflies are about to perform surgery on Ellie in an attempt to synthesize a vaccine. Joel, knowing that Ellie is condemned to die, wants to save her even at the expense of humanity's hopes. The user therefore has no choice but to kill the surgeon, in a sequence that is normally experienced in accordance with Joel's feelings. However, this event presents an obvious modal conflict: many players have hesitated for a long time before killing the surgeon; others have done so mechanically, and have also murdered the two nurses present on the scene, whose deaths are not compulsory.¹² In other words, the modal and moral conflict expressed in the circuit between kinetic incorporation and interpretive distancing implies a more or less personal processing. During my playthrough, what I was about to do, by partially embodying Joel with
gestures on the interface, seemed justified within the framework of the fictional work: save the only person with whom he has forged an emotional bond, and whose actions count in a ruthless world.

69

The second sequence relates to *The Last of Us Part II*. Some players abandoned the game when the point of view changed and forced them to play the role of Abby, the character who had previously killed Joel. Among those who completed the experience, some felt that the construction of the young woman's past was forced. In my own experience, I felt a sense of discomfort in playing the role of Abby, and although I understood her choices, I found myself wondering which of the two women the user should choose according to the semiotic logic of the text, and, as a result, who I felt closer to and chose to support. At the start of the experience, my attachment to Ellie was clearly stronger. Then, as I partly embodied her ruthless actions, I realized that there wasn't one actor to favor, and that we were dealing with two victims trapped in a system of violence and revenge.

70

The third sequence refers to the last part of the game. Ellie has been living with Dina and her son for a year, since Abby spared them. Tormented by panic attacks and nightmares, she decides to leave once again to seek revenge. I found this obligatory departure totally unnecessary: it seemed a disproportionate risk compared to the responsibility of caring for a child and the exhausting journey already accomplished. And yet, at the end of the expedition, having reached, confronted, and spared Abby, I reconsidered Ellie's actions. From her point of view, that of someone who has lost a father figure, psychologically and somatically tormented, I told myself that Ellie's departure was understandable in order to restore her equilibrium.

71

In these three sequences, the user is invited to combine his or her kinetic and interpretive actions according to a personal approach. Having to inhabit the actions of two antagonistic characters within the same enunciation provokes a process of identity co-construction fueled by semiotic performances that are articulated moment by moment. This involves experiencing the events, actions and reactions of the virtual characters as disproportionate, appropriate, amoral or virtuous, and reinterpreting these experiential judgments through a practice of self-observation, that is, engaging evaluative assumption of responsibility by taking on the point of view of the fictional characters. In other words, it's a question of identification processes that have to negotiate the disproportions that emerge between kinetic incorporation and interpretive distancing, and that are expressed through this arbitrage.

## Conclusions

72

In this paper, we explored the relationship between interaction, immersion, and identity within the virtual experiences delivered by video games. Starting from a semiotic point of view, we discussed the concept of kinetic enunciation: the way in which the user has to make movements on the interface, which are transformed in real time into movements within the digital world. Globally, we have proposed to speak of image-movements: expressive systems that complexly articulate visual syntax relating to the architecture and figurative dressing of the virtual world and of the characters, in conjunction with kinetic syntax, which pertains to the grammars of movements specific to each virtual experience.
73

We have thus focused on the manner in which, through kinetic syntax, the user undergoes an incorporation effect by controlling virtual characters. However, this kinetic incorporation is articulated with audio-visual syntax in specific manners, alternating moments of immersion with moments of interpretive distancing with respect to the identities inhabiting the digital worlds. In our view, the foundational feature of video games is that they push the user to critically manage, on the one hand, the kinetic incorporation with the avatar's action, and, on the other hand, its identity positioning with respect to the fictional and narrative identities that inhabit the virtual worlds. Therefore, we proposed the analysis of three cases that limit the user's kinetic freedom in order to produce meaningful effects: modal conflicts, effects of responsibility and dependency, and controversial identity-related conflicts.

74

Overall, although we have limited the analysis to the field of video game productions, we believe that the concepts of image-movement, kinetic enunciation and incorporation, and, ultimately, identification processes, are valuable for examining any virtual experience—be it an experience of viewing art or historical pieces in virtual reality—and that identification processes, being constitutively related to any semiosis, may constitute a ground for the construction of a semiotics of identities.

