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Tommy Doctor
Professor Olivia Rines
UWRT 1101-002
27 April 2015
Micro-Ethnography: UNCC Cheerleaders
As an athlete and also a major sports fan, I am at all different kinds of sporting events
watching teams play or even playing in the games myself. I have noticed from personal
experience, that many people may find their eyes wander towards the cheerleaders at these sorts
of events. Cheerleaders have been around for years now but were first originated all the way
back in 1898 (Athletics). Ever since then, cheerleaders have been cheering on their teams,
pumping up their fans, and giving games a whole different level of excitement and character to
them. Cheerleaders spice up everything at these events and give the home team a real home field
advantage, which could drastically change the course of a game. The cheerleaders all have a
common set of goals along with intercommunication methods and their own specific language,
which makes them a discourse community. In this paper, I will prove as to why the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte Cheerleading team is a worthy example of a discourse community.
A discourse community is not a term that everyone is very familiar with. In the excerpt
The Concept of a Discourse Community from the book Writing about Writing by John Swales,
Swales gives his very knowledgeable input and ideas of a discourse community. He defines
discourse community as a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular
topic, issue, or in a particular field (Swales). Throughout this excerpt, Swales thoroughly
describes six characteristics that should be used to define a discourse community or to figure out
if a certain group is a discourse community or not.

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For the past few weeks Ive been making observations along with conducting interviews
on the specific discourse community of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
cheerleaders. Being an athlete and always seeing cheerleaders along with having an older sister
that was a cheerleader, I have some fairly good knowledge on the subject. But going into my
observations and interviews I tried to clear my slate on the subject and go into it with an open
mind, as if I had no knowledge about cheerleaders at all. This way I could observe everything as
if I knew nothing about it and I could obtain a substantial amount of information for my
ethnography.
The UNCC Cheerleaders all have a broadly agreed set of common public goals
(Swales, 220). This is Swales first characteristic of a discourse community and one of the
specific reasons why the UNCC Cheerleaders are a discourse community. The whole squad has a
set of public goals while cheering. For example, a goal of the whole cheer team would be to
increase school spirit at a school or during a game and to get everyone involved. Another goal
they have is to win at their competitions. No team in any sport goes into a competition not to
win. The UNCC cheerleaders go into their competitions to blow the judges minds with their
skills and win first place. During one of the interviews I conducted, I asked the question What is
your overall goal of cheerleading? Steph, whose name has been changed for privacy purposes,
is a freshman cheerleader on the team and answered with To be loud and get the fans involved
and make our players do better! This answer makes sense to me because that is most definitely
the overall goal of a cheerleader.
During one of the observations I did of going to one of the UNCC Basketball games, I
saw for myself the cheerleading squad all working for the common goal. There were two
different types of cheers the cheerleaders would do when I was watching them at the game I went

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to. The first type of cheer would be directed towards the fans, trying to get them pumped up,
make them cheer louder and get them into the game. The second kind of cheer would be directed
towards the players. For example, whenever Charlotte would score a basket, the cheerleaders
would pop up off the ground and cheer for them. This gave Charlotte a home field advantage
because with the help of the cheerleaders, the whole stadium was louder once they scored.
Communication is key between cheerleaders on multiple different scales. Swales states
that a discourse community, or the UNCC Cheerleaders, has mechanisms of
intercommunication among its members (Swales, 221). One of the ways the cheerleaders
communicate amongst each other is through texting. This is one of their biggest and easiest ways
of communication. While I was at another one of my observations, which was going to lunch
with the cheerleaders, I saw first hand how important texting was for the team. For example, one
of the cheerleaders was not at lunch with all of us. Another girl wanted to know where she was
so all she had to do was text the group chat that they were all in and ask where she was. Within
seconds someone answered and knew where she was and the girl that was lost was able to figure
out the change to the practice schedule.
Another form of intercommunication between the cheerleaders is a little more complex.
This is they way they communicate during a cheer or their routine and is called the count. The
captain of the cheer team calls out the count which is on a number scale of one through eight.
This is a way of communication to let all the cheerleaders know where they are in the cheer,
which allows them to figure out what move they have to do next. Without this way of
intercommunication, one cheerleader may lose his or her spot in the cheer, which could quite
possibly mess up the entire thing. This may even put someone in danger if a stunt, which has to
do with the cheerleaders specific lexis, is involved.

