Jonathan Medina

8/30/14
RWS 1301

Discourse Community
Discourse communities exists all around us, everyone is a part of a diverse community.
Discourse communities contain a certain group of people, and the slang people use within the
community. The dicourse communities Im involved in is: My family, Medical Field, JROTC & School.
Family is filled with nicknames and multiple slang terms with a small amount of limitations, the medical
field involves a complex language, JROTC involves slang & nicknames with many limitations & school
contains strict limitations with respect and formal language.
The first and common discourse community I have been involved in all my life is with my family.
We use nicknames within the family to identify who is who & a simpler way of getting ones attention in
the family. The media used is Text messaging, Phone calls, group conversations, & rarely emails. The
difference in the way we speak in this discourse community & with other people such as strangers, is the
tone & slang terms & nicknames. I cannot approach a stranger like I would approach my nephew and
call them Ne-ne (Nay-Nay). I address them as sir or mam. Topics we speak of in this community is
everyday things, parties, family members, and sports. We would trash talk one another via nicknames &
slang terms if we were speaking of sports due to the fact one portion of the family are fans for one
sports team while the other is for the other team. The nickname for my father for his siblings & mother
would be Boy because he is the only boy in the family of six sisters. For my mother, her side of the
family refer to her as guera which means Light skin or White girl because she is a lighter skin tone
Mexican compared to the average skin tone of one. My nickname, for some odd reason, is daddy, my
family members refer to me as such, I refer to my sister as sissy, my sister in laws are SIL, and one
nephew is buggabutts. The only guide lines are to be respectful, yet, have fun with it. The only family
member who doesnt use guidelines is to refer to me as unholy words that cannot be spoken of, yet I am
not offended because I grew up with such names from him.
Jonathan Medina
8/30/14
RWS 1301
Another Discourse Community I was involved with for a while was the health field. Primarily the
emergency field. When I was trained to be an EMT, I was initiated in a Discourse Community only so
many people are involved in, many regular people hear these terms and are left clueless and always ask
for a definition from someone whos treating them. The audience members would be my fellow trainees
and co-workers as well as mentors and trainers. Media used within the discourse community would be
Radios, PCRs (Patient Care Report), a simple talk afterwards treating one patient. Topics would include

Patients, medications, tools, treatments, interventions, anything medical related. The guidelines
involved in this discourse community are to be respectful, no foul language, and to use the terms we are
given. Special language used in the discourse community is very sophisticated and one would not
understand the language unless you knew the anatomy of the word. If I were to make a report when
inbound to a hospital, my report would be Brackenridge facility, Unit 53 en route, ETA 5 minutes.
Patient is a 30 year old male with a chief complaint of upper leg pain, visible hematoma in localized
reports of pain. Interventions: Traction Splint, O2, & icing. Current status is stable, with a heart rate of
104, B/P is 130/68. SPO2 of 98, Respiration rate is 19. Translation is basically a 30 year old man is
complaining of upper leg pain with visible bruising in the area is stating the pain is. Treatment was a
form of splint for the femur, oxygen mask & ice to the injury. He is stable and isnt on the verge of death.
The way for someone to become a part of this group is to train to become someone in the medical field,
specifically in the emergency care field. Purposes for the writing in this discourse community is to
expedite the process to relay to your co-workers the status of the patient and how the current situation.
In JROTC, I made lifelong friends who I trust with anything. I was also initiated into a rather very
intimidating discourse community when signing up for my high school classes. The audience within this

Jonathan Medina
8/30/14
RWS 1301

community were cadets signed up into the program and to communicate were texting, social media,
commands & intercommunication. Topics would include drill meets, practices, gossip and ordinary
conversations. In JROTC, we were taught blind obedience via marching, a commander calls out a
command & the platoon (Group) would follow such command. Terms we would often use were ranks
such as a Petty Officer 1
st
Class which is a high ranking rank. Others would also include the commands,
Right face (90 degree turn to the right from a stand-still), About Face (A 180 degree turn from a
stand-still), To the Rear, March (180 degree turn while marching) and a Left Flank, March (90 degree
turn to the left while marching). Also we would use many nicknames for basically everyone. Examples
would be: Chris Houde (Nickname: Houdini), Jordan H. (Nickname: Jerdan), A. Montoya (Nicknames:
McToya, Montova, Shorty), T. Feighner (Nickname: Fire Nation), C. Hope (Nickname: Cashew, HopeLand,
Hope the Pope.) and myself, Jonathan Medina (Nicknames: Madea, Meshoya, Machete, MC Medina,
Blueberry, Blackberry, Strawberry, etc). Purposes for writing in this discourse community are simple, the
nicknames are to use in public and to immediately identify someone without possibly confusing others
who could have the same name as them. Commands are used in drill and competitions to compete and
show off who is the better team, the command notifies your subordinates what they will be doing, how
they will be doing, and when they will be doing. Rules include no form of any harassment what so ever,
or as long as no one is offended by anyones given nickname.
Last but not least of the discourse communities I am involved in, is in school. This involves
teachers, strangers, assignments and any other adult within the system. This discourse community is
very formal and must not be taken too serious, nor not serious enough. There are many rules and
limitations in the school discourse community, the language is strict and must be formal, no harassment,
no behavior that is
Jonathan Medina
8/30/14
RWS 1301


found informal is recommended for this discourse community. To be involved in this discourse
community, you simply must be involved within the school community, it may be a teacher, faculty
member, a student or even a guest visiting the campus. There is not much slang within this discourse
community, examples include any word included in the dictionary or a word you learned in a lecture or
presentation that is formal. In some areas of this discourse community, the language can be very
complex, such as Quadratic Function which is a line that forms a U shape on a graph. Discourse
Community is a term used in school and a formal word, a much more informal word would be jargon.
Polar Covalent Bond is a bond that forms surface tension in water. Purpose of writing in this discourse
community is for writing assignments and contacting teachers and to teach yourself formal and proper
language. Topics covered in this discourse community is assignments, homework, intercommunication,
reading, and writing.
Discourse communities surround all of us, discourse communities make up cliques, groups and
many other things. They are to define groups and the common language used within the group to
communicate with each other. Without discourse communities, there would be no diversity, and with
no diversity there comes idle minds. As the term goes Idle minds are the devils workshop