A discourse community is a social group or can be anything that inquires shared values, practices, or can even share the same language. A speech community, however; is not the same thing as a discourse community; a speech community is a community that shares the knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech. (WaWpg.219) Defining a discourse community can be hard due to the range of different types of discourse communities. Examples of a discourse community would be a church group, sports team, work scene, and even the neighborhood skater group. Perspective plays a key role in discourse communities. A person may perceive a church youth group as a community vs. another’s opinion of a group of students who are a part …show more content…
This community shares the common goal to sing and perform great music. The love of music is the main value that the chorale members share. To become a member of this group, one must perform a song in order to take a place in the chorale. I first became a part of this community by first joining my freshman year of high school. I was known as a newcomer; a newcomer is a person that is new to the social group. Being a newcomer isn’t easy, in fact, it can be extremely challenging. Not only do the newcomers hold great responsibility, they have an important job to blend with the “old timers”, as in the remaining chorale members. Once the newcomers become a part of the choir, the “old timers” take action and start to guide the new members. This chorale takes part in community work, choir concerts, competitions, and after school rehearsals. As a way to communicate, the instructor uses a chalkboard in the chorale room to write important times and dates. The written pieces of music in each student folder are labeled as the groups’ genre. Members of the chorale use the genre as an instruction tool to perform great music. Being a part of this discourse community gave me a feeling of contentment and …show more content…
Because my view of this discourse community may differ from another’s; I have decided to take time and observe a member of the choir to gain insight of their view. My attention drew towards a previous choir member, Ginny Cox. Ginny is a junior in high school and is currently a part of a chorale group, known as a discourse community. Ginny stood out to me in several ways. She’s simply “not like most girls”. I would describe her as a shy but motivated girl with an extrovert personality. I first began my research by using the following tools: observation, note taking, and interviewing. By using these tools, it allowed me to view Ginny’s standpoint on how she views the chorale as a discourse community. The first tool that I used during this process is observation. Observation allowed me to examine Ginny as well as the choir as a whole. I began to take notes on the particular things I was seeing. The instructor, Mr. Chipman begins the start of each class with a vocal warm-up. This activity gave the students a time prepare their voices for the music. After the warm-up Mr. Chipman tells the students to pull out the piece “The Great Sun” by Vowws. I notice that each student’s reaction differs from the next. Some students happily take the music out while others mumble under their breath; saying such things “Ugh I would much rather sing another song”, and “Page two gets me lost every time.” As Mr. Chipman