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Gabrielle Cook

Professor Vaughn

ENGL2089-060

24 April 2017

Heated Arguments: The Impact of Authority at Station 14

Flashing lights and loud sirens. A fire engine and an ambulance race through the streets to

get to the scene. In our day-to-day lives, we hear the sound but we do not think much about it or

about what goes on within emergency services; we just know that if something happened all we

would have to do is call 911 and someone will be there to help. Fire Departments and Emergency

Medical Services, or EMS, were established for this purpose: to serve people in immediate need

and high-risk scenarios. These services are provided across the nation from the big cities to the

small towns. About an hour East of Cincinnati is the rural village of Felicity, Ohio in which

resides the Franklin Township Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department, also known as

Station 14. The Franklin Township Fire & EMS Department as a joint department is a recent

addition to Franklin Township and now both EMS and Fire services are offered through the same

location and staff. This merge has created some tension between members as the leadership roles

have changed. In order to analyze the impact of authority within the group it is necessary to view

the department as a discourse community as John Swales defines in his work The Concept of

Discourse Community. Meeting the six requirements for being a discourse community means

further examination of the group can be done in addition to the impact of authority, such as

understanding the importance of literacy and text within the community. Through interviews,
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observation, and reviewing existing literature, it is possible to gain a larger understanding of

Emergency Medical Services and fire departments as discourse communities.

In reviewing the literature, I found that there were no academic articles establishing EMS or

fire departments as discourse communities. However, I did find that several students had

completed discourse community projects for their own English courses and published either a

blog post or a website to display their analyses of EMS and fire departments as discourse

communities. Chris Harrison is a student and the creator of a website titled Discourse

Community Project: The Fire Service in which he discusses fire service as a discourse

community. Throughout his website, there is no explicit evidence or analysis to demonstrate that

the fire service is in fact a discourse community as he claims. However, following that

assumption Harrison provides several observations about the community such as the importance

and use of communication and teamwork. In his video reflection Harrison states, Being able to

communicate with [your team] not just in the station, but on calls and on the fire ground is

extremely important. He also addresses communication within paramedicine and the

importance of being able to establish a rapport with patients and being able to relay

information to hospital staff [during the transfer of care]. Harrison mentions the impacts of

reading incident reports on the members which, although not explicitly stated, is a type of

literacy and text. Similarly, Bryan McDougal, another student, created a website titled A

Discourse Community Project to display his findings.

McDougal focuses his project on Emergency Medical Services as a discourse community

and, much like Harrison, McDougal does not make an effort to demonstrate that EMS is a

discourse community but rather makes that assumption and works to support it. McDougal looks

at a specific text called a case study, which is a detailed scenario used to educate members about
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the correct and incorrect actions to take if they were to encounter a similar situation. Training

and knowledge are the two best things to stay prepared for that next big incident you may come

across, states McDougal in his reflection video. The community of EMS requires a great

amount of prior knowledge. One must take an EMS class, meet all of the clinical requirements,

and pass a series of tests required by the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians in

order to obtain the certification. Moreover, individual states, counties, and townships may have

more requirements to be certified to work in their territory. In addition to these qualifications,

McDougal points out that Writing skills are very important. You do a lot of writing and it takes

a lot of detail and You need to be able to deal with people. Communication is an important

literacy that is required to work within EMS, which Tristan Bannister, student at UC Davis,

emphasizes in his blog post on Readings about Writing.

Titled How Communication Saves Lives, Bannisters essay explores the communication

systems of emergency services and their impact on fire departments as a discourse community

but, similar to the rest of the students, has failed to explicitly establish fire departments as a

discourse community. Bannister states, Fire departments are discourse communities with their

own unique set of communication practices relating to the life-saving procedures they undergo

every day. Throughout the essay, he emphasizes efficiency and the importance of understanding

each departments lexis in order to achieve efficient communication. He states, There is much

more to being a firefighter than climbing ladders and spraying hoses; it is a close knit community

of people who dedicate all of their attention to protecting the public in the most efficient way

possible. Bannister briefly mentions the leadership rankings within fire department but does not

expound on them and their impact on the discourse community as a whole. Overall, the available

literature demonstrates the importance of communication and training in EMS and fire
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departments; however, none of the sources clearly explain why EMS and fire departments are

considered discourse communities. Apart from communication, there are many more aspects to

analyze within discourse communities, including the enculturation processes, conflict

management, and stereotypes. There is a lack of in depth analysis of EMS and fire departments

as discourse communities and the issues they face within that context. The impact of authority

was briefly introduced when Bannister laid out the general leadership hierarchy, but he did not

look at the effect that it has on the discourse community. Authority within discourse

communities is important to analyze especially when there is an established hierarchy because it

has the potential to influence the way members interact with each other and how they work to

achieve the overall goal of the community. In this process, it is necessary to examine how

authority affects the community as well as how parts of the community, such as literacy and text,

influence authority.

