The different communities that I am committed to define who I am as a person. The separate parts of myself that are designate towards certain groups all come together to form a whole, but the pieces of myself that I share with these communities are vast and varying. Social decorum dictates that a person does not interact with a colleague as one would with family or friends; the same is true of other examples of social groupings, which all come with a certain set of etiquette.
Immediate family constitutes as siblings and parents, the way a I interacts with them is different than I would with strangers or people of another community. The language used is more personal and may have hidden meaning in the form of an inside joke or past memory. Nicknames are often incorporated into daily family setting, sometimes personal and sometimes a defining quality of the person. Conversation generally comes smoothly and references to past moments are easy to follow and pick up. The dress code varies from casual to fancy depending on where the family is at the moment. Communication flows easily through an assortment of medias: phone calls, texting, e-mails, and post-it notes to name a few. To become a member of an immediate family you either have to be born into one or create one.
My connection to Providence Hospital is purely through others, I spend a lot of time there because I usually walk their after school to see my father who works as an ER doctor there. While a dress code is not enforced it is also not presentable for the doctor’s daughter to come in sweatpants or worn looking clothes. The goals of the hospital and of her employees are to follow their Hippocratic oaths, anything else that happens in the hospital is solely on the employees shoulders. The jargon of the hospital is medical and technical, short hand is used often to save time while writing and certain situations are labeled codes; for example a code blue is when a patient is in need of immediate resuscitation often caused by a cardiac arrest. Knowledge of hospitals and hospital information can be found anywhere, in a book, pamphlets, medical journals, blogs, TV commercials, and the mail. To be a member of this discourse community you have to either work at a hospital or spend a lot of time at one.
Another discourse community is a book club. A book club is a gathering of bibliophiles who wish to share and discuss literature, their goal is mostly to just enjoy speaking about their favorite books with others who feel the same way. The language is rather lax and informal, after getting to know the members of the group a person usually speaks to them as one would a group of friends. This includes but is not limited to nicknames, slang, and personalized nouns. The atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable which is reflected in the dress of the members, often comfortable jeans and t-shirts. The specialized vocabulary takes many of its cues from literary analysis, the members will speak of protagonists, antagonists, and foils between characters. Book clubs are advertised through fliers, and pamphlets, through television and books, online blogs and websites can act as virtual book clubs.
Facebook is a community that most Americans are acquainted with, most specifically teens. Facebook was created to be a social network where people can meet and make new friends, and has evolved to a social lifestyle. “Text speak” is most commonly used on face book, abbreviation used to stand for words and phrases, “lol” for example can mean either ‘lots of laughs’ or ‘laugh out loud’. The communication is very easy going and personal, entries are made in the first person point of view and usually use affectionate language when speaking to someone they know. The community also has a litany of games and quirks that people enjoy using, to poke someone on Facebook means something else entirely from poking someone in real life, and Farmville is a virtual reality game, where the players act as farmers. Facebook is made popular through texting, phones, the newspaper, junk mail, TV, movies and orally tradition.
My physics class can also act as a discourse community class especially since it is in a learning community which makes the classes smaller and more personalized. The goal of the class is to prepare us to go forward in our aspirations through the study and exploration the science of the world around us. To be a member of this specific community you have to be in Dr. Hagedorn’s Introductory to Physics class. The language is mainly mathematical and scientific, though our teacher is known to make joke regarding physics; “may the F=ma be with you” is a popular physics pun playing on the formula for force replacing the word force in the famous Star Wars line. Physics can be found in a multitude of genres from textbooks to lectures to websites to classes the list is endless.
I enjoy watching and talking to friends about the television show Glee. This particular community is very open and mellow, we come together to watch and talk about the show discussing our favorite quotes and episodes in length and anxiously anticipating the return of the show in the next season more often then not in our pajamas or casual dress. The language is very reminiscent of the jargon used with friends and family, personal and relaxed, some of the few specific vocabulary include ‘gleek’ a combination of the words glee and geek used to describe viewers of the show, ‘slushy-ing’ a word used on the show to describe the throwing of slushies on less popular students by popular students, and ‘cheerios’ the name of the cheerleaders in the show. To join in the community someone really just has to watch the show and find someone else who also watches and likes the show to talk about it with. Forms of media used to spread gleek love are blogs, newspapers, magazine, television, the news, ads and oral tradition.
Extended family includes aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Their goals are similar to that of immediate family in that they both strive to show care and affection to family. The dress code for extended family includes nice dresses, skirts, nice pants, button down shirts and sensible shoes. The etiquette for extended family is reminiscent of church, respectful tones for adults and polite conversation when speaking to cousins. The vocabulary is formal and depends on the language your extended family speaks. My extended family speaks Spanish, so even though I speak little to no Spanish by being a part of this community I have picked up how to speak small talk in their native language. When entering a room it’s impolite to not greet everyone there with a kiss and a hug starting with the elders, moving on to the host and lastly cousins, aunts, and uncles. The way my extended family communicates with each other is with phone calls, letters, and e-mails. The letters are more often than not cards made for certain event like birthdays, graduations, and general congratulations.
So although I belong to many different communities not one community can define me entirely, they all define me as a whole. The communities are just the pieces that make up me and who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. The differences in vocabulary, dress, and goals help to diversify me and let me express every part of myself differently as they do for the millions of other people who come together under the name of similar interests and as an end to a mean in that particular endeavor.