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## NOTES

1. The idea of an ideal reader built by the text, who anticipates and prepares the interpretive and sensitive moves of the empirical reader, has been explored, namely, by Wolfgang Iser with the notion of implicit reader (1980). On this topic, see also the critical discussion proposed by Pietro Montani (2022).

2. In general, the concept of interaction risks configuring itself as an umbrella term. For the purposes of this paper, we consider as decisive the critiques of interaction set forth by Aarseth (1997, pp. 47–51).

3. See the extensive discussion in Calleja (2011) and in particular the concept of incorporation. Other studies have adapted the concept of affordance in order to apply it to virtual worlds (Grabarczyk & Pokropski 2016). Finally, in Barnabé, Delbouille & Dozo (2019), the relationships between these immersion effects with respect to the reflexive posture often assumed by the user are discussed. We will return to the crucial issue of critical and reflexive distancing later.

4. See Barnabé (2017) for an analysis of enunciation in video games based on Fontanille's work on the semiotics of the body (Fontanille 2004). See also Moutat (2025) for an exploration of the sensitive and pragmatic experience of digital worlds based on a semiotic approach.

5. Movement has already been thematized within game studies, notably by Grodal (2003), Wilhelmsson (2008), Calleja (2011), and Kirkpatrick (2011). Our perspective does not take a cognitivist approach, nor does it aim to systematically explore the issue of immersion effects, although we are convinced that these effects are a consequence of movement.

6. We refer to the definition of diagram proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce (CP 2.277): sensible representations that in their internal relations replicate, often in an initially unperceived way, the relations pertaining to another phenomenon. This is the case, for example, of a map that selects some characteristics of the physical space, such as distance and spatial extension, and expresses them visually by replicating some relations of the “real” object. But it is also the case of geometric demonstrations, with which it is possible to manipulate graphical marks in order to build new knowledge through visual icons instead of categorical concepts. Here, the relations between the plastic movements made on the interface are translated into the system of kinetic relations expressed by the movements in the virtual worlds. It is the specific way through which the user accesses the semiotic experience and participates in its articulation.

7. For a comprehensive semiotic analysis of *Assassin's Creed II*, carried out using the semiotic tools developed by Roland Barthes in S/Z (1970), see Compagno (2013). See also Aroni (2022) for a semiotic study of architecture in video games.
8. On these topics, we would also like to mention our contribution (D'Armenio 2017).

9. We take the liberty of referring to D'Armenio (2025b) for a discussion of the incorporation effects that derive from the kinetic syntax of video games.

10. This is the difference between two concepts widely discussed in the literature on video games: on the one hand, the game structure is summarized with the notion of *game*, corresponding to all the possibilities that can be realized in a video game as a consequence of its rules. On the other hand, it is a question of considering an actual playing practice carried out by a player, which entails choices, styles, and thus a different meaning. In this case, the notion of *play* is used. See in this regard the contributions of Genvo (2013), Thibault (2020), and Giuliana (2024).

11. The specialized press also often uses the broader label of *action-adventure* to indicate some of the main ludic activities that characterize this genre, as well as the sub-genre of *survival horror*.

12. https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-players-share-how-they-dealt-with-surgeons-ellie/, accessed on April 4, 2025.

ABSTRACTS

Starting from a semiotic perspective, this article explores the relationship between interaction, immersion, and identity in the digital spaces of video games. In the first part, we further develop the existing theory of kinetic enunciation, which is grounded in the analysis of movement. Every video game experience requires the user to perform movements through an interface (joypads, virtual helmets, gloves, motion sensors), which are then transformed into movements within the virtual world (running, shooting, observing). This constitutes a specific reformulation of the concept of interaction, allowing us to analyze the meaning-making processes generated by the kinetic grammars specific to each video game experience (offensive, contemplative, logical-cognitive). Within this framework, immersion is understood as a consequence rather than a cause of the movements enacted through video game enunciation. In the second part, we examine the relationship between subjectivity and identity to formalize the way in which—both in video game semiosis and in semiosis more broadly—a constitutive process of identification takes place. By identification, we refer to the personal negotiation between the experiential, discursive, and social valences of semiosis. On the one hand, this negotiation produces behavioral and enunciative signs—such as hesitations, repetitions, slips of the tongue, and register shifts—that enable both observation and self-observation. On the other hand, the sedimentation of multiple identification processes can give rise to a more enduring identity with a varying degree of social reach. In relation to video games, we argue that players must negotiate between two interrelated activities: they appropriate the kinetic grammaticalization—the predefined set of game actions—by potentially developing personal styles of play while partially incorporating themselves into the controlled avatar; but they also retain interpretative freedom pertaining to the narrative roles and figurative characterization of the avatar, secondary characters, and environmental architecture. Through the analysis of exemplary video game cases, we argue that the negotiation of these two tensions drives players toward personal identity positioning. This article seeks to establish the theoretical foundations for a semiotics of identity.

