Gabriel Guillen Discourse Community: Response

In todays world there is a very large scale of diversity but there are also many similarities amongst us. Along with these similarities, people build ways of communication with each other that form a discourse community. The communication they build involves language, text, topics and everyday discussions. My peers and I have conducted three examples of discourse communities we share in common such as Social Media, the Catholic Faith, and Apple Product users. Social Media puts us in probably one of the biggest forms of discourse communities. Today Social Media gives us a wide grasp of communication. The language that takes place in some of the websites can be a word that meant nothing to you to the next second becoming a term you use widely and openly. Such terms that have accelerated through Social Media have been terms such as WCW (Woman Crush Wednesday) or MCM (Man Crush Monday). These two terms in particular are used on the social network Instagram. Woman Crush Wednesday is a post of a woman, usually appealing to the male users and of super model status, on a users photo. Man Crush Monday is essentially the same but appealing to the eyes of a woman, or those attracted to men. Social media provides a text such as tweets, direct messaging, and posts. Twitter calls the post users put up tweets it allows you to post to you rs and your followers timelines. Tweets have become especially popular amongst young people such as my peers and I, we all have and use our twitter accounts actively. The three of us have all used the social network not

Gabriel Guillen

only for the tweets but for one-on-one interaction with others, those one-on-one interactions take place in a direct messaging (DM) box on the social network. The DM box allows you to send a one-hundred forty character message to another user. It has been a very key element to my social life. If I dont have a friends number I can simply DM the person I am trying to reach. I can also use similar features like this on other social networks such as Facebook, Google+, and MySpace. Topics in this discourse community that are discussed are feelings, plans, current events, essentially anything you feel comfortable telling to the people who are you followers or friends. There are several guidelines to these Social Media sources such as the 140 character limit on twitter, most of these sites are very informal sites. People like to post personal things that wouldnt be considered professional which is fine by the sites mostly. The sites arent too particular in what you can and cannot post but you can report spam or profane things posted. Almost anyone can become a member of these social networks for free. There is usually an age limit to protect young ones from predators but it is very easy to gain access to social networks. Another Discourse community my fellow students and I had in common was our religion. We all belong to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is a very large community in El Paso, America, and even the world. My peers and I all go to different churches but they all have the same belief. The language that is involved with our church system is very formal. The topics used at church are revolved around Jesus Christ, his life, and his teachings. The texts used in the Catholic Church are from The Holy Bible. The Bible contains written books from many years ago with over centuries of writing on them. It consists of the Old Testament (before Christ) and the New Testament (post Christs birth). The Holy Bible contains teachings, prayers,

Gabriel Guillen

and history. The conventions that take place at church are the Priests Homily, Mass, and readings from the bible. Mass is the gathering of the Churchs congregation, the Priests Homily is the word of god spoken through the priest, and readings from the bible consists of songs and prayers. Anyone is welcome to the church from one second old until the hour of their death. The third discourse community we observed was that we are all Apple users. We all have some sort of Apple product that we use for communication. Each of us has an iPhone, at I have an iPad and one of our other group members has a MacBook. There are several amazing things you can do with an Apple product. The conventions on Apple products are almost limitless; with apps it helps you connect to the social media life, entertainment, and personal life. There are several different forms of text. You can text message someone. Apple has a feature named iMessage that allows you to connect your Apple products under one email or phone number and allows socialization with other Apple users via their Apple products. The topics brought upon an Apple product could range anywhere from professional to personal. It can involve everyday activities, be used as entertainment, and even be educational. The products are made to adapt to you. The products have several different language settings you can set to. The language used is typically informal but can also be used as formal depending on your use for the devises. As I discussed earlier there are several discourse communities. Learning about discourse community has given me a different perspective and its very interesting might I add. It has also given me more insight at the writing level and at the personal level of others. Discourse

Gabriel Guillen

community is all around us any where we look we are potentially looking at a discourse community, from social media, to Apple products, to Churchs, the principle is there.