Genre, How does it fit into AVC Soccer?

 

 

The written medium for discourse communities, usually always conceals a specialized topic, has developing fundamental languages, written communication, and expertise within the community.  Along with these, an important aspect, genre, tends to help match where the category falls into with the written discourse. “Each discipline whether it is English, Psychology, or History has its own key concepts and language for describing these important ways of understanding the world,” (1). Dirk explains how genre fits into writing.

In differentiating the difference between speech communities and discourse communities Swales states that: “Literacy takes away locality and parochiality, for members are more likely to communicate with other members in distant places, and are more likely to react and respond to writings than from speech from the past,” (2). The point is that writing not only records but makes communication viable through distances, in which participants can explore and be a part of, from virtually any workable location. Swales also suggests that writing creates communication that can be reflected from the past, not just the present as how speech communities would be only focusing in the present moment.

When the word genre is used, people often think in terms of textual forms—for example, the form that a sonnet or review takes. Other times, people think in categories of items they enjoy—for example the genre of country music, epic films, or first person—shooter video games,” (4). These do fit into genres, but here we are specifically talking about the written communication that goes on between a discourse community. The genre in which I analyze is Antelope Valley College Women’s Soccer.

As the genre falls into one specific means, the Facebook website, designed for Antelope Valley College’s athletes, one can find that events that have taken place are being discussed. For instance,

“Valerie Valladares assisted on Adriana Serrano’s goal just eight minutes in against West LA and scored another one in the second half as the Marauders ended significant futility and beat the Wildcats 4-0,” (3). For the 2015 record AVC had its second win after a difficult trend throughout the season. The genre discusses how the season is going for the Marauders as well as the most recent win/tie/loss track record.

To go further on that, it also addresses future games where fans or friends can come to watch in. Although here I discuss the end ranking for the finish, the website also addresses individual rankings so that one can look up his or her favorite team member. If I had a daughter playing for Antelope Valley College Soccer in the future, I could look up her individual statistics and see how many goals she scored or how many assists she had towards a goal. The rankings also use special formulas to come up with a ranking that is important for scholarship. During my year in 2008, three girls were selected for scholarships based off of this ranking. This was really important as it helped their families, and rewarded them for their contribution towards the college and their performance.

Final	1	2	T
WEST LA (2-8-4, 1-5-2)	0	0	0
ANTELOPE VALLEY (3-8-3, 1-5-2)	1	3	4

<http://gomarauders.avc.edu/sports/wsoc/2015-16/releases/20151024pum11s>

Just as one can look for the Marauder Athletics Facebook page, one can access the Antelope Valley College’s Main Website and receive an update on the team’s latest statistics as well. One can see directly from the AVC website that AVC has three losses, one tie and one win as of October ninth playing against Bakersfield, in which they lost 1-0. One can also explore “full scores and schedules”, statistics of individual players, and explore much more in depth material on who has scored goals, how many goals are scored for the season, and even the assists and shots per game. Looking at the site fits into the genre for the discourse community by giving the players, and community supporters, the fans a total and complete insight of data for the season or the year.

Antelope Valley

<http://gomarauders.avc.edu/sports/wsoc/2015-16/teams/antelopevalley>

In looking at the purpose for the genre one can take a look into the historical context of women’s soccer as was suggested by Professor Justice. Before the nineteen seventies, women were not able to play sports through the educative system. The chances of getting into Law or Medical school were also significantly less for females. Congress made a positive change for women that changed the opportunity for women in sports and in being more likely accepted into specific programs into college, based off of non-discrimination and rights acts. “In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender at educational institutions that are recipients of federal funds,” This protects women’s rights to play sports and participate in team efforts that teach coordination according to Professor Justice, and perseverance.

Without the efforts of the judicial system, and women making a stand towards the right to play collegiate sports, we would not have the genre today in which we look at that contributes to school funding, and the teachings implications that the athletes learn while being a participant of the program.

