I had a realization some years ago about this NPC business. Not quite the same, but similar. I realized that a lot of people I was interacting with, listening to, they were not so much talking using language, but merely exchanging cliches.
At the time I took this to be a function of this particular language, a dumbed down, faux-familiarity, which plagues some areas of Europe.
Like, you could usually predict a conversation pattern, if you knew the original input. Why? Because people were not so much using language, as in words carrying intent and meaning, as they were acting out a script given a set of cliches in the form of sentences.
An example: Sportsball talk, in which fan A of team A says something mock derogatory about team B, in which fan B is expected to reply with a mock indignation and a comeback. Fairly formulaic stuff, not bad in itself as a cohesion building exercise.
These cliches had in time turned into composite cliches, so that if one person used one such cliche, it was socially expected that you reply with a choice of a few other cliches.
Again, these things have their uses, such as pleasantries, when engaging with strangers. How are you? Fine, thank you and so on.
The problem I noticed is that these kind of cliched topics and responses began becoming endemic. People almost seemed unable to actually put words together, that hadn't already been formulated for them.
This is the dumbing down of language, most likely being aped by NPCs from the TV/politician speak, which is exactly not real language, but a sharade of acceptable cliches.
At the time I took this to be a function of this particular language, a dumbed down, faux-familiarity, which plagues some areas of Europe.
Like, you could usually predict a conversation pattern, if you knew the original input. Why? Because people were not so much using language, as in words carrying intent and meaning, as they were acting out a script given a set of cliches in the form of sentences.
An example: Sportsball talk, in which fan A of team A says something mock derogatory about team B, in which fan B is expected to reply with a mock indignation and a comeback. Fairly formulaic stuff, not bad in itself as a cohesion building exercise.
These cliches had in time turned into composite cliches, so that if one person used one such cliche, it was socially expected that you reply with a choice of a few other cliches.
Again, these things have their uses, such as pleasantries, when engaging with strangers. How are you? Fine, thank you and so on.
The problem I noticed is that these kind of cliched topics and responses began becoming endemic. People almost seemed unable to actually put words together, that hadn't already been formulated for them.
This is the dumbing down of language, most likely being aped by NPCs from the TV/politician speak, which is exactly not real language, but a sharade of acceptable cliches.