Zach Brown Word Count:1554
Ms. Smith Help Received: Ms. Smith, Sean Mckinney, and Stephen Hanley
ERH-101-05
October 14, 2019
Wrestling with the Concepts Discourse Communities
Discourse communities are a difficult topic to discuss being that they are everywhere around us, in varying shapes and forms. When many people talk about discourse communities, and John Swales major involvement in this discussion, they many times just focus their thoughts on the main influences like classes and other engines that would motivate or influence one’s writing. However, these organizations are so much more, and the reason that they become such a difficult topic to discuss is because all of the groups that we can consider discourse communities are all so different. They can vary from classes at a college, football coaches, and even organized sororities. I have discourse communities that I am a part of in my own life. Whether it be the classes I take, VMI and its system, my brother rats and I at VMI, my friends or social groups, or the VMI wrestling team. The wrestling team may not seem like a subject that would be associated with an academic topic like discourse communities but it truly is one of these communities and I am proud to be a part of it even as a novice.
In many occasions we see academics and athletics as two completely different fields. Yet, these two correlate in the discussion of discourse communities. Sean Branick crafted a wonderful paper explaining how football coaches have their own discourse community and the plays they create relate to literacy. He also explained the different genres they must examine and how they all have a common goal. One of the key components to a discourse community is whether the group has public goals in which they all are working for conjointly to achieve (Swales 220). Even though I am a novice in my own personal wrestling community, I don’t believe there is any other organized group that works harder to achieve their goal. I can see everyday throughout our long runs, sweaty practices, and muscle draining lifts that our entire wrestling community has the common public goal to win and get better every single day.
I was first introduced to wrestling through my father. I started when I was around four years old and was a novice in this wrestling field at my young age. I began in a small room in Culpeper, Virginia for Team Cobra youth wrestling organization. This is one of my first experiences that I can remember joining a discourse community. I was an oblivious novice at this young age and primarily started because of, like I previously stated, my father’s introduction of me into the sport and the community. As I continued throughout the years with Team Cobra I expanded my knowledge and understanding of the community as I began to creep out of the novice stage. The new wrestling community that I am a part of makes me a novice because of my lack of experience in this new college level field. I will slowly gain more knowledge of the community the longer I am in it and will expand past the level of knowledge that I am currently at. Using the communication within the community as well as the community’s primary focus and public goal of winning, I can push past my current state and truly understand the organization that I am a part of and how it works. This happens in almost every discourse community as new members enter as novices and slowly gain knowledge of the discourse community and improve on their former rank.
One of the other aspects Branick discusses is “Lexis” which he describes as, “… may not make sense to most people but, among a team, make perfect sense and help the community better do its work (Branick 388).” Many people may not understand the terms our wrestling team has such as “shoot”, “high-c”, “scrap”, or “scramble” but the members of our wrestling community do and it helps us all achieve our community goal of winning and becoming better. We use these terms daily to help describe a certain technique and discuss wrestling in general. These simple conversations we have involving some of our “Lexis” help us to improve out of our novice state and help us expand out of our own personal knowledge by learning from other members within our community. Branick also describes the correlation between genres and the football coaches and gives the example of the playbook and how it is a genre of the football coaches’ discourse community. On our wrestling team we have our own genres. We have weight lifting workout schedules, scouting of other teams, and other genre related devices that are all for the same reason to better our chances of winning.
Branick’s discussion of interpersonal literacy plays a huge role in our wrestling community. To sum up his description of interpersonal literacies it is the ability to read people within the community. As wrestlers we cannot wrestle ourselves we must have a partner. This partner plays a vital role in whether we are successful individually and as a community as a whole. We must be able to read them. We must be able to see when they are tired and push them harder or when they have had a bad day and may not be feeling the “grind” of our practices. These are key aspects to keeping our discourse community together and on track to achieve our public goal. I have had days where I was too tired from the workout we may have previously had that same day or the day before and my partners understand this and push me to a point where I will get better and help the community’s goal of winning but not push me to a point where I will break. This aspect I have learned from past partners will help me as I am a novice in my new wrestling community as well as help me to improve my knowledge in the field.
Victoria Marro is also known for writing a piece in which she discusses her sorority and how it is a discourse community. One of her points that she explains is the communication between the different branches in their sorority (Marro 430). In our wrestling community we must use communication every single day to understand how to get better within our group, what we should do to improve, and when it is time to put these new ideas to work by relaying messages for designated practice times. We are connected through emails to discuss ways to get better as well as schedules throughout the weeks. I use emails to stay in touch with my teammates throughout the day to better our bond as well as relay messages on what the grueling workout may be in the afternoon practice session. This helps secrete us together as a community that will continue fighting for the common goal of winning. While relaying messages of the workouts for the day we also have conversations. We speak with each other before or after practices discussing how we can improve, which is ultimately the goal of any discourse community. Communication is key with any aspect in life, but within our wrestling community it is vital. Without it we may never have the whole team at a practice, may leave someone behind before a tournament, or even lose a match due to the lack of communication between wrestlers or a wrestler and coach.
Discourse communities are defined by many different elements and the reality is they come in so many different forms. I may be a novice to my new wrestling team at VMI but I can already see the many factors that can consider this group a discourse community. Many people do not usually correlate discourse communities with sports teams but Branick created a masterful piece that well explained a group not commonly thought of in this sense. Marro also showed another group that we usually associate with partying as a discourse community with systems of communication much like the ones we use within the wrestling community. One of the key aspects, public goal, is clearly shown by our hard work together and our intent to win and compete. Our “Lexis” also show how we all relate as a discourse community and differ from those not on the wrestling team that most likely do not understand our terms. Interpersonal literacies also give us another facet that we as an organization can relate to. We then see the ways we must communicate to keep all of our members in contact and focused on the goal. All of these components combine to show how our wrestling team is a discourse community and our common goal of wanting to win and improve everyday keeps us together and influences me everyday.
Works Cited
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.
Branick, Sean. “Coaches Can Read, Too.” Writing About Writing, 3rd ed., Bedford/St.martins, 2017, pp. 384-93.
Marro, Victoria. “The Genres of Chi Omega: An Activity Analysis.” Stylus: A Journal of First-Year Writing, vol. 3,no. 1, 2012, pp. 25-32, writingandrhetoric.cah.ucf.edu/stylus/files/3_1/stylus_3_1_Maroo.pdf