Discourse Community Ethnography

RWS 1301

Discourse Community Ethnography

10/11/14
Gloria Garcia
University of Texas at El Paso

Discourse Community Ethnography

RWS 1301

Discourse Community Ethnography

A discourse community is known as a group of people who shares basic
values, assumptions, and ways of communicating about their goals. (Swales, 1996)
Most of us are part of at least one discourse community. Many people do not fully
know how to distinguish what a discourse community is. This essay will help people
understand what it is to be part of a discourse community. I chose to look at two
discourse communities that I was interested in. These communities are McDonalds,
since one of my best friends works there, and a Church Youth group, in which my
friends and I are a part of. My goal is to get an achieve inquiry to the following
question: "What are the techniques of communication and goals of this discourse
community?

In order to fully understand the main idea of this essay is to know the
essentials of a discourse community. The article of The Concept of Discourse
Community by John Swales was a helpful tool for me to understand what does a
discourse community is, and what it should have inside it. He explains very detailed
how every discourse community has its owns characteristics. Some of the
characteristics he points out is that they have set common public goals, the
community has mechanisms of intercommunications between the members, every
uses and possesses one or more genres, they have specific lexis, specialized
vocabulary and conventions or rules of communication. (Swales, 1990). Since one of
my discourses communities is about a fast food restaurant the article of Tony
Mirabelli Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers

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was very helpful to understand the importance of the menu and how the menu is
everything in a restaurant, since is the way the customer and the waitress have
communication. In order to have a successful communication with the customer the
waitress needs to know the menu, so if the customer asks him or her something he
is able to answer with confidence, and also bring that confidence to the customer.

The first discourse community I am going to describe is McDonalds, which

everyone knows; it is a fast food restaurant. With my observations I was able to
observe the process of what it is being a customer at McDonalds. The observations
that I made were between the client and the employer. First the client arrives to
McDonalds; looking for something to satisfy his hunger he stares and analyzes the menu
for a couple of seconds. The cashier welcomes the client by saying Hi welcome to
McDonalds, what can I make for you today? The client answers back the hi and asks
for a combo number 2, which is a combo of two cheeseburgers, a medium soda and a
medium fries. The cashier then asks if for fifty cents more he would like to enlarge his
combo by having a large soda and a large order of fries. The cashier is pressing the
buttons on the cash register, to charge the client his total amount of money. He gives the
client his ticket and his change and asks for his name, and he will call him as soon as the
order is ready. The client says thank you and waits for his order. After 3 minutes his
order was ready and they yelled his name so he can go and pick up his order. The things
they say are prices, what does the combo has or includes, what promotions they have.
As Tony Mirabelli mentions in his paper Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy
of Food Service Workers. Just like in restaurants the waiters need to know the menu in

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order to succeed in their job and with the clients, the McDonalds workers need to know
what the menu is about and what each combo has, and know everything that they feel is
important to make the client feel confident and save of what they are ordering. The menu
is the most essential element for any restaurant to have successful waitress.
Someone who I decided to interview was one of my friends Rene Miranda, who
has been working at McDonalds for over two years. He is involved because when he was
sixteen years old his dad got him into the idea that he had to work in order to move
forward. At the age of sixteen there are not so many jobs that you can take as an
employee. As he looked for jobs he saw that McDonalds is always giving out a lot of job
opportunities to high school students. He decided to try out and saw that it has a pretty
cool environment to work since most of the employees were just like him and most of
them were his age. He explained to me that there are many specific words but three are
very essential for every worker at McDonalds, these words are: Park it, Serve it, Hi
Welcome.
The first word Park it means that when a car goes through the drive thru and arrives to
the second window and their order is not ready yet. They always tend to say park it so the
car behind does not have to wait for them to finish the order of the car on the window. He
told me that they do this in order to make the line move faster. The second word is Serve
it, which means that every time they put an order on the screen. There is a timer that
starts on how much time they actually take to have the order ready, they tend to scream or
just tell the manager serve it so the timer stops and see how long they take on each other.
The last word he told me was Hi, welcome. Is a courtesy to every costumer that comes
in, they like to say hi welcome to all the costumers so they feel they are always welcome

