English 1311
Student Model: Discourse Community Map Response
Lorenzo Luevano
As languages differ from one nation to the other, the same comes true to the writing standard between social groups, also known as discourse communities. Why is it that we as a people change the way we talk, act or even use different kinds of writings depending on the social group we belong to? This can be explained by the following concept, discourse community, which involves a group of people who share common goals, genres, topics, and purposes. The following assignment will make us see how the different discourse communities in some way or the other change not only in the purposes, writing standards, genres, but also in the way we communicate depending on the community we belong to. It will show the differences between the following discourse communities, church, engineering student, tennis, and family, which I belong to.
For many the most important discourse community will be their family. I consider my family my support and foundation. As a close family, we have certain values that we go by, like unity, social interaction, good relationship, honor, respect, love and help. Our main purposes are to improve the relationship, eat dinner more often, play sports, fight less and last but not least stay in contact. The following will show how my family communicates and the vocabulary that we use. Have you ever noticed that within your family you have unique names for your dogs? In my family we call our dogs, big ears, tiny, fatty, tic-tac toe, but of course others don’t know
those nicknames. Most of the time we talked Spanish, Spanglish, and English. Some examples of Spanglish can be wachalo which is a combination between watch and miralo in Spanish. We like to talk with the letter F, like my name Loforenfezofo and so on. We communicate through letters, via emails, facebook, oral and texting. We usually text, “wer are u, hurry up, wats for lunch.” To join my family you have get married into the family or become just more than a friend. The next discourse community, church, comes hand in hand with family, because it has taught me the values of becoming a successful person.
Church has built my character, because it has given me the values that I will always follow, some of the values are love and serve one another, righteousness, honor, and do community service. The purpose of this discourse community is to attend mass, follow the commandments and honor God. The vocabulary used in church is different than from we saw at my family. In church we use deacon, holy, missionary, chapel, gospel, amen, prayer, baptize and many more. Typically some of the genres used in church are the bible, bulletin, emails, and webpage. The church also uses icons such as a white dove, which symbolizes peace. Music is also use in mass to spread the word. To join my church you have to be a true believer, attend mass, and the most important be baptized and follow the commandments. With the values I have learned in church it gave me the opportunity to join the tennis team.
Being part of a tennis team carries lots of responsibility. Our purposes include, to be number one, go to regionals, be all city, be MVP, get recognized but the most important is to win. We cannot achieve all of our purposes without the basic values that we always keep in mind like, respect, sportsmanship. During practice and games you can hear the players and coaches
yelling the following, smash, forehand, alley, backhand, serve, ace, topspin, slice, cut, and crosscourt. We don’t really used genres; the few that we use are the yelling of coach, tennis and exercise videos. It is very easy to join you just have to be ready to work out in the rain, sun, snow, be determined, have a winning attitude, be responsible and never give up. In a tennis team you need to be responsible and determined as in school/engineering program.
Lastly, the last discourse community has to do with my future of becoming an electrical and computer engineer. To join the college/ engineering program you need to register for school, complete the pre-engineering basics. As with school, technical papers, manuals, emails, blackboard, notes, essays, and research papers are the genres used. Abbreviation are used everywhere just like the one used in computer engineering, binary, memory, CPU, WAP, POP, IEEE, WEP, router, CAT 5e, fiber optic .For example CPU means central processing unit which measures the computer memory. Binary is the language of the computers, which use the numbers zero and one. The purpose of education is to get a broader education for a job. Also it teaches you to become more responsible. Some of the values shared are responsibility, honesty, hard work and determination.
Being in discourse communities allows people to improve not only the communication skills but also the writing skills. Because within the discourse communities the writing and communications standards are the same, it is possible to share the same purposes, ideas, genres and topics. Even though you don’t use the same genres or same vocabulary between family, school, sport, or church, one purpose is the same to communicate between its members.