Looking at somewhat recent statistics from 2007, a study conducted by the NCAA “According to the latest Graduation Success Rate, 84 percent of Division I student-athletes who entered college in 2007 graduated – the highest rate ever. Division I student-athletes continue to outperform their peers in the general student body, when compared using the federal graduation rate,” (6). The data did not consider students who were academically ineligible and did look at students who had transferred and graduated elsewhere. The study is conducted by the NCAA who are here to participate and excel student athlete’s progression academically and personal growth. The organization funds programs that monitor thought the APR (Academic Progress Rate) and GSR (Graduation Success Rate). I remember meeting with Mike Rios, the counselor responsible for delivering this program, and during this portion of my academic career, I had the highest GPA semester that I have ever had through my entire academic career.

Fitting this information into genre one can look at how the importance in origin, the goals of the community, and the supportive genre help build intercollegiate female athlete students in their academic career. Having the support of other teammates and having a role model on the field, both implement implicit factors into a student’s success. Although fears of stereo-types make athletes out to be as less intelligent, often times I heard my soccer coach state that there have been studies indicating that female athletes are more intelligent than male athletes. Whether this was a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I was delighted to hear that female athletes were smarter than male athletes.

Other studies indicate the stigma associated with these negative stereotypes in which I had felt no more or less intellectually being a part of the program. Being a part of the program brought for me good structure towards my academic career, a good place for stress relief, and a good place for discipline. Not to mention all of the other great factors that come along with it such as being able to travel to other colleges, making friends on the team, and learning how to work with others and not just on your own. While also, the programs that most athletic programs participate in, actually do help in creating a conscious plan towards achieving one’s academic goals by sitting down and reviewing ones progress throughout the semester. One can compare it to meeting with an academic guider, but in a pro-active way. Grades are always addressed before they become a problem, and not to mention I could use time on the bus to study.

As far as traveling as a part of our team efforts towards games, another factor involved was the increase in fitness. I remember my soccer coach saying “This is the fittest that you will ever be in your life,” and I would say to myself, no its not I am sure that I will be this fit again, and he was right. However I did manage to keep a lot of the muscle that I gained over the years.

A lot of the time my job was to play midfield and that was pretty much my only expert position. My job was to receive the ball and then to distribute the ball or shoot the ball from center field. There was a time when I had stolen the ball from the other team and I had felt that if I took the shot and missed that my teammates would had been mad at me for not having faith in them, so when I saw one of my teammates to the right who was open, I passed the ball over to her and unfortunately the defense from the other team took the ball. The reason why this game stands out is because I remember the coach being really mad at me for not taking the shot. I thought that at least I was being considerate to my teammates by having faith in their abilities, although it would had been ok to have faith in my own as well.

Discourse communities individually tend to have their own form of genre, for Antelope Valley Women’s Soccer in particular, the genre tends to be through social media, specifically Facebook, and the athletic portion of the college website as well. Discourse communities tend to have their own lexis, a written means to express intercommunication, and expertise within the discourse. In soccer, coaches have tended to obtain at least a master’s degree in kinesiology, while within the lexis soccer players are somewhat novices in comparison to the soccer coach, in which the players can learn about teamwork, increase their terminology from within the group, and learn to be team players for when they join the workforce as Professor Justice puts it, as he states it during one of the days of lecture.

In looking at discourse communities, one can say that the genre is always written, as I have heard Professor Justice comment. The genre is important because it is the part of the information that can be written down and then reevaluated later. Swales brings up this point in his writings which is how I remember it. It makes the uniqueness of discourse communities and their genre stand out the most because of all the written out details entailed. And needless to say, the diverged amount of written language that becomes so uniquely specialized and intercommunicated amongst members of the group to define the group through its ‘written discourse’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

1. Dirk, Kerry, “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Eds. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Parlor Press, 2010. 249-262. Web. http://writingspaces.org/essays.
2. 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>
3. Antelope Valley College. Marauder Athletics. 3041 West Ave K, Lancaster, CA 93536. Web. < http://gomarauders.avc.edu/sports/wsoc/2015-16/releases/20151024pum11s>.
4. Anonymous, . “Genre.” College Composition and Communication, 62.3 (2011): 560.
5. NCAA Research. 700 W. Washington Street P.O. Box 6222 Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-6222. Web. <http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/graduation-rates>