Marina`s Discourse Community I am part of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which has a rich history and tradition, the foundation roots are based in Egypt. The Coptic Church was established by Saint Mark in the middle of the 1st century, which is now more than nineteen centuries old, was the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says "In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border." I go to St. Abanoub Coptic Orthodox Church in Euless, TX. I have successfully joined St. Mark festival which was a summer organization at church where we learn about the Holy Bible, explore more about the church tradition, take hymns (church …show more content…
praises), learn how to read and write Coptic language which is our original language in Egypt. Also we practice a lot of different sports such as soccer, basketball, and volleyball. At the end of the summer we would have a competition between the other Coptic Orthodox Churches in the Dallas area. I joined by paying my $30 fee and getting my shirt, joining sports, and caring for each other as a family. Our group wasn`t big, it was about 10 high school girls and 20 high school boys. St. Mark Festival or in other words, Mahragan Alkeraza, was from 1st grade to high school, but each group had different curriculums. Every church had a different shirt color to wear on the completion days; ours was green. For the Coptic language, memorization, and the lessons we would have a written test at the end of the summer, but for hymns each year it would be at a different church, where our group stands in front of 3 judges to be scored from 1st to 3rd place. Mahragan was all summer long, but I loved joining to spend more time with friends and learn more about church traditions. Every year before summer starts, I turned in my application with the fee and then received my shirt and the book which included all the memorization, hymns, lessons, and Coptic.
Remonda was our organization leader, and we had two teachers: Mary, and Mera since we had a small group. We all met twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday from 6pm to 9pm. During that time we would take an hour on the lessons and memorization which included psalms 50, 31, 28 and 136 from the Bible, then spend 30 minutes on hymns, and another 30 minutes learning Coptic. After that, we would have a break; we usually would go to Starbucks to get a drink or just stay at church, get snacks, chat, and go to the church gym to practice sports with our coach, Coach Norris. My struggle was reading Coptic, but my friend Tina helped me practice every Monday and showed me an easier way to do it. Since our group was all high schoolers, it made it easy to bond and get close to each other; even the teachers were nice and friendly they weren`t just our teachers for the St. Mark Festival and Sunday School but we had a close relationship and looked up to them. We would all look forward to these days to have fun and …show more content…
learn. For sports I played volleyball and soccer. In the beginning, I did really bad at practice, but after getting help from the coach and my friends, I improved a lot. By the time of the competition, I was ready. I was one of the first people to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and even though attendance weren`t required I never missed a day. We all helped each other to learn and improve as a team. Mahragan was something that I looked forward to each summer. Our favorite day was the soccer competition, we would all arrive early. We played at Blue Sky which was an indoor soccer field in Euless, Texas. Even though the boys and the girls had different games, we all cheered for each other joyfully. There was no better feeling than winning. It would be really intense and exciting. Mahargan was the place where I made most of my close friends that I still talk to up to now. Everyone had a part, and whoever could help helped the others either with sports, Coptic, or Hymns. We didn`t only help each other in Mahragan but outside of Mahragan as well. I went to Trinity High School in Euless, Texas were most of my friends on Manharga went, and we also shared some classes like: English and Spanish. We helped each other in homework and studying before exams. In the last week of the summer, each church had their celebration day where they announce what place each church got; it was the day where all the hard work paid off.
For Coptic, memorization, and the lessons each participant would receive a trophy for 1st place, a medial for 2nd place, or only a certificate for 3rd place, it depends on what your score was. But for sports and hymns we were scored as a team and received only one trophy, were we keep in our Sunday school class. Also on that day, everyone dresses formal for the pictures that were taking by our church photographer, Mark. These pictures were put on the church website, where they were kept forever to look
at. Joining St. Mark Festival (Mahrgan Alkraza) is something I will never forget or regret all the time and effort that I put in. It is where I made most of my summer memories and my close friends. It was not just about winning but learning new things, working as a team, and making new friends. If I could I would definitely join next year.
In the article “The Concept of Discourse Community” John Swales touches a few very important main ideas about what discourse community really is. I found it to be refreshing that he is able to express his feelings how he does in this article. Swales talks about discourse community and how our world today really isn 't that good at being apart of them. He discusses the six qualities or characteristics of being apart of a discourse community. You have to be active in communicating and wanting to be apart of that community and if you 're not that type of person than maybe it 's not your thing.
At Children’s First, our mission is to keep a safe, healthy, prosperous environment for children. Being a part of this community, I know firsthand what it takes to maintain an ideal setting for children to grow. It is essential for the caretakers to communicate, share information, and work together to put the children first. This core goal of ours, along with my own experience, analysis, interviewing, and observation demonstrate that Children’s First Daycare is a discourse community according to Swale’s six characteristics of a discourse community.
