Basketball Discourse Community

The Team Can Be a Discourse Community Too:

The game of basketball along with football and soccer is one of the most prominent sports in the United States and the World. It’s played at every level from 5 & under to the professional athletes in the NBA and overseas. Every team is made up of virtually the same elements; the guards, big men and coaches. Basketball is not a sport where you can focus solely on yourself, but the focus should be on the team. The sport is very public and easy to see, however there are many things that occur behind closed doors when no one is looking.

A basketball team is a great example of a discourse community. In a discourse community you have a few characteristics such as the goals, lexis and genre of the team. Goals are the team’s main focus/points that they want to achieve. Genre is basically how the members of the team stay connected and in contact with each other. Lexis can be described as the language and terminology used between the team members.

Goals

At every level in life people use goal setting to chase and achieve a desired solution. John Swales tells us that, “a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.” (220) Goals are a worldwide starting point for a lot of different things that does not exclude basketball. Personally

when I play basketball I have my own set of goals. Make my teammates better, play my position and do what I’m asked, my goals personally are to improve every day through my ball-handling, shooting and footwork.
I interviewed a player from the Stephenson High School basketball team I asked him what is the main goal of the team and how do you find yourself helping the team to meet this/these goals? His response to me was,” Our first goal is to make the region tournament, but the big goal is to win state. Personally I think that if I play my role, be a leader, and do what I’m good at I can help win.” When achieving a goal you must stay motivated I asked him what motivates you to stay active in the group and achieving this goal. In a very short response he said,” Winning!”
Genres
How does a group of people, a discourse community stay in touch? In a discourse community we call how you stay in touch the genre. Sean Branick defines genre as, “a text that helps facilitate communication between people, and in this example all communication takes place within the discourse community.” (267)
We use a form of genre every day.

That phone call to your mom, and even that text you send your friends. We come across genre in basketball too. You have the scouting report, it shows the other team’s plays, their players and what they do. It keeps the coaches and players on the same page, it also helps the coach to know what to do in certain situations. Another form of genre in basketball is the playbook. The playbook consist of offensive plays and defensive plays that your team runs. It’s important because without the playbook it would take more time to learn the plays, players would be confused, and with the lack of time mistakes can be made that can cost the team the

game.
When I asked the player from Stephenson does he feel his team is well connected? He answered,” We are well connected most of us play football together too and are in the same classes. We’re together all the time. We have a group chat for our IPhone’s, for the people who don’t have IPhone’s we use Kik for a group chat, we use that more than anything.” I also asked him does he feel that the way members stay connected is efficient. If not what changes can be made? If so, what makes it efficient? After a brief thinking session he referred to the last question and answered, “Yes, we’re around each other all the time, like I said before we have a Kik group message, and kids our age always have their phone on them. So, we always in contact.”
Lexis
Another element important when discussing discourse communities is the Lexis. Branick says that lexis is,” is a set of terms that is unique to the community.” (266) In our terms and modern day we can say lexis almost like our lingo. In the North like New York they say things like; yo, and son. However in places in the South such as Georgia they say yall and folk. There are a lot terms and phrases that are used in basketball the world that might sound like rocket science to people outside the community, but to team make sense and help the community to work better and get them closer to their goal. Some terms like dunk or assist may make sense to people outside the community.
There are terms that might not make to anyone outside the team. Like on offense terms like “horns,” “burners,” or “tres up.” On defense there are terms like “clamps,” board,” or “cookies.” There are a lot of terms in the world of basketball, and it takes time to learn them all. Lexis varies from team to team, if the other team was to hear what is said they might not understand what is being said. I interviewed a previous player from Shiloh High School who graduated last year. I asked him what were some of the inside terms that the team used and what they meant he laughed and went on to say,” We said saucy a lot. We would be like ooooooooo he getting saucy. That means he had nice handles and he was about to cross somebody up. We said nutty a lot too. We would be that was nutty or hmmm nutty. People looked at us weird because they’re mind was nasty, but what we meant was like good play or that was a nice play.”
Conclusion
The world of basketball is more complex than it may seem from the outside looking in. Basketball and literature have a connection we can call a discourse community. Discourse communities are all around us like the band, frats, and even classes.
How do you even join a discourse community? I asked the player from Stephenson how long he been a part of the basketball team he said,” Last year as a freshman I was on the JV basketball team and this year I’m on the varsity team.” In this situation he joined another discourse community. In basketball you can go from community to community and still be a part of the previous community in a way.
When I was in high school I played on 3 basketball teams which means I was a part of 3 discourse communities. Discourse communities can build friendships and relationships. The Global game of basketball is its own big discourse community we’re all connected. Even people we don’t know we’re connected with. The world is a discourse community and were connected through a thing we call life.