Coaches Can Read Too

Establishing the Territory-
When establishing a territory for a discourse community discussion, it's important to give a brief introduction into the background of how the discourse community operates. For Sean Branick, his discourse community is within himself and other football coaches.  He states that the coaches he works with come from everyday guys to "legends".  For me, when I introduce my topic of executive councils within a sorority, there isn't much background I can discuss other than just some basic terms and regulations on how we operate.

Establishing a Niche-
I looked back on what Swales described this section as and it's when an author "makes a claim or says their purpose".  To me this means what they are trying to convey as far as a message goes regarding their discourse community.  In this case, it's Branick and other football coaches.  He states that there is a lot of behind the scenes things that coaches go through in order to make them sucessful and it is often overlooked.  Going into my ethnography, the main topic of discussion is authority. It's totally overlooked how strict a sorority operates and being the voice of authority over women the same age as you is extremely stressful.  It also leads into the stereotypical discussion of how many may think a sorority is only about partying, when I know first hand, a social event cannot happen without careful revision and planning form myself and advisors.

Occupying a Niche-
Here in this section, is where the research question is to be explained and drawn out with a claim.  Branick does this by talking about attributes necessary to be a good football coach.  All this takes place in the last paragraph of the introduction.

Learning to Serve

Through reading Tony Mirabelli's article surrounding the topic of restaurant management, his main research question is defined through the quote "what is a menu and what does it mean to have a literate understanding of one."  Reading a menu in a restaurant is different for the customers than it is actual staff.  There is more to it because it's a literate function within that discourse community.  It's the major form of textual interaction through restaurant employees and customers they are serving.  He wants to understand the source it seems like.

He went about collecting his data through being an actual waiter at the restaurant so he could have first hand experiences with interaction and behaviors between customers and staff.  Through the data he collected, he measured customer participation, interaction dates, he had field notes he took between serving and also interviewed individual customers. The data he did collect helps to explain that a menu is more than just a means by which you order food.  It's it's own genre.  A lot goes into making a menu and if its difficult to read, it ruins the whole aspect of a restaurant and the customer's satisfaction. The conversation a customer has with the staff is the whole point of how a restaurant is suppose to function.  It's hugely important and without it, communication fails and lacks.

Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places

In the article, "Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places", Elizabeth Wardle talks about three techniques people use to join new communities to have a sense of belonging.  She describes these new members as "newcomers" and the three ways they try to belong to a community are by engagement, imagination and alignment.  Engagement is probably the most important out of the three, where a newcomer becomes familiar with their new discourse community by engaging with older members of the community.  It is a sense of respect and it also makes the newcomers come out of their shells and force them to prove themselves to the community.  An example of this for me might be, new members of my sorority coming to the house and getting to know the in-house women.  The sophomores act as their big sisses so they get to know them very well, but they never have a chance to really bond with us, the juniors so we always welcome them if they want to stop by and talk.  It shows us they're in our sorority for the right reasons and that they're also friendly girls.

The second way newcomers become accepted into a discourse community is through imagination.  Wardle explains that imagination expands experiences you partake in and also the way you conduct yourself as a person.  It makes for a well-rounded person and you also create new images of the world around you.  Without imagination the world might be very close-minded so the members of the discourse community look for someone creative.  If you aren't imaginative, I don't think you would even think about joining a new one. An example I can think of with this, was when I first went out of my executive board position of event planning.  It is the most demanding for being creative and having an imagination.  It was scary thinking I would be taking the shoes of another member, but with my hard work and determination, I used imagination to help me make decisions and make events much more fun.  I got a lot of praise and no longer felt that I wasn't going to be a good predecesor.

And lastly, Wardle says the third way to become accepted by a discourse community is through alignment.  Alignment is sort of like becoming knowledgable about how the community works and accepting that.  It's like following the rules almost.  When a member first joins a discourse community, the must align their old ways with the new ways of how the group works.  The best example of this for me was when I was a new member.  I had no idea a sorority did so many things and operated so intensely.  I changed a lot about my work ethic (in a positive way) and point of view of everything.  I did all this so I could have a smooth transition of being initiated and I also wanted all my new sisters to like me.

Any discourse community faces these three ways newcomers come about.  Everyone is a newcomer at some point.  Some never make it because they don't approach a community the correct way, and some do and flourish and become the next leaders.  It all depends on whether or not they were meant to be apart of it or not.

Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice

In Ann M. Johns' article, "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice", she discusses the difference between John Swales article and James Gee's articles' opinions of discourse communities.  Swales main argument is that being involved in a discourse community doesn't necessarily mean that you belong.  Gee's main argument is that the home is a dominant discourse to everyone unless people don't have a home.  If they don't have a home they make a dominant discourse community through "mushfake". While keeping these all in mind, Johns goes into detail about four main concepts these writers forget to mention.  Cost of affiliation, issues of authority, conventions/anti-conventionalism and dialogue and critique.  Cost of affiliation mainly discusses the concept of how everyone grows up and goes to school.  When they attend school, they find new discourse communities but never have to truly leave their dominant one of their family. Issues authority is the idea that each group has rules and guidelines.  For each group there will always be "authoritive utterances that set the tone" of how it's supposed to operate.  Whether it just be within the family household or a government agency.  There are natural born leaders everywhere.  Without a dominant force a group cannot flourish.  The third thing Johns talks about is conventions and anti-conventionalism.  While this was a hard concept for me to truly understand, what I believe she means is each group has different roles and they are constantly changing as time moves on.  The titles may slightly change, but group members cannot be forever.  However, the concrete rules are usually laid and are often followed.  But there will always be people with anti-conventionalistic ideas.  Willing to break those common conventions set by a discourse community.  The last thing she talks about is dialogue & critique.  A commonality amongst Swales, Gee and Johns.

Malcom X & Sherman Alexie

In Malcom X's article, "Learning to Read" and Sherman Alexie's article, "Superman Me", they discuss how race, class and status affected the opportunities they were given to learn to read and write.  Each is similar in their own way, but very different.  The biggest difference is that they learned to read and write at different points in their life.  Both being minorities, but Malcolm X taught himself how to read while he was in jail.  He was also much older than when you think of a typical age of a child today learning to read and write.  He was an adult.  It's hard enough being an adult and having all the tools necessary to achieve becoming literate today, so being an adult minority in prison, must have been overwhelmingly complicated.  Sherman Alexie on the other hand, taught himself how to read by picking up anything he could get his hands on by the time he was three.  He did not have the privledge of public schooling since he was Latin American and growing up in a time where this generally was not accepted.  As a result he taught himself to read by picking up comic books, automobile manuals and even newspapers.  Both men did not have the ends to make means meet as far as becoming literate goes, but with perserverence and steady dedication these men helped themselves do something incredible.  Something we take advantage of day in and day out.

Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics

James Paul Gee's article, "Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics" talks about the tests and gates primary discourse communities have towards secondary discourse communities.  These tests often see if a person is native or non-native to their community.  This can be tested by showing that you are in the know about what's going on.  If you're not a part of the primary discourse community, and you fail to pass the test then that community keeps it's gates up and does not have to share anything with you.  But, primary discourse communities are often affected by secondary ones.   An example I can think of easily is my sorority house being the primary source and Facebook being the secondary.  We choose what we put on there, but the linguistics in which the way people communicate on Facebook, rubs off on us.  However, we have the power to not have to have a Facebook, or post on peoples' walls or even look at their pictures.  But since Facebook is such a popular secondary discourse community, we all feel the need to participate and it changes the way we talk to each other, and also what we talk about.

The Concept of the Discourse Community

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals
The common public goals are known intentions amongst a community, whether it be said/written or just automatically known.  It's what the discourse community plans to do and strive for.  It's almost like their own known agenda amongst themselves where other communities do not know about.  An example of this for me would be, being apart of my sorority's executive council.  Each position has an electronic handbook online describing all the measures each position should take regarding what they are in charge of.  It also comes with a set of policies and rules that must be heavily followed for the safety of the chapter.


2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members
Swales describes a language known to just a discourse community and its specific members.  It's a way they communicate with one another, that outside sources may not understand.  The best example of this for me is definitely ballet.  I wrote about this a lot in my literacy narrative.  We have a lot of slang and formal terms that others don't understand.


3.  A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback
To me, Swales is expressing that the way to receive feedback about ones' discourse community has to come from outside sources or members within itself.  Outside sources I think point out bring a sense of reality to a group and being a member of a community helps you strive to better yourselves or maybe even other people you're intending to help.  Working at Victoria's Secret is a very challenging social environment, where sales goals are pushed and each customer is required to have the best customer service they've ever had and to expect it each time they enter the store.  As employees we are trained all the time on tactics and made aware of our sales data monthly and how we can change some things about it.


4.  A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims
Swales is trying to communicate that within every discourse community there are roles and functions that must be worked out.  These roles are constantly changing to keep the community progressing.  I think the best example for this is family.  Everyone has one, and roles constantly begin to change.  When I was younger it was me and my four boy older cousins.  Now the youngest are my cousins kids and everyone is waiting on me to get married.  It's a scary thought, but exciting also.


5.  In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis
This is a little more challenging to understand, but what I think Swales tries to convery is the specific terms and way of talking to one another in a discourse community can vary from group to group.  At work at VS, we use terms to communicate to each other that customers usually don't understand.  Limited Brands in general is a very term specific business, so knowing the terms is key to success.  It sort of allows us to be like a secret society and create our own unique success apart from other companies.  Words and phrases such as BWC, CSL, excellent customer service, brand ambassador...all may leave some confused.


6.  A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise
Lastly, Swales touches base on the natural hierarchy that takes place in a discourse community.  People sit on different levels of importance and leadership, whether they be elected or it's a natural sense of entitlement, we always have leaders.  At school here, students are overseen by professors who are overseen by their boss, who are overseen by a more specific boss and then overseen by the dean or president.  Yet it's interesting because within smaller discourse communities such as sororities, fraternities, groups on campus, we hold each other accountable and form our own leadership positions amongst each other.