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
When looking at a particular discourse community, one can come across a number of genres that are appropriately applied to articles geared toward the discourse community. Looking at the discourse community of the stock market, the two genres that appear the most often are news articles and analysis articles. Both of these genres can be written with an intended audience of either people within the discourse community, or people on the outside of the discourse community. The key point of differentiation, is the language that is used throughout the writing. It can be written using terminology that only people within the discourse community understand, or in a way such that everyone will understand exactly what is meant by the author. In comparing these two genres and two types of audiences, we can better understand exactly how the stock market discourse community is portrayed not only among its insiders, but to everyone else as well.
A discourse community has an agreed set of common public goals. It is a group of individuals that have a specific way of interacting and communicating with one another. It is also used as a means to maintain and extend a group’s knowledge, as well as initiate new members into the group. Specific kinds of languages are used as a form of social behavior. Such discourse communities vary in size, purpose and importance.
UTEP Blast: A Discourse Community Khaleb King University of Texas at El Paso UTEP Blast: A Discourse Community Introduction A Discourse Community is a group of people that share a set of goals or discourses and within this group, find ways to communicate about these set goals. Discourse Communities can mean having a spot on a sports team, being a part of a school club, and even your workplace can be considered a discourse community. To be accepted into a discourse community, one must be seen as a credible source, one that has knowledge on the topic at hand and can help the group reach the goals of the discourse community.
Football is a discourse community I am involved in where the members have similar goals and expectations. As in, what Swales describes a discourse community as groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community” (Swales 466-479) Swales argues for a fresh conceptualization of discourse community, especially as a distinct entity from the similar sociolinguistic concept of speech community, and building upon the foundations of that argument defines discourse community in his own. In the Conceptualization of Discourse Community he talks about the six defining characteristics of a discourse community. The discourse community I am part of is playing and coaching football.
As of 2013, there are over 2.5 billion worldwide Internet users and the number is growing every year. People are spending more and more time on the Internet vs. watching TV or reading a newspaper. The amount of information on the Internet is vastly increasing and websites like “reddit” are aiming to help make finding relevant news easier. Basically, reddit is as if a gateway to everything interesting that is going on in the world.
In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales describes a discourse community as a group of people that “have a broadly agreed set of common goals, contain certain mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, have acquired a specific lexis, and have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content discoursal expertise” (Swales #). An example of such a discourse community is the legal profession. The legal profession has the common goal of understanding and applying general principles to particular factual situations. In doing so, lawyers use language, concepts, and methods that are unique to their community. In order to become a recognized member of the legal community, a person must graduate from law school and pass the bar exam thereby demonstrating an in depth knowledge concerning all areas of the law and the specialized rules, methods, and jargon used by lawyers to communicate about legal principles.
A discourse community is a group of people with relatively the same goals and interest to achieve a specific goal. Discourse communities gain there members by qualification, shared objectives, training, or persuading others to join their discourse community. In order for a group to be a discourse community, they must have their own languages, text, rules, and ethics that will make the discourse community run more efficiently. They will also have a form of intercommunication among the group to keep everyone involved or informed with upcoming events or just important news. Discourse communities will have a type of mechanism to provide feedback to help improve the group. The participatory mechanisms provide feedback from inside and outside of
"U.S. Coptic church gets bishop." Christian Century 113.3 (1996): 70. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.
Discourse communities play a big role in life and how humans interact in general. A discourse community refers to a group of people who have language, life patterns, culture, and communication in common with each other. The idea of a discourse community has also been used to bring people of different orientations together, like family members, students, or committees. All of these types of people might have different standards of living, like their level of income, education, and work abilities. Discourse community can also refer to a speech community, because the main feature of a discourse community is communication. A discourse community can include groups of different regional areas that may or may not share norms and living patterns
I have decided to visit a Greek Orthodox Church, Saint Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox church. I went alone because I figured that this would not draw too much attention during the service. I tried to find a nearby church that will give the service partially in English. When I found one near me it was my luck that I went at the time when it was all spoken in Greek. The English service was at six in the evening, and the all-Greek service started at ten in the morning. So to my discouragement I was at a lost at any attempts that I had preplanned to adapt to this new environment. I didn’t even get the name of the priest. While I was there sitting in the back I was able to dissect some of the norms of the church and the culture with in.
Arguments can be made anywhere we want them to be made. We can look at some of these arguments that we are making by examining the communities we use to make them in. Perceived in terms of context, argument is discussed in terms of the “audience” to whom it is addressed or in terms of the “community,” “field” or “sphere” in which it takes place. (McKerrow, p.27) By looking at a professional sports event I will address the audience and the community to explain the argument that is taking place. More specifically, the sports event that I will choose to analyze is an NFL game.
Looking back and reflecting on any moment in time will most likely cause you to remember only the most significant and broad parts, whether positive or negative. However, I think it’s just as important to remember the small details. When reflecting back on English 1010 it’s easy to do the same thing, just remember the bigger moments that affected you. Once again, I think that it’s just as important to look for the small details and little ways each assignment affected your writing. Two particular assignments I’ve done for this class that helped my overall sense of writing were my Academic Discourse essay and my Genre Experiment #1.