Taekwondo Discourse Community Essay

Josh Ladrigan Professor Gibson Intermediate Composition 6 February 2023 Sales Associates in the GFS Community Discourse communities can be found wherever you go, and many people are involved with a variety of communities. People may be involved in these communities through their profession, interests, or hobbies. These communities can be any group that uses a variation of communication to reach certain goals. The true definition of a discourse community is a group that has objectives or purposes, and utilizes communication to accomplish those objectives. The discourse community I am going to discuss is the community within my workplace, Gordon Food Service (GFS).

A discourse community has yet to have a solid definition; though some have come close. One of the people who have attempted to define discourse community is John Swales. Swales, rather than use a standard definition, chose to create a set list of criteria. With the help of the criteria and my interview of Dane (a member of my chosen discourse community) I will discuss how my chosen group, Communications 101, is a discourse community. Communications 101 (Comm. 101) is a college credit class that helps the students in the class learn the “fundamental principles of verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual communication with an introduction to relational and organizational communication, public communication, and media studies.

Any group of individuals who share a common goal, and who communicate distinctly in efforts to achieve their goal can be referred to as a discourse community. There are certain features that distinguish a discourse community from any other society. In the article, The Concept of a Discourse Community, John Swales identifies a discourse community by six different characteristics that not only describe a discourse community; he also illustrates the process of joining that specific community. In the article Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Work Places, Elizabeth Wardle discusses the engagement process of newcomers into a discourse community. According to Patricia Bizzell, the term discourse community suggests “a community bound

As a Sacramento State college student, I have observed that every student belongs to different discourse communities. Every student becomes part of an academic discourse community when declaring a major or minor. Gary D. Schmidt and William J. Vande Kopple define academic discourse community as “a group of people who share ways to claim [understand], organize, communicate, and evaluate meanings.” The academic discourse communities that I belong to will help me in the future to have experience working with others. Being part of the Sacramento State community, I have perceived that I belong to two academic discourse communities that have impacted my life in significant ways.

Throughout my years of taekwondo we always would talk about the three areas of a black belt champion, and now I feel like I fully understand what that means. I always try to do my best no matter where I am. At taekwondo, I always try my hardest and put in as much effort as I can. I take my training much more seriously then I did maybe five or six years ago. I put in as much effort as I can when it comes to practicing at home, training in class, or even when I'm doing leadership every Saturday.

A couple years ago I began my long journey to become a black belt in taekwondo. At first I was super excited to learn how to fight like the people on TV and have a way to defend myself against my brother. Shortly after starting I realized that the road to Jackie Chan status was going to take a lot longer than I thought. The first couple belts were easy, we learnt basic kicks and fighting stances, you could demonstrate the proper technique for a belt within a month.

We communicate in many ways, either by email, telephone, text, face to face, social media or letters and the language we use allows us to get things done, nonetheless the language and communication method in which we chose to use can vary depending on the discourse community. Much like John Swales suggests a discourse community involves a group of people who share the same common public goals, such as shared interests, rules, structure, and vocabulary. When thinking about the several discourse communities I am evolved in, which include family, coaching football, college student, and a few friends. These discourse communities have influenced me, given me insight of where I come from and tell who I am as a person. I also believe much like Swales,

In the article "The Concept of a Discourse Community" by John Swales (1990). He aimed to define the meaning of a discourse community; then he carefully deconstructs discourse community into six fundamental attributes that are important for recognizing a discourse community. Swales’ definition of a discourse community is a group that has objectives or purposes, and utilize communication to accomplish those objectives. He states that a discourse community is presented as a more practical and purposeful gathering than speech fraternity or speech group. The six essential characteristics that Swales (1990) belief to be the core of a discourse community are its goals, intercommunication, participation, genres, Lexis, and expertise.

The Community Within the Gym What is a discourse community? Most will say that it is defined as a group of people with common interests who communicate through particular terms and genres. Reading the article, “The Concept of Discourse Community”, I have found that there is a more complex definition, which include six characteristics that make a group a discourse community, as linguist John Swales states. The characteristics that follow are:

According to “The Concept of Discourse Community”, there are six defining characteristics of a discourse community, Having common goals, Participatory mechanism, Information exchange, Community specific genres, Highly specialized terminology, and a High level of experience in all. The discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals and there are many ways to participate but it varies based on the community like meetings, telecommunications correspondence, newsletters, and conversations. It also uses participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, and specific genres are unique communication forms used by a discourse community to share specialized knowledge and discuss topics relevant to their interests. In conclusion, Swales' reading defines discourse communities as cohesive groups that share a common enthusiasm and use distinct communication practices to achieve their

Being Thrown into a Discourse Community As time passes, the human race goes through a process of automatically putting themselves into groups that we think may suit us best. Theres so called groups are portrayed as discourse communities. John Swales (1990), an analyst of written communication, claimed that “discourse communities [are] groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. This means that we generally go where we feel most comfortable, where others like us have the same goals and mindsets alike.

Mirabelli helped me decide what discourse community I want to study. Like Mirabelli, I am going to study a discourse community that I was a part of. After reading the extensive knowledge Mirabelli had on the community, I realized it aided his ethnographic study. Without prior knowledge of the community, an ethnographic study is harder to complete. I also noticed the passion Mirabelli had for the discourse community he studied.

An important discourse community that was a part of my life was my volleyball team during my four years of high school. I started playing my first year going into high school and continued until I graduated. Until now I wasn’t even aware that would even be considered a discourse community, but it fits all of the qualifications of Swales’ definition of a discourse community. Goals

It can be difficult to understand what it means to be a discourse or what communities fall under that category, and that is why I feel like John Swales’ definition of a discourse community is the the one that makes the most sense and the one that almost anybody can apply to communities they are part of and determine if they are discourses or not. Even though Gee and Porter had good points regarding discourses and good arguments, one almost had to be a linguist to fully understand what they were saying. They did help Swales get his point across more clearly in some instances though. Thanks to Swales I now know for a fact that my English 1113 class is a discourse community and I achieved that by following the six rules Swales presented as necessary to be a discourse community.  Gee, James P. “Literary, Discourse, and Linguistics.”

1843 Waking up at the usual time of 6:30am, I prepared for my daily hand to hand combat lessons which commence at 7:00am leaving half an hour to arrange myself. Breakfast was a large bowl of white rice sitting on one of the flat rocks that lay in the centre of my garden. Today my lessons covered literature, flower arranging, meditating and jiu jitsu. I have always loved my hand to hand combat classes. My uncle is my teacher and a guardian and I've always aspired to be as protective as him.