In order to examine Station 14 as a discourse community it is necessary to first define what a

discourse community is. In The Concept of a Discourse Community John Swales states that a

discourse community consists of a group of people who link up in order to pursue objectives

that are prior to those of socialization and solidarity, even if these latter should consequently

occur. In a discourse community, the communicative needs of the goals tend to predominate in

the development and maintenance of its discoursal characteristics (220). Swales establishes

discourse communities as goal oriented organized groups of people and goes on to provide six

characteristics required to qualify as a discourse community (220-222). These characteristics

include (i) having a broadly agreed set of common public goals, (ii) having mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members, (iii) having participatory mechanisms to provide

information and feedback, (iv) utilizing and hence possessing one or more genres in the
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communicative furtherance of its aims, (v) acquiring some specific lexis, and (vi) having a

threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal experience.

Having these guidelines enables discourse communities to be easily defined and identified.

Station 14 is considered a discourse community because it meets all of Swales criteria. On the

Franklin Township website, the following description is given of the department:

Personnel are called upon to fulfill to the best of their ability, the mission of Franklin

Township Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the duties of a good emergency

services member, abiding by the Constitutions and Laws of the United States of America

and the State of Ohio, and the rules and regulations of Franklin Township Fire and

Emergency Medical Services. A sample of the services provided by us include fire rescue

response, emergency medical treatment and transport, fire safety inspections, public fire

education (schools and business), fire hydrant maintenance, juvenile fire setter education

and counseling, senior citizen safety programs, and CPR / first aid programs.

This description indicates that the community adheres to a set structure in order to fulfill a

mission and to attain a common goal. According to Aaron Young, firefighter in training at

Station 14, this common goal is to protect life and property which he says he learned in his

firefighter class. Brian ONeil, Firefighter/Paramedic, said that the goal of the department was to

do make sure they sit and do nothing, meaning nobody is hurt or sick and nothing is burning.

This dry sense of humor is a common occurrence and can be noticed in many conversations at

the department, including the interviews conducted for this project. Communicating verbally is

one method of intercommunication used in the department in addition to emails, text messages,

corkboard memos, radio communication, and sometimes sign language, joked

Firefighter/EMT-A and Assistant Chief Chris Schneider as he raised his middle finger.
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Communication with members occurs in three settings: on a run, in the station, or outside of

work. The setting in which the communication takes place is what determines the method used.

For instance, radio communication is used primarily on runs. When emergency personnel are out

responding to a call they use radios to update the county dispatch with their status (e.g. en route,

staging, on scene, or available) as well as to update other emergency responders, who may be in

different vehicles, about how to proceed. Radio communication is also used to call for assistance.

For instance, if a patient was too large for the people responding to move they would have to call

for a lift assist to get extra people to help move the patient from the scene, onto the cot, and

into the ambulance. At the station, communication is usually verbal or written. Oftentimes, there

will be memos written on scraps of paper and put on the corkboard or the countertop in the

common area intended for people to read. This method of communication is not always effective.

I observed this exchange during my observation time:

Person 1: Did you do [an equipment] check today?

Person 2: Yeah, why is something missing?

Person 1: No, I was just wondering if it had been done.

Person 2: Yeah, I left a note there on the bar.

This interaction demonstrates that these methods of communication within the station, while

clearly established, are not always effective. In order to communicate outside of the workplace

there are a variety of communication methods. Facebook is a popular tool for promoting events

that the department hosts such as fundraisers or educational workshops. The departments

Facebook page and emails are also used to provide updates on local road closings, National

Weather Service alerts, and other important information. Text messaging is a large part of
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communication outside of the station. Members of the community are close knit and therefore

are comfortable texting each other on their personal cell phones either to communicate about

something job related or just to send them a funny cat video. The officers use a program to send

out text messages to everyone about open shifts, training session times, event sign-up sheets, and

other information regarding more operational concerns. Many methods of communication are

use within the department, each with its own respective genre and communicative purpose.

Beyond how members communicate, Swales definition of a discourse community

examines what the members are saying. The specific terms used by the community are referred

to as a lexis. Fire and EMS as a professional naturally has its own set of terms that are not often

heard outside of that realm. In fire and EMS, there is a variety of equipment, procedures, and

other terminology to know in order to be able to participate within the community fully. For

instance, if upon arriving to the scene a paramedic tells her partner that the patient has a tension

hemopneumothorax, that partner needs to not only know what that is but the necessary

equipment and interventions to do in order to save the patients life. Acronyms within EMS are

plentiful as well, even within the title of the field EMS meaning Emergency Medical Services.

