Blog #5 My Discourse Community

Tanning By My Pool >>>> Adulting...ugh.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel that the idea of a "discourse community" is a little overrated, but I'm not saying that isn't not an important concept, its just... they are making it way too complicated that it really needs to be. 
After reading Swales, which by the way, took a couple of tries because my eyes kept glazing over the reading and I kept dozing off from how hot it has been... (i would just much rather be laying poolside or at the beach...which is what i was doing earlier... than be a responsible adult right now) anyways.. 

A discourse community seems to be defined as a professional community who adopted a form of language to better their means of communication within that professional community, to either make a process more efficient or to keep their language confidential within the business. The prominent idea that they want the reader to understand is that this form of language is not for "social" matters, but it is strictly used for professional behavior and matters.

(I'm above the guy in the blue shirt...if you were wondering)

1. 

A group that could potentially qualify as a discourse group based on Swale's six characteristics could possibly actually be the cheer community I am affiliated with, CheerForce California. 

Based on his first characteristic: a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, which in our case, our goal is to be the best gym and group there is out there. 

the second characteristic says that a discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. This one has some gray area because cheer has a different style of language all around; however, most language is similar from different cheerleading companies.  For example, if i were to say "i have a scorpion," many people would think I actually have a pet scorpion, not a "body line" that is used for flying. Even right there, if i said "I'm flying," I'm not actually going on a plane to fly, you guys get it. 

the third characteristic, a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. Here this is where competitions come into play, since our feedback comes from other teams and judges feedback, using the same form of communication we use regularly. 

the fourth characteristic: a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. Cheer has many different genres, starting with "sheet music," per say. With routines, everything is choreographed to 8-counts, and the language and style of writing is used with language specifically related to skills, stunts, jumps, etc. 

the fifth characteristic: in addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. as stated above, there are many different genres used, and the lexis that is used in terminology related to what we say, do and abbreviate. for example, a "double back hand spring tuck" is abbreviated as "two-to-tuck" or a double backhand spring full is a "two-to-full" or back handspring is simple "BHS"...a double back handspring layout is a "two to lay..." the list goes on. 

last but not least, number six: a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise. Our threshold of cheerleaders and members is limitless, theres a lot of us. the discourse expertise expands through time involved in the cheer community, the longer you are affiliated, the more you understand the langue used. 

After my thorough analysis on this, yes, I do, in a way, believe this is a type of discourse community; however, some of it can be questionable, but the characteristics swales provided does, technically consider this a discourse community.