Discourse Community Response By:
Steven Lujan Antunez
The “Student” discourse community has a very broad spectrum of subcategories and niches each with its own set of goals, genres, and specialized vocabulary. This discourse community will be focused on from a general college students point of view. In order to become a member of this discourse group, one must meet the requirements of the institution in mind whether that be meeting a certain GPA or standardized test score. Once accepted into the institution, one automatically becomes a member of the “Student” discourse community, and must follow and/or set up general rules to abide to within the community. Generally a college student will set up basic goals such as managing their time well so that they can study, getting to class on time, and making good grades. Having a good vocabulary also ties into getting good grades because one must have a higher understanding of words for others to academically respect them. College students write in many different types of genres while they are in school. Professors may ask them to write research papers, term papers, lab reports and create powerpoint presentations. Students also have a specialized vocabulary that, unless you were a student, you probably wouldn’t understand. Such terms include “Dorm”, which is a temporary living arrangement while in school and “Roommate”, which is a person or persons that share that living arrangement with you. Also included is “Syllabus”, which is basically an outline of a class one is taking, and “Semester” which is a half year term in an educational institution. The type of writing in this community is very strict and professional. Students have to use a variety of formats for writing such as APA, MLA, and citing sources.
The “Forum” discourse community, much like the “Student” discourse community, contains many different subcategories. The focus for this community will pertain to a general forum in which anything is allowed to be asked. In order to join a “Forum” and its discourse community, one must provide an email address and create a username and password used to log in. Most anyone can join a forum because it is a community focused on answering other members questions and spreading knowledge. The universal goals for most forums is to start discussions, reply to posts, add on to conversations, meet new people, and as stated above, answer other members questions. A forum typically doesn’t have many genres associated with it in order to make it easier to understand for the end user. These genres include discussion posts, replies to other members topics, adding useful information to already started topics, quick direct messages to other forum users, and bulletins. The subjects written about in this discourse community are really dependent on what the forum one is posting in is focused on. The specialized vocabulary for forums can be very tricky to someone who has little or no experience in the “Forum” community. This is because some of the words are twisted in meaning, this signifies that they can be interpreted as different depending on whether you’re part of the discourse community or not. One such word is “Troll”, a troll is defined as someone who veers a discussion topic off course by posting a reply that creates an emotional response in other members. The type of emotional response usually differs but is mainly aimed at causing other members to fight over a matter. This leads to what is called “Flaming”, flaming is when forum users engage in hostile and insulting conversations over real world situations. A “Banhammer” is the term used to signify when another user is blocked from participating in the “Forum” community. A “Banhammer” is usually used when a member is convicted of continued inappropriate behavior on a forum. “ROFL” is an acronym for “Rolling on floor laughing”. It is usually used in a reply to another users post to signify that it was found amusing. The type of writing in this discourse community is very casual. Abbreviations are used heavily, as well as very poor use of spelling and punctuation.
The “Facebook” discourse community contains many similarities with the “Forum” community, but is focused more on communication with people one already knows. In order for one to become a member of the “Facebook” discourse community, one has to sign up for membership on http://www.facebook.com. A joining member has to provide an email address, and create a password. In order to make it more interesting and appealing to other users, one can add personal information such as a brief biography and/or a personal picture of oneself. The main “Goals” of the “Facebook” community are to directly keep in touch with friends/family, let others know how one is doing, meeting new people, and being entertained with the free games and surveys available to members of the community. The “Facebook” community does not contain many genres in order keep its members communicating easily through the same channels and not fragmenting it across multiple platforms. These genres include, but are not limited to, blogs, direct messages to other users, status updates to let others know what one is doing, and direct instantaneous chat. The subjects written about in the “Facebook” community ranges from what one is doing at a particular moment in time, to what one thinks of another members photograph. “Specialized Vocabulary” for this community is not very hard to learn but can be confusing if you are not a member. “Places”, is a geo tagging feature of Facebook. Members can use this feature to map their approximate location and tag others along with them. The “Places” feature is another way to let other members know where one is and with whom. A “Wall” is an area of a members profile on “Facebook” where others can leave short messages and see ones recent activity and status updates. A “Feed” is a continuous stream of live updates displayed on a “Facebook” members home page. The feed lists all of the other members whom you are subscribed to’s most recent status updates and activity in chronological order. On Facebook, “Like”, is when someone finds a post or update interesting to them. There is a small, clickable, thumbs up sign under anything posted by other members. In order to activate the “Like”, one must click on the thumbs up sign. The member to whom the “Liked” post belongs to is automatically notified of every “Like” received. The style of writing used in this community is very casual and most users use abbreviations.
The “iPhone” discourse community is a very niche community. The reason for this is because the community is limited and represented only by the owning audience of the product. In order to become a member of the “iPhone” discourse community, one must purchase an iPhone and sign up for a two year wireless phone contract. The “iPhone”, is a smartphone, and thus, is designed to help its owners manage and communicate throughout daily life. The goals for the “iPhone” community are to instantly keep in touch with family/friends/work, take digital pictures, access the web, and consume digital media such as music and videos. Since the iPhone is a consumer and business oriented device, there are many genres available. These genres include, but are not limited to, text messages, notes, emails, and search items. The subjects written about vary depending on whether you use the iPhone for personal and/or business use. The specialized vocabulary for the “iPhone” discourse community is very complex unless you are part of the community. This is because the company that manufactures the “iPhone’, Apple, inc., gives different aspects and features of their phones creative names. “Retina Display” is the name given to the “iPhone” screen. The reason behind its name is because of the pixel density of the screen. The idea is that the “Retina Display” has such a high pixel density that the human eye cannot differentiate individual pixels on the screen, thus, giving a lifelike image akin to looking through a window. “Facetime” is the name given to the video chat functionality of the “iPhone”. It allows two people to engage in a face to face conversation using the iPhone’s front facing camera, hence the name “Facetime”. An “App” is basically a shorter term for “application” on the iPhone. “A4” is the term given for the iPhone’s power saving, system on a chip processor. The “A4” processor was hand crafted at Apple, Inc. and is touted as fast and energy efficient. The styles used in this discourse community vary depending on the activity. If one is writing an email, depending on the recipient whether it be a coworker or family member, the styles will differ in vocabulary and professionalism. Text messaging uses heavy use of abbreviations and very little importance is given to spelling.
In the end, every discourse community has their audiences and their means of communication. If one discourse community were to cross communicate with another, the writing styles would change. For example if a “Forum” user were to send an email to a “Student”, one would have to change from using heavy abbreviations and little spelling, to using a more professional and less casual means of writing. One would also have to take into consideration that specialized vocabulary does not always translate well into other discourse communities. One example would be if a member of the “Facebook” community were to tell a member of the “Student” community to “Look at what somebody wrote on their wall”. This would be confusing because a student who is not part of the community may be misled and think otherwise.
