Joshs Discourse Communities From the time the sun dawns to when the sun sets, there is communication

in everything. This is unless of course you live under a rock, which even then Patrick Star, who did so in the Nickelodeon TV show Spongebob Squarepants, was immersed in conversation. I never realized that is there is an obvious difference in the way each person communicates in different settings; with different people; and at different times. For example, you wouldnt see a football coach giving his player a lecture about the early 1900s. Rather, hed be getting the boys ready for the game with a pre-game speech saying he wants to see every single one of them dying for air when they get off that field. Each group any person is a part of has certain members that all strive to reach a goal. When this group works together to reach this set goal (even though they may not realize it), they communicate to each other in a distinct way that is different than another group. These groups are called discourse communities and everyone is a part of different discourse communities. I myself am a part of but not limited to three discourse communities: my church, my hockey team, and my social network Facebook. I would like to share with you what my discourse communities are and what purposes they serve by first showing you the people who are part of the communities, then by revealing the goal of the communities, and finally by showing how these communities bring up a specific way they communicate. The First discourse community I want to get into right away is my church. My church is called Cielo Vista Church and its members vary from the ages of 2 months to 110 years old. At my church there are many different people of every race who attend, even from around the world. To become a true member of this group you must repent of your sins and ask Jesus to be

your Savior. By doing this you commit your life to Christs purpose for your life and you are freed of sins hold on you. My church discourse community is focused on one goal: Loving God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength, and all our minds. Love is a verb in this context. Our goal is more than just reciting a catchy line. In loving God with all our hearts, we must fully trust Him. To love Him with all our souls means to praise Him through all our actions and speech. To love Him with all our strength means to do everything with our absolute best abilities in His name. Lastly, when we love Him with all our minds, we keep our thoughts pure and focused on His love rather than on the things of this world. This leads to discipleship in which we share Gods Word, the Bible. We share this by holding sermons every Sunday where the pastor of the church preaches about love, faith, and courage. He does so with the help of a PowerPoint that is shown on multiple big screens to help everyone follow. As you enter church you are given a pamphlet that has the outline of the lesson which has the outline identical to the PowerPoints outline. Also on the pamphlet are notices for upcoming events the church will be having and the schedule for all the classes that occur within the church. We attend these classes in order to interact with each other by sharing encouraging verses and passages of the Bible. These interactions help clear our minds and stay focused on our goal to love God. My personal favorite verse is Ephesians 2:8 which states, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. The relationship we all have is more like a family. We refer to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. So, when we attend these classes with the same goal to love our God, we speak to each other with kindness and compassion, always there to help each other. Being part of a community like this has a huge impact on how I view people and the world we all live in. I see

everyone as Gods child waiting, starving for Christ. I see it as my duty to reach out to those who need Him and to do so by being an example of Christ. My second community, my hockey team the El Paso Rhinos is in many ways a different community than my church especially in its members and very much so in the way we communicate. To become a member of the El Paso Rhinos (if youre not part of the coaching staff) you must try out, make the team, pay the balance for team and travel expenses, and work hard every single day whether it be at the ice rink or the training center. In the tryout, we players go through intensive fitness tests to weed out the best players who will make the team. The tryout consists of dry land training where the player sprints for the fastest time along with how many reps he can do of benching, thrusting, etc. The reason the entry process is so challenging is because the main goal of the team is to win the league trophy, the Thorne Cup. Every meeting, every training session, every day is dedicated to winning the championship. It is understood that practice is every morning at 6am and work out is after school. On top of that there are Elite Training sessions (a professional term used to describe personal training on the ice) and extra practices at night you are recommended to participate in. Every minute is valued to become a better team. This makes our communication very quick and to the point. For instance, the coach describes a drill on the small blackboard where the precise position the player needs to be and when. Hell say something like, the center needs be the supporting guy, so that forces the wing to cover his spot. That, however, is the first and last time the coach will describe the drill; because, like I said, every minute is valued. If the players mess up too many times due to not paying attention he will make the players skate and say something like, For fuck sakes boys,

its not that hard. During games, communication is limited even more. The players on the bench will talk to each other about what they couldve done better the past shift and what theyll do next time. This involves the players pointing out which spots theyre talking about. The game is very fast paced, so on the ice communication is limited to small terms like I got wide! Step up! Hit him! Really though, at the end of the game all we want to hear is we came out victorious. Being a part of this hockey team makes me realize that there is only a certain amount of time to achieve my goals, and I cannot waste any time on pointless distractions. It has helped me become a dedicated individual who will believe in myself and stop at nothing in order to achieve my dreams. My final discourse community Facebook is more of a past time and has a more minor goal than spreading the Word or winning a league trophy. The members are only those who I accept to be my friend. There is a huge variety of people in my Facebook community. They range from younger kids who Ive autographed jerseys for to Pastors from Costa Rica and hockey players from Czech Republic. Although I know everyone I have as a friend on Facebook, there are only a few people I interact with continually. The main reasons why I have Facebook is for my entertainment, to show meaningful messages to my friends in which I wouldnt be able to otherwise, and to connect with my friends who have unfortunately become strangers. Since I know a lot of players and missionaries from around the world its very convenient in keeping contact with them. The site makes it easy for me to find old friends since if I and someone else have the same friend it will bring to my attention I might know him/her.

The main interaction is the status update. Facebook is basically a public diary to let everyone know what youre doing or maybe how you feel at the time. This means there isnt a lot of punctuality or actual sentences. There are a lot of abbreviations and lazy sentences. Most of the time I focus on the things that entertain me simply because thats one of my main goals, to be entertained and pass time. Because of this, memes are very popular. One funny meme for example shows a mom smiling at her daughter saying, Yes, Dear. Mommy does take special medicine because Daddy is a dick. Short, funny, and most of the time profane, this is a direct result of how Facebook is a form of entertainment. Its not all slang though, I am able to send a message with meaning like a meme I posted saying If you can afford beer, cigarettes, and cable TV then you dont need food-stamps or welfare. A little more formal (to show seriousness), but still short, I would put a message like this so for those of my friends who are scrolling through news feeds can glance at it quickly and still receive the message I am trying to send. Because the community consists of so many people looking for something funny or relatable (and dialogue is visible to the entire community), communication between my friends is mostly informal, mainly for other people to see it and realize the relationship we have. For instance, a recent post my friend put says, Only Josh Beezy would call me at 12:30 hyped as hell This is a fine example of how we try to catch the readers attention , and communicate with loose grammar. Although I like using Facebook as a tool to communicate with others and pass time, I easily let it be a weapon of distraction. Im sure Im not the only one. All of these discourse communities have shaped not only the way I am, but also the way I view the world. Because I believe so much in the Bible, I look at the world through Gods point of view thinking what would be the best way to be Christ-like. I am a motivated individual

because its not that hard; and I tend to work well with others as a team because of hockey. Facebook makes me realize how important it is not to lose communication with old friends. Learning about someones discourse communities by looking at who comprises them, what they do, and how they communicate is definitely a good tool in getting to know him/her personally. So hopefully Ive achieved my goal and you now know about me on a little more personal level.