Discourse Community Paper Outline

Who I am interviewing: Alli C. She runs cross country and I used to run cross country with her. She has won districts and placed top 10 in state.

Members of Discourse Community: Typically althletic. Love to run. Team spirit. Some geeky people.
Things they say: PR (Personal Record), team chant, distrits, state, talk crap about other teams.
"in" and "out": Usually varsity is the most popular and "in" group.
What they read: Newpaper articles on recent meets. Results for races. Peoples PR's.

Shared goal of community: To win State/districts/PR.
Specialized Language: "PR," "Intervals," "Steady pace," "Burpees."

Difficulties among community: Slow runners get embarrased.
Authority: Cross Country Coaches, and advanced runners.

Discourse

Cross Country Runner (in High School)

Discourse Community in the Restaurant Business

Studying a Discourse/discourse community would be very important for many reasons. If you are going to try and write to a specific audience, you need to understand the discourse community in order to reach them. If you want to write a book to veterans of the United States military, you would have to do research on it and try and understand their discourse community. You couldn’t just assume they all signed up to kill, or that they were all violent. You might research, or do studies, and understand that many of them are doing it out of love for their country.  You also can not write about a discourse community and just assume everything. Understanding some ones Discourse/discourse community is crucial when trying to reach that person.

I could personally relate to this article about the waiter/waitresses. I worked as a waitress for just about a year at an upper class retirement home which had a restaurant in it. Although, my interactions were a little different with the customers, considering I saw the same people every time I worked, it was still all fairly accurate. Learning about the restaurant, what special orders they take, what they don’t take, what they always serve that isn’t on the menu, and many other things, is definitely a lot harder than you think. At my job, we also had to try and memorize most of the residents last names so we could write their names on the ticket saying they had come down to eat that night. My customers, some of which being snotty rich old men/women, were sometimes very hard to deal with. Some of them would get upset very quickly if something was done wrong, and others were very forgiving and loved all of us servers. I feel the discourse community was correct that they had described in this article. In times of trouble, waiters/waitresses must always keep their heads up and smiling. You can’t let any of it get personal. I actually liked this article seeing as I could relate to it pretty well.

Public Displays of Connection pg 45 Invent

            Ellen Degeneres is a famous TV host, and I would also call her a comedian. She has a show most days of the week, on which she has guests to come and talk or perform. On her Facebook she presents herself as a funny, independent, strong woman. She posts a lot of funny clips from her show, and all of her status updates are funny (unless she posts about gay rights). She posts funny pictures that her audience will send her. On her Facebook she does not show a lot about her personal life. Sometimes she will talk a little about her wife, Portia, but mostly keeps it to herself. She mostly keeps the Facebook strictly business. From her pictures, you can tell she loves to dance and entertain people. She is always laughing, joking, and having a good time. I’m sure she fights a lot of criticism for being lesbian, but on her Facebook she does not publically talk about any of her problems.