À partir d'une perspective sémiotique, cet article explore la relation entre interaction, immersion et identité dans les espaces numériques des jeux vidéo. Dans la première partie, nous
développerons la théorie existante de l'énonciation cinétique, qui est fondée sur l'analyse du mouvement. Chaque expérience de jeu vidéo exige de l'utilisateur qu'il effectue des mouvements sur une interface (manettes, casques virtuels, gants, capteurs de mouvement), qui sont transformés en mouvements dans le monde virtuel (courir, tirer, observer). Il s'agit d'une reformulation spécifique du concept d'interaction, qui permet d'analyser les processus de construction de sens générés par les grammaires cinétiques propres à chaque expérience vidéoludique (offensive, contemplative, logico-cognitive). Dans ce cadre, l'immersion est conçue comme une conséquence et non comme une cause des mouvements mis en œuvre par l'énonciation vidéoludique. Dans la deuxième partie, nous examinons la relation entre subjectivité et identité afin de formaliser la manière dont se réalise, dans la sémiose des jeux vidéo et plus largement dans toute sémiose, un processus constitutif d'identification. Par identification, nous souhaitons faire référence à la négociation personnelle entre les valences expérientielles, discursives et sociales de la sémiose. D'une part, cette négociation produit des signes comportementaux et énonciatifs (tels que des hésitations, des répétitions, des lapsus et des changements de registre) qui permettent à la fois une observation et une auto-observation. D'autre part, la sédimentation de multiples processus d'identification peut donner lieu à une identité plus durable avec un degré variable de portée sociale. En ce qui concerne les jeux vidéo, nous soutenons que les joueurs doivent négocier entre deux activités interdépendantes : ils s'approprient la grammaticalisation cinétique — l'ensemble prédéfini d'actions de jeu — en développant éventuellement des styles de jeu personnels tout en s'incorporant partiellement à l' avatar contrôlé; mais ils conservent également une liberté d'interprétation par rapport aux rôles narratifs et à la caractérisation figurative de l' avatar, des personnages secondaires et de l' architecture de l'environnement. À travers l'analyse de cas exemplaires de jeux vidéo, nous avançons que la négociation de ces deux tensions pousse les joueurs à se construire un positionnement identitaire personnel. Dans l'ensemble, cet article vise à poser les fondements théoriques d'une sémiotique de l'identité.

## INDEX

**Mots-clés:** énonciation, expérience, identité, subjectivité, récit

**Keywords:** enunciation, experience, identity, subjectivity, narrative

## AUTHOR

ENZO D'ARMENIO

Enzo D'Armenio is a semiotician and works as a junior professor at the University of Lorraine. He has previously carried out three post-doctoral projects at the University of Liège, including the Marie Curie (Individual Fellowship) project *IMACTIS — Fostering Critical Identities Through Social Media Archival Images* (www.imactis.eu), which focused on identity-related images on digital social networks. His recent research studies, published in international journals such as *Visual Communication*, *Semiotica*, and *Games and Culture*, focus on generative AI and the semiotic study of identities. He is also the author of the monograph *Mondi paralleli. Ripensare l'interattività nei videogiochi* (Unicopli, 2014).

Email: enzo.d-armenio[at]univ-lorraine.fr

Enzo D'Armenio est sémioticien et travaille en tant que professeur junior à l'Université de Lorraine. Il a précédemment mené trois projets post-doctoraux à l'Université de Liège, dont le projet Marie Curie (Individual Fellowship) « IMACTIS Fostering Critical Identities Through Social
Media Archival Images » (www.imactis.eu), consacré aux images identitaires sur les réseaux socio-numériques. Ses dernières recherches, publiées dans des revues internationales telles que *Visual Communication*, *Semiotica* et *Games and Culture*, portent sur l'IA générative et sur l'étude sémiotique des identités. Il est également l'auteur de la monographie en italien *Mondi paralleli*. *Ripensare l'interattività nei videogiochi* (Unicopli, 2014).