Some other common acronyms include MVA meaning Motor Vehicle Accident, NKDA meaning

No Known Drug Allergies, and TIA meaning Transient Ischemic Attack. Another acronyms that

was mentioned by both ONeil and Schneider is DRT meaning Dead Right There; this is another

example of the dry humor that is exhibited by the members of this community as they had a

patient earlier that day who was as they put DRT. In addition to the terminology used in the

field, the different positions within the department could be considered a part of the lexis. The

Battalion Chief, or Chief, is the leader of the department; then there are officers, which include

the Assistant Chiefs, Captains, and Lieutenants all with their own responsibilities. In addition to
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these positions, there are full-time, part-time, and volunteer workers who are Basic EMTs,

Advanced EMTs, Paramedics, and/or Firefighters. Station 14 also offers a Fire Cadet program

that allows interested and qualified students to be involved with the department and to undergo

some training, which is the program that Aaron Young is participating. When asked if experience

and expertise varies within members, ONeil stated, Aaron can barely find his ass with his own

hands. We have people that come off the street and people with 30 years of experience. Thats

not Aaron though hes still learning, followed with a hearty laugh. Jokes aside, he makes a fair

point. There is a huge range of experience levels within this community. Cadets, such as Aaron,

are just starting in the field whereas other people have been doing Fire & EMS for their entire

professional lives. The level of experts is maintained by employing enough qualified and trained

professionals; these people then go on to disseminate their knowledge to the less experienced

members such as the cadets and new workers. The more education you have, gives you a higher

level of care and then I would say the level of experience you have typically dictates how well

you perform your job, says Schneider, emphasizing the importance of education and experience

in the field.

This education and experience leads to what James Paul Gee would call literacy.

According to Gee, a linguistics professor at the University of Southern California, literacy is the

mastery or fluent control over a secondary Discourse (486). He defines this secondary

Discourse as social institutions within the public sphere that command one or more Discourses

which we acquire fluently to the extent that we are given access to them (485). Essentially,

literacy is the fluency in the skills required to be a part of a discourse community. At Station 14,

these basic skills or literacies range from being able to operate the equipment, to performing

necessary interventions, to assess situations and react appropriately. Every part of the job
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requires both knowledge and ability in order to be considered fluent. For instance, if a member

knows how to drive the fire engine but has never actually driven the fire engine, that knowledge

would not be considered fluency; likewise, if someone acts without having the proper knowledge

and training that is not fluency either. In order to gain literacy in the skills required to be

enculturated into the discourse community it is necessary for persons to be trained for the

position and to gain experience within the field.

Literacy in Fire & EMS is measured by not only possessing knowledge and experience

but also demonstrating it, either through fulfilling the responsibilities of their position or teaching

it to the less experienced members. The ability to teach someone else the skills necessary to be a

part of the community is an indicator that one is an expert in the field and has obtained fluency

and therefore literacy. The ability to read the text used in Fire & EMS is a good indicator of

literacy as well. Texts go beyond words on a page, although that is part of it; texts include

anything that information can be derived from. In Fire & EMS, traditional texts would include

Patient Care Reports, Incident Reports, protocols, textbooks, text messages, emails, and other

written forms of communication. The ability to read these texts and understand the meaning of

them in a broader context is literacy. Texts used in this field also include concepts that are more

abstract, such as emergency scenarios, modes of communication, equipment, people and injuries,

buildings and fires. A paramedic can read a person and understand what their injuries are, how

those injuries affect the rest of their body, what interventions need to be done and in what order.

Firefighters have the ability to read fires meaning upon examining a fire they can understand

what resources and tactics are required to extinguish it and then work together to do so. It is

necessary for every person working in an emergency scene to be literate to avoid mistakes and to

run more efficiently. Efficiency is key in Fire & EMS because peoples lives are at stake; a
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miscommunication or misunderstanding could result in death. Ensuring literacy through rigorous

training, testing, and more training is vital to the functioning of Fire & EMS.

