Discourse Community Map Response
Efren Torres
University of Texas at El Paso
Abstract
What Discourse Community’s do you belong to? Discourse communities are simple. It is
any community which you belong to that has a form of written communication. It can be
Facebook or your family, even the place you work. My discourse communities include Facebook,
Auto Mechanics, Blockbuster, and Video Game players. I chose these discourse communities
because in every one of these we communicate through writing. In Auto Mechanics for example
we communicate through repair manuals, e-mails, and magazines. In this essay I will go much
more in depth in how we communicate and why we communicate in different ways. I will also go
over special language we use in the communities. I hope that by the end of this essay you will
understand more fully what a discourse community is.
My first discourse community is Facebook. In this discourse community we use many
different genres to communicate. We use Apps, comments, replies, and many more. One of my
favorites is picture tags. On facebook we are able to put a caption at the bottom of a picture and
tag the person in the picture. When a person is taged they are notified next time they log on.
Another option in tag is to look at someone else’s photo and tag them. It is a good way to keep
track of photos of yourself that other people have taken. We also have specialized language in
the community that needs to be learned by anyone joining the community. Some of the language
consists of Poke, Farmville, tag and post. Farmville is the name of a popular application or game
within Facebook. The main goal of Facebook for me is to keep in touch with some of my friends
from high school. I hope that Facebook will last long and is not just a momentary craze.
My second Discourse community is Blockbuster. I am a supervising employee of
Blockbuster. I have worked there for a year. This discourse community communicates through
many different forms of writing. Such as, e-mail, notes, post-its, and through a duties list.
Supervisors, such as myself, communicate mainly through notes. In those notes we write down
what projects were completed, how many hours we have saved, and how the overall shift went.
Some of our specialized vocabulary can include phrases like run a stack, do your side, block a
section, and run daily. Most of our specialized vocabulary is fairly easy. To run a stack just
means to organize and put up returned movies. To block a section means to move movies around
to make the section look organized. Our main goal at blockbuster is to turn a profit. However, my
main goal is to help customers and receive a paycheck.
My third discourse community is Video Gaming. I love playing different types of very
strategic video games. My personal favorites are first person shooters. The main goal in a video
game is to either defeat the opponent or compleat all of the levels. My personal favorite objective
is to kill my opponent. Some special language that might be used during game play are noob,
headshot, and camper. My favorite is noob simply because It is not frowned upon to kill noobs in
unconventional ways even though it is frowned upon to kill regular players in unconventional
ways.
Last but not least, Auto mechanics. Auto mechanics is my favorite discourse community
because it comes naturally to me. I have loved working on cars for about 5 years now. I have
always liked cars I just never really worked on them till I got my first car. My first car was given
to me on my fourteenth birthday. My goal in auto mechanics to aquire the knowledge to repair
and maintain my vehicles. Some special words you may need to learn to join the discourse
community are drive shaft, combustion, spark plugs, distributor, Coil on plug, crank shaft, cam
shaft, piston , rings and seals, valves, and compression. Some of our written forms of
communication are repair manuals, and magazines. There are some mechanics that can repair
vehicles without any formal training. My father is one of those mechanics. He has always said “
It goes on just how it came off.”
These are some of my discourse communities I hope this has helped gain an
understanding of discourse communities.
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