Sergio Olivas RWS 1301

Discourse Community Response

Unless there are social interaction issues, everyone belongs to some form of a discourse
community. In my life, I am fortunate to be part of common as well as unique discourse
communities, which include my family community, my friends community, my ME Clan
community, and my academic community. These communities vary from structure to structure,
but commonly, they all set out their objectives, discussions, discussion formats, methods of
communication, rules, and membership guidelines. These aspects allow the discourse
communities to endure over time to provide benefits for all of their members.
My primary discourse community is my family. Currently, my family consists of both my
parents, my younger brother, and myself. To become a member of my family, someone would
need to have a direct blood relationship with at least one other person of the family and would
have to live within in the same house as the rest of the family. The basic conventions of being in
my family include treating each other with respect and being patient with one other if a conflict
arises. These rules of mutuality are in place to ensure that the main goal of my family is fulfilled,
which is to provide support of each members personal ambitions or concerns. Not only do
conventions help fulfill this goal, but the topics of our discussions are oriented to know each
other and our situations in our environments. We do this through an oral literacy with meetingstyle genre when we gather for dinner. We also do fulfil our goal through a written literacy of
update/notification genre when, for example, one of us will be arriving home late. From the
primary discourse community comes the most influential discourse community.
The community I have with my friends is important to me because our main goal is to
establish and maintain long-lasting friendships. To gain membership into my circle of friends, the
individual must meet only a single requirement: must have been part of my high school music

Sergio Olivas RWS 1301

program. Being a band-geek for four years, I find the greatest pleasures with the friends whom
I have spent some of the greatest and worst memories. Rather than having conventions that
restrict our behaviors, we have conventions that encourage personal interactions, such as voicing
an opinion in any discussion we have and remaining honest to one another. Our topics consists of
common interests comic books, upcoming events and personal updates the statuses of our
academic positions, the statuses of our domestic environments, and the statuses of our futures.
We have these discussions through the casual conversations genre through oral or written
literacies from cell phone calls and texts. Within the friends community, I am also a member of a
sub-community of friends.
The ME Clan, like my friends community, also has the goal of establishing and
maintaining lifelong friendships. The requirements of joining ME Clan include having been part
of the music program, or being well known by every ME Clan member and be willing to play
video games at night. The topics of our discussions can be summarized into one word: nonsense.
The conversations are not specific or general, rather, the topics are brought up depending on
what one person wants to discuss. This leads into the convention of the ME Clan: everyone must
interact in the conversation as much as possible. Since our literacy is primarily written in the
casual conversations genre of social media, this convention enables members to maintain
constant communication with one another. Though having a strong support system of friends is
universally essential, a students main focus should be in his/her academic performance.
My academic community can be narrowed down as the students at UTEP community.
To be a part of this community, like any other higher educational community, individuals must
meet minimal academic requirements, submit an application to the university, and go through the
orientation process. The goal for the students in the UTEP community is to receive a higher

Sergio Olivas RWS 1301

education in order to compete for good-paying jobs. To reach this goal, topics in student-student
and professor-student conversation are about academic subjects relating to a particular course
that paves the way to meeting graduation requirements. In written literacies, students are
gathering and producing subject information through different genres: notes, emails, essays, and
other assignments. In oral literacies, students are clarifying information in the form of the inquiry
genre to the professors during class and office hours, or the explanatory and argumentative
genres to other students during group studies. In visual literacies, students understand concepts
or ideas better through diagram genre to demonstrate a system or relationship in a subject topic
for class. Also, through advertising genre, students can see diagrams to engage them to
participate in campus activities. Since the academic setting can create a stressful environment,
conventions include maintaining academic honesty and appropriate social interactions with
students, teachers, faculty, and other members of the UTEP community.
In conclusion, the goals, topics, formats, and methods of communication establish the
accompanying conventions and social norms as well as the membership requirements, depending
on the structure of the discourse community. The communities I have listed offer unique and
varying resources depending on their characteristics. Every discourse community I associate
helps shape my personal character into adulthood, and as previously stated, I am fortunate to be a
member of each of those discourse communities.