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A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide
information and feedback (Swales 221). This is Swales third characteristic of a discourse
community which also applies to the UNCC Cheerleaders. When the cheerleaders go to a
national competition, they are not just going to show everyone else how good they are. The
cheerleaders are going there to perform for a group of judges who decide whether or not they are
the best cheerleading squad in the nation. The National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) and the
Universal Spirit Associating are two different groups of people that are involved in judging and
giving feedback to the cheerleaders, which they then use to their advantage and become better
from it (Charlotte 49ers Cheerleading). Another participatory mechanism that provides
information and feedback to the cheerleaders is their coach, Adam Thomas. Coach Adam
coaches the cheerleaders just like any coach would and gives the team feedback on the things
they do well along with the things they do bad.
Genre is something that is all around us and we dont even think about it. There are so
many different genres that are associated with cheerleading, too many to even count. Swales
fourth defining characteristic is A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or
more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims (Swales, 221). The UNCC
Cheerleading team is all over social media. They communicate through social media and also
spread the word of upcoming events they have through it. This is a very important genre to the
cheerleading team. Two other genres that are affiliated with the UNCC Cheerleaders are sports
and music. Sports are a main genre for the cheerleaders because without the sports, they would
have nobody to cheer for. They also cheer for multiple different sports. Music is also a very
important genre to the cheer squad because without music, the cheers and routines they do would
be somewhat boring and even awkward. It would just be them dancing around. The music brings

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it to another level and gives the whole routine character. The songs I watched the cheerleaders
dance to at my observation of them at the basketball game were all very upbeat and modern
songs that everybody knew. This helped get the fans involved and interested, especially me.
In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired a specific lexis
(Swales, 222). As I mentioned before, the UNCC Cheerleaders have their own specific lexis.
When I think of the word lexis, I also like to think of the word terminology as an easier way to
understand it. The team has a certain and special lexis, or a specific set of words in their
language, which helps them communicate with each other throughout their cheers, talking
during practice, or just reminiscing about cheerleading amongst themselves. Cupie, hurkie, and
tick-tock are just a few examples of the complex terms of the cheerleaders lexis. These terms are
not commonly known by somebody who is not a cheerleader so that is why it is so important that
the cheerleaders learn and understand all the words, which they do, so during a cheer or a
practice it is easy to communicate.
When I asked, What is the most important thing you can tell me as being a
cheerleader? while leading my second interview, Beth, another freshman on the cheerleading
team, said that I would like for everyone to know that cheerleading is a lot harder than people
think. We dont just shake our pom poms and dance around. We work hard and practice and have
to know a lot more than people think. This was something I could tell she was very passionate
and serious about. When I went back and listened to the interview, I figured that the lexis of the
UNCC Cheerleaders was something that Beth was talking about that takes a lot of practice and is
harder than people think. The lexis of a cheerleader is a very complex list of words that helps the
UNCC Cheerleaders in many different ways. Without the help of the cheerleaders, I would have
even more of a difficult time than I already do with the language of cheerleading.

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Swales last defining characteristic is A discourse community has a threshold level of
members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales 222).
While doing my last observation of the UNCC Cheerleaders giving me a private performance of
their routine, I concluded that Swales last characteristic holds true; this was even on a small scale
of the cheerleaders. It was easy to figure out which cheerleaders had more experience then others
when I was so close to them while observing. The older cheerleaders on the team had more
experience and directed the younger cheerleaders around helped them out if they were
struggling. There are also various levels of expertise on a different scale of members. The
Athletic Director, Judy Rose, has total control of the cheerleaders. She has the power to decide
whether or not they even have a program. Then it goes down to Coach Adam who has expertise
over all the girls, decided what the do, what cheers they do, and how they do them. Next would
be the captains of the UNCC Cheerleaders or the older and more experienced members because
they would be able to share their expertise with the younger girls, who are on the bottom of the
list. Being on the bottom has nothing to do with skill, it is just a matter of experience and their
expertise of being a UNCC Cheerleader.
Discourse communities are groups that are all around us and in all of our everyday lives.
Before this assignment, I had no prior knowledge of what a discourse community was,
whatsoever. Now they are something I can spot out easily. With the observations and interviews
that I conducted and with the help of John Swales himself, I was able to prove that the UNCC
Cheerleaders are a discourse community. The main goal of these cheerleaders is to entertain the
fans and get them into the game, cheer their team on and encourage them to win, and to earn first
place when they compete in competitions. The UNCC Cheerleaders are a great group of people

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and I truly enjoyed my time analyzing them as they are definitely a worthy example of a
discourse community.

Works Cited
Athletics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2015, from http://twin-cities.umn.edu/athletics

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Official Site of Charlotte 49ers Cheerleading. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2015, from
http://www.cheercharlotte.com/links.htm
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community.Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.