Research Question: How do people communicate in a specific workplace community (Utah Grizzlies, an ECHL hockey team)?
Audience: Novices in your chosen community (hockey)
Assignment: A discourse community is a group
with shared goals that uses communication to achieve those goals. For
this essay, you’ll examine the discourses of a potential workplace
community you might be interested in joining and create a portfolio of
your findings. This is a great opportunity to see if a potential career
is a good choice for you.
Every group has a unique way of communicating that can often be
confusing to outsiders. To determine what makes communication within
your chosen community unique, you’ll need to examine its goals, values,
and characteristics; analyze its writing practices and lexis; and look
at its genres of written communication. Try to figure out what you need
to know to be accepted, understood, and effective, through written and
verbal communication, in the community.
This essay requires you to observe your chosen community at work, take observation notes, interview a community member
(Christian Horn, Assistant Coach of the Utah Grizzlies), and collect at least 1 piece of written communication from that community.
In your observation(s), you should think about the 6 characteristics of
discourse communities laid out by Swales (Melzer 102). Also consider
the following questions:
Are there conflicts within the community? If so, what are they?
Why do the conflicts occur? Do texts mediate these conflicts and/or
make them worse in some way?
Do any genres help the community work toward its goals
especially effectively—or keep the community from working toward its
goals? Why?
Who has authority here? How is that authority demonstrated in written and oral language?
What do novices need to know to be successful, through
communication, in the community? How are they ‘trained’ in these ways?
What are the most difficult aspects of communication to learn for
novices? What continues to be difficult even for experts?
Once you’ve gathered your information, you’ll compile your
findings into an organized portfolio with a written analysis of how novices can successfully communicate within that
community, based on your research.
Purpose: To explore the professional discourse
community you plan to pursue and thereby strengthen your communication
skills in that community.
Form: Portfolio with written analysis, essay style. You need to include:
a table of contents, a transcript of your interview(s), at least 1
written communication example, your notes from observing, and an
analysis of your findings. The portfolio should be organized and
informative, but feel free to be creative by including pictures or
turning it into a scrapbook or anything else that compliments the
community you’re examining. The essay portion should be 1000-1500 words.
The interview is cited in MLA format at the end of the essay since the interview should be used heavily in your essay.
