The definition of discourse communities has been argued over for a long

period of time. I will be using the guidelines created by John Swales that
narrow down what characteristics a Discourse community obtain. The
guidelines are as such 1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of
common public goals, 2. A discourse community has mechanisms of
intercommunication among its members, 3. A discourse community uses its
participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, 4.
A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in
the communicative furtherance of its aims, 5. In addition to owning genres, a
discourse community has acquired some specific lexis, and 6. A discourse
community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of
relevant content and discourse expertise.
To summarize a discourse community it is a group
that has a goal or purpose and to accomplish that goal or purpose use
communication. Following this definition I found that a high school football
team and volleyball team displayed all the requirements necessary to be a
discourse community. I will dissect these two discourse communitys to
answer the following question, how do these two communitys communicate
to accomplish their goal? I will answer this question by dissecting each
component of the team from the coaches to the players and show how the
information is communicated, learned, and used during a game. I will show
the lines the information follows from the Head Coach, to the assistant

coaches, to the position groups, and the team as a whole working together.

First is the football team which has the purpose of winning by out
preforming the opponent at hand. Information comes from the head coach
and he then has a group meeting with the assistant coaches to allow them to
grasp this new information. Then the assistant coaches give the players the
information that applies to their positional groups. For this example I will be
splitting the football team into offense, defense and the positional groups
that make them up. I will also use a frequently play used by the offense and
defense to show the lines of communication and how it is interpreted and
used to accomplish their goal. The play I will be utilizing for offense is 22
zone. The positional groups for offense are quarterback, running back, o-line
and receivers/tightends. Starting with the biggest group the o-line. The
purpose of the o line is to create room for the running back to run and to
protect the quarterback while he throws. The o line knows that since the
number is in the beginning of play it is a run, they know that since it is an
even number it is a run to the right, and since the second number is a two
they know that the running back will be running through the two hole which
is between the right guard and tackle. Also because it has zone they know
they will be getting the person to their right and hooking them which takes
them out of the play. A way the line man communicate with each other is by
using the terms cloudy and clear cloudy is used when an opponent is
lined up on them and clear when there is no one lined up on them. This lets

the cloudy player know the clear player will go straight to the linebacker.
Next the wide receivers/tightends which have the purpose of catching the
balls and also blocking. From the receivers and tightends view they know
that it is a run play because the play starts with a number rather than a pass
play which ends with a number. The receivers and tightends job at that point
is simple which is to block the person in front of them and if there is no one
someone to the right of them because they know from the even number it is
going to the right. If it was a pass there would be numbers after the zone
word and the numbers are connected to the type of route the receiver or
tightend would run. Next is the running back which has the purpose to run
the ball for as many yards as possible. In the running backs perspective he
knows he is getting the ball because the play starts with numbers, is going to
the right because it is even, is going through the 2 gap and that the line men
are going to block the person to the right of them because of the zone.
Now the quarterback purpose is to hike the ball, give it to the running back
or throw it to a receiver. The quarter back runs to the side line and the coach
tells him the play then he goes and tells the play to the rest of the offense.
The quarter back knows it is a run to the right and will hand the ball off to
the running back because of the 22 telling him its a run to the right. A few
special words the offense uses is on the o-line, they say lake indicating
to go left and river to go right and they say this just to make sure everyone
knows the direction to go and the quarterback yells Blue 22 before he

snaps the ball but this means nothing , it is just something to say to confuse
the defense.
Now the defense which overall purpose is to stop the opponent from
scoring. The defense consists of the d-line, linebackers, and secondary. The
play I will be using for defense is Over cover 2 Starting with the d-line
which has the purpose of stopping the running back or getting the
quarterback before he throws the ball. This play is very simple for the d-line
because all they would have to do is line up more to the strong side which
is where the tightend is lined up so if the tightend is one the left side the dline will line up more to the right. Next is the line backers which have the
purpose of stopping the running back and cover certain area of the field. For
the linebackers they also line up towards the strong side but if the play is not
a run play they will drop back into coverage and they know by the cover 2
and this tells them which zones they have to cover on the field. Next is the
secondary which has the purpose of covering the receivers then play the run.
Only the cover 2 applies to the secondary which gives them the specific
zones to cover during the play. The play is given to the middle line back from
the side line by hand signals that the whole defense should know. Some
words the defense uses to communicate is the secondary yells cover 6
showing they are all playing zone and the line backers yell the strong side so
they and the d-line can know where the strong side is.

Now the volleyball team which consists of six players for one team. The
team consists of a Setter, Libero, Middle blockers/hitters, Left Side hitters,
and right side hitters. Starting with the setter which controls the team and
place the ball in the air where the hitters can hit the ball over the opponents
court. Next is the Libero who have the responsibility to hit the ball over the
net and to serve the ball over as well. The middle blockers/hitters block the
ball when the opponent hits the ball over and the hitters hit the ball over
when the setter sets the ball to them. Next are the left side hitter that hit the
ball when the setter sets the ball to their side. The right side hitters all
simply hit the ball when the ball is set to them. In this team there is no plays
it is by instinct and depends on where the ball goes after the setter sets it,
but what there is are certain formations being used and the formations are
used depending on what opponent they are playing to best defend or to
score points on because each school runs something different and what
makes this volleyball team different is that they change their formations to
have an advantage over their opponents. Each player has been taught by
their coach their skills and each formation they will use depending on the
opponent that week. Some special words the team use as a whole are out,
over, mine, and set. Out means that the ball that is being sent over by
the opponents will land out of the box in which they play in so they yell that
so no one hits the ball, over means when the opponent serves the ball and it
looks close to the net someone will determine if it will go over so they can
get in formation, mine means that if the ball is sent over high and two or

more players want to hit it one will say mine and that person that says mine
will hit the ball rather than the others, and set means that when the setter is
going to set the ball she yells set to let the hitter know the ball is being set.
The differences in these communities are the amount of
communication that is being used. The football team has communication
going from the coach to the quarter back to the rest of the team to their
positional groups and the volleyball team is allowed to play and make their
reactions while the coach watches. In both their goals are the same which is
to overall win and the players must in both teams must have multilitericies
because they have to able to read either the offense or defense.
Referring back to John Swales article The concept of discourse
community gives his definition of a discourse community by creating these
six characteristics to guide the idea. My paper relates to Swales because of
the need to show his definition of discourse communities and I do so by
showing the examples of the football team and volleyball team that
contained his six characteristics of a discourse community. My topic is also
related to Mirabelli Learning to serve which is about how being a waiter is
so much more than what people think and as a waiter you need to have
multiliteracies. My paper is related to this article because I am also trying to
show that sports need more than just physical aspects but also mental
because they every player required mulitliteracies.

Overall these discourse communities are very complex and require a

great deal of multilieracies the way the communication is brought from
ear to ear is very complex because it comes from the coach to the
players and the players communicate while executing and they have to
be able to read certain things during the games that sometimes comes
down to instinct. These teams are discourse communities because they
each have the six characteristics that Swales created for discourse
communities. In analyzing these communities it has given me the
insight to communication and the importance of mulitlitericies in how
they allow us to function.