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to McDonalds. He also explained how he communicates with his teamwork, which is in

a respectful manner, some might be his friends but at work they are a team and a team
needs a leader. By this he means that at work everyone is treated with respect. If anyone
makes a mistake even thought that person is his friend he tends to tell him or her
something so it wont happen again. To the costumers he told me they always treat them
with respect, he is always trying to be the best employee at McDonalds and as they
always like to say the customer is always right.
The common genre at McDonalds is all of the advertisements of their products; it is how
they get the attention from the customer, but the most important genre is the menu. The
menu is split into sections to make it easier for the customer to decide what he or she
wants, for example there is a dollar menu, kids menu, breakfast menu, and deserts. The
menu is very colorful and shows the different value meals and what they come with so
that the customer knows and can see what he or she is getting. As I was able to observe
McDonalds it is not just seen as a workplace, since there can be people who can become
your friends later, or maybe just young people who are in the same position as you are.
Being a student but also making your own money to be able to pay for college, or for the
apartment, or for the car.
The second discourse community that I chose was Formacion de Cristo. This
community is at my church, and this is known as the second course you have to take
after you have taken you Confirmation Courses which as many do not know,
Confirmation is mandatory among Catholics, since it is one of the sacraments
through which Catholic pass in their process of their religious path. Formacion de
Cristo has the purpose to prepare a person to become a leader of a youth group,

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this is not a mandatory requirement but it helps you to get a better understanding of
the Church and also Gods teachings. At this group they have a very specific
schedule, it could be Friday or Saturday from 5:00 P.M to 8:30 P.M or Sunday from
9:00 A.M to 12:30 A.M, always ending up with mass. The course lasts for about 6
months. They also make weekly services either going to an orphanage, going with a
poor family, going to visit the old people, and this weekly services help them realize
what they have and also this kind of experiences touches their hearts so they can
become more conscious of their actions. An ordinary day at this course begins with
singing Catholic songs known as Alabanzas in Spanish as a way of adoring the
Lord. After they are done they usually go out by groups, the groups are divided by
numbers and they are formed by at least ten people. Each group consists of three
leaders, they all gather outside the church and discuss about specific topics, which
are always about God and his teachings. After about 45 minutes everyone goes back
to the room to listen to the main topic of that day, this talk is usually made by one of
the leaders of a random group. This talk usually consists of personal experiences,
performance. After the leader is done with the talk, he ends with a prayer thanking
God. At this talk what I mostly observed was the behavior of the people listening,
some are very attentive and some are just looking without having a clue of what is
going on, there are some people that I can see that are not into it. The genres of this
community are the Bible, self-testimonies, prayers, and weekly services. Bible,
which is where all the Christian scriptures are written down, is the most important
genre.

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I have been part of this community for over a year, but I interviewed one of
my closest friend her name is Denisse Corona. I interviewed her because she has
been in this Youth Group for over three years. She is there because she wants to
learn more about the religion and help others in their own conversion. Also, because
of her commitment to the Catholic Church, and last but not least to serve and love
God. She told about three keywords essential for everyone who are in the
community Mercy, Charity, and Hope. The word Mercy means that everyone must
show compassion and not be misunderstood with shame. Charity means to love
one another no matter what. Hope means to have faith in everyone. The way she
communicates with her team is by sending text messages, emails. They are
communicating about how they are going to give the themes, which person is doing
what part, she told me that they also get together for at least two times at a week to
discuss ideas and thoughts, and to organize what the themes that they give are going
to be. They also message each other through social media, and they use a clean and
professional language.
The main topic of this group is about God, and his teachings, they try to give people
life lessons and apply them in life. They also make you feel that you have a second
family, most of them prove you that they are true, and honest and that they are
going to seek for what is best for you. They are going to try their best for you to find
peace and calm when needed, showing you what God is and how magnificent he is,
you feel truly happy when you are in this group, because you are learning but also
sharing with all the youth.

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What I learned from doing this project was to distinguish between every discourse
community, and that every discourse community has its own lexis and genres. Every one
of them is unique in their own way. This helps me to fully understand each discourse
community and to distinguish between them, to realize who is in the community and who
is out. Society is made up of many variations and that is how the discourse communities
exists. I could see that in both of those places you meet a lot of people some of them
people who you can relate to, or people that makes you feel comfortable.

References
Swales, J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in
Academic and Research Settings, 21-32.
Mirabelli, T. (2004). Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service
Workers. What They Dont Learn in School, 143-162.