Discourse Community Essay

What does it mean to be in a discourse community? How does it feel to be in a discourse community? A discourse community is a form that unifies people who share the same beliefs, wear the same traditional dress, worship same God, express same manners and share same culture and tradition. A discourse community helps find your own identity and makes you feel convenient in a group. There is a humongous group of Indian people residing in Fort Smith, Arkansas. As a part of this discourse community, I share certain body language, dress, manners and beliefs. We also speak a mixture of two languages, English and Tamil, called “Tanglish”. Tanglish is most commonly spoken with my family, relatives and friends in India. Tanglish is also popular in what’s

app and other apps related to texting, which makes people easier to convey their message in Tamil written in English. Tanglish memes have also become extremely popular that has jokes in Tamil language written in English that appeals to be hilarious to Indian people.
During major Indian festivals, such as Diwali (festival of lights), Holi (festival of colors), Pongal (festival to praise farmers and cows for labor work in agriculture), and Ganesh Pooja (worshipping Lord Ganesh), where people in this discourse community in Fort Smith join together to celebrate the festival sumptuously.

We wear traditional Indian clothes, cook Indian food and sweets, worship the God with hymns and prayers, and recite stories to children explaining about the ancient period in India and how the culture, beliefs and values are passed from generation to generation. Festivals unite us together and brings out an immense joy and happiness. During such festivals, cooking plays a vital role for women as making scrumptious sweets enlightens the whole day. Before eating those appetizing sweets, an important ritual precedes as those sweets are kept before the God and prayer occurs. Festivals are always filled with embellishing colors and joy that spreads across from children to elderly people. Another most important cultural tradition that Indians follow is respecting the elder people, usually youngsters touch elderly people’s feet to gain their blessings on important occasions and festivals. This tradition is followed wildly across India because in our tradition old people’s words and blessings are very powerful and respecting them is

essential.
Recently, Tanglish plays a pivotal role in our discourse community as texting and chatting in both Tamil and English creates an entertaining atmosphere while texting. Memes consists of pictures of famous Indian celebrities and comedians; Tanglish memes are used to express people’s funny thoughts in Tamil and English, delineating famous movie dialogues modified a little to match a certain situation. Indeed, memes are used more than texting to mock and ridicule someone. People also communicate faster in Tanglish than speaking alone in Tamil or English. Most of the Indian people in this discourse community talk a mixture of one of the Indian language and English.
Moreover, some of the traditional practices that we follow is living with parents until marriage, removing shoes when entering any home or place of worship, greeting each other by saying “Namaste” or “Namaskar”, hospitality is greatly endured where Indians serve their guests with excess food till they get satisfied and shower them with great respect, we also practice not to eat non-vegetarian foods on certain days and on festivals for religious reasons like I don’t eat non-vegetarian food on Mondays and Fridays as they are considered auspicious and religious days, and showing respect to other people is an integral part of our culture as mother, father and teacher are highly revered and touching their feet and seeking their blessing is also a common practice.

Indian culture is rich and unique in its own style. Indian subculture in Fort Smith creates a nice ambiance to share and practice our culture and tradition. In addition, food plays a significant role in practicing our culture as Indian food is rich and savory filled with spices and herbs. If a guest arrives, we cook delicious and varies kinds of food including rice with chicken and vegetables in a spicy sauce and with other variety of Indian foods. Treating guests with good manners is essentially important as all family members greet the guests as they come inside the house to show respect and courtesy. Everyone talk together sometimes even in Tanglish, eat dinner, sing some Indian songs and watch movies to end the day

with a genial feeling. When it comes to family it’s very important to preserve the family traditions as Indians are always dependent on their families that till their marriage, people live with their parents and siblings together.
Although evolution over time changed people’s perception on tradition and culture, some traditions are still followed rigidly such as not wearing shoes or sandals when entering someone’s house as it is considered disgrace. Modern culture is changed and alters the tradition and culture in a significant way. But there is still joy and happiness in this discourse community without changing much of our tradition and still practicing our culture and values. Indian culture is very old and is practiced for a long time. More old people in India are still orthodox and their words and sayings are still powerful and mighty; so Indians are always submissive to elderly people of the family. Our Indian subculture in Fort Smith is filled with norms, traditions, parties and get-togethers that portrays nothing but beatific joy.