AVC Women’s Soccer as a Discourse Community
Discourse communities usually have six criteria in which need to be met according to John Swales in “The Concept of Discourse Community,” in which make up the whole of that discourse community. In whole, discourse communities need a goal, communication between the group, written communication, a genre, a vocabulary that fits the discourse, and expertise within the community. These are defined pretty stringently and are not too terribly difficult to be met if it is actually a discourse community with all of the above elements not so loosely met.
A common public goal as Swale puts it, are usually written or are sometimes implicit. In college sports such as Antelope Valley women’s Soccer the common goal is to compete against other colleges within the same division in a collegiate soccer match. The goal is to collaborate, practice, and increase athleticism in order to sufficiently out-compete other colleges. This definition would fit that “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” (1). Typically college sports universally look to advance in fitness and learn to collaborate as a team and hopefully win matches with a lot of practice and discipline.
The intercommunication that exists within this discourse community in which are written are text messages, E-mails, Facebook, Flyers, Media Guides, and Twitter. In this way information about team meetings, schedules, and other important communication can be dispersed and replied to depending on which type of media it is. Text messaging usually disseminates the scheduling, as well as flyer, and E-mail. While the media guide gives a general depiction of team members and the data after the season is over. Twitter and Facebook serve more as a general media to communicate by which still content-dense but is a little more socially fit.
Participation and inter-communication from one another is another crucial piece involved. “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback,” (1). As Swales defines, the engagement and intercommunication are part of the major functions of it.
Particularly in women’s soccer for Antelope Valley College, the mechanisms in which to do this are from attending practice, weight training, and lecture. Most of the common goal is directed towards increasing ones fitness however other important aspects are a common goal as well such as team work and commitment. Being on a collegiate sports team increases collaboration, dedication, and high work ethic.
One learns that it truly takes the entire unit to collaborate and dedicate with a high intrinsic motivation to evolve a team. The level of involvement often stems from the coach in which information is drawn out “plays” before a team and during practice; in which the entire unit begins to learn subconsciously organized and as a team in order to execute the entire function. One cannot stress the importance, of connectedness and collaboration it takes to create a winning entity.
The genre “These may involve appropriateness of topics, the form, function and positioning of discourse elements, and the roles texts play in the operation of the discourse community,” (1). The genre is narrowed down further and further beginning with a college, then the type of college, then the sport or club within the college, and then what the type of sport is. The genre in a sense is a narrowed down category of what the discourse community is. In this case it is pretty straight forward as to what the genre is as opposed to some other types of discourse communities.
The identified lexis is in this case Kinesiology based, mostly communicated by the soccer coach but also inter-exchanged between team members. The coach is the expert in which teaches the main functions whether by quotes, through experts in the field, basic terminologies, or other relative and or creative feats that communicate the goal for the team. “Repetition leads to retention,” was a quote I oftentimes heard back in 2008 for AVC Women’s soccer. But other important terms were emphasized such as learning the different anatomy, training techniques, specific play strategies, and even learning geographically where other locations existed because games are traveled at other colleges.
A lot of discipline and technique were non-verbal and physical as well but one can identify these with the lexis. A funny term used for torture (not literally) was the term “Burpie” because it always implied that the team would be implementing even more exertion on top of aerobic training, core training, and then those on top of it. One of the interesting parts of being a part of women’s soccer was learning how the statistics are calculated which is the goals, assists, and goals assist average. One can look at the NCAA website to see how these are organized and calculated.
The expertise within the community is usually based in a background in soccer in which experience is based on past experience with a club team or experience playing in High School. It is not impossible to get in without the background but it is definitely very difficult without it. Another words, usually participants with experience are included in this type of discourse community. However there are other ways to get involved without actually playing the sport such as applying to be an assistant or other type of role which usually also require their own separate type of expertise. But not always, there are even team members that participate that are whole-heartedly dedicated that never get to play although they are few.
Sources
- Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. https://csuci.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-1078759-dt-content-rid-2035541_1/courses/2158_ENGL_107_01_1410/Swales%20Discourse%20Community.pdf