In order to ensure that operations run smoothly and that members are fulfilling their

responsibilities, there is a chain of command established within departments, as mentioned

previously. Paul Prior, English professor at the University of Illinois, claims that authority refers

to an elite group that impose language, beliefs, values, by control of [discourse community

genres] (qtd. in Johns 513). At Station 14, this elite group of people would be the officers

according to Brian ONeil, Firefighter/Paramedic. Ranging from the Chief to the Lieutenant, the

officers main responsibility is to maintain operations which entails finances, scheduling, and

trainings, among other categories. According to Elizabeth Wardle, English professor at Miami

University, authority is an intangible quality granted to persons through institutions, which

renders their pronouncements as accepted by those in that institutions communities of practice,

but which must be maintained through individuals speech and actions (290). Through these

positions of authority, the members that are granted control the genres of the community such as

the departmental regulations and communication methods (emails, text messaging, Facebook

posts, etc.). As Wardle says, it is necessary to maintain this authority through speech and actions;

Chris Schneider, Assistant Chief, states that when determining authority at Station 14 its

ultimately how they present themselves and how they speak to other members of the

department. However, there is more to having authority at Station 14 than talking to people in a

certain way.

Theres a difference between authority and leadership, ONeil states, I have no authority

but people ask me questions on the scene because of my experience and knowledge so I have

leadership but not authority. This then raises the question, how does experience influence
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authority? According to ONeil, experience does not impact authority, referring to one officer

that has little experience and another that has no fire experience at all. However, Chris

Schneider, Assistant Chief, states that experience does influence authority stating, typically in

this field the [officers] are usually based on levels of certifications and experience. The

contrasting answers given by members reveal an interesting issue within the community: the

impact of authority. In this department, everyone has their own responsibilities, he states,

Every person here has responsibilities: scheduling, ordering, whatever, which are basically

[given] out to the officers below the chief and if you have a problem in that area you go to that

specific person. As someone with control in the community, Schneider views authority as task

delegation. In contrast, Aaron Young, a firefighter in training with little to no authority in this

community, states that the impact of authority depends on the individual. Young points out that

there are members of the community who will listen to certain officers orders over others. This

individually-based unequal authority has the potential to create a divide in the group but

according to Young the system of established authority makes [the department] run smoother

instead of being divisive. Even though on a system level the authority appears to work, it is

evident that there is tension between individual members. When discussing the difference

between authority at the station and on a call, Brian ONeil says, [Authority] is totally

different on a run, I am the paramedic. Chris will tell you differently, that he is the Assistant

Chief, but he is wrong. Its not different, states Chris Schneider, it is the same. A person has

no more authority at the station that at the scene. These discrepancies on what authority is in

different settings are a point to address for the community because, just as a misunderstanding of

equipment or procedures is life threatening, a disagreement or misunderstanding over who has

control during an emergency situation can be deadly. Despite the individual tensions between
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members and disagreement about who has authority in certain situations, the consensus is that

the established hierarchy of authority helps the community function to complete its goals; with

this system the members of Station 14 are better able to protect and serve their community.

At Station 14, the members who are in positions of authority are given control of the groups

texts. These members are usually the officers who control the operations of the department,

delegate tasks, and plan trainings for the rest of the members. Through training, experience and

knowledge are gained which leads to literacy in the skills necessary to be successful in the

community. However, literacy and experience do not automatically equate to authority.

According to members of the community at Station 14, authority is not necessarily given to

people with the most experience, causing disagreement about whether authority figures have

enough experience to be in their positions. While this difference between authority and

experience creates tension between individuals, it does not hinder the overall goal of the group,

which is to protect life and property. Instead, the established authority helps the community

accomplish this goal. Authority is an issue that is necessary to consider within every discourse

community. Whether that is a knitting club or a group of waiters, we now know that it is possible

for discourse communities to function well with disagreements on authority, such as who should

be controlling the groups texts and how literate they are in the groups practices. By looking at

Station 14 through the lens of a discourse community, we are gain valuable insight into the

importance of literacy and text and the impact of authority within the community.
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Works Cited

Bannister, Tristan. How Communication Saves Lives. Readings about Writing. Blog.

http://fycjournal.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bannister.pdf

Franklin Township Clermont County Ohio. Franklin Township Fire & EMS Department.

Website. http://franklintownshipoh.org/fireems.html

Gee, James Paul. "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction." Writing about Writing: A

College Reader. 1st ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St.

Martin's, 2011. 482-495. Print.

Harrison, Chris. Discourse Community Project: The Fire Service. Website.

http://charrisoneng123.weebly.com/

Johns, Ann. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and

Diversity." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 1st ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and

Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 499-518. Print.

McDougal, Bryan. A Discourse Community Project. Website.

http://finalprojectcbuems.weebly.com/

ONeil, Brian. Personal interview.

Schneider, Chris. Personal interview.

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Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Writing about Writing: A College

Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's,

2014. 217-228. Print.

Wardle, Elizabeth. Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces. Writing

about Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 284-290. Print.

Young, Aaron. Personal interview.