Exploring the Idea of Discourse Comunity and Relating It to the Drama Club of the Jackson High School

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Recommended: Importance of the discourse community

For my project III ethnography I am researching and observing the Jackson High School Drama Departments production of Annie: The Musical. The importance of this community is that it makes students involved be on there best behavior in order to participate. They have to stay of of trouble and be able to maintain a GPA that is required to be in the group. This group is also important because it is an expressive outlet that allows the students to be whoever they want to be. The drama department is made up of students from kindergarten to twelfth grade that attend Jackson city schools. Every student on cast and crew each has an important job to to in order to make the play successful. However in order to be successful the members of this group have to communicate to each other in many different ways. Some forms of communication are verbal while others aren't, but both ways are crucial in order to make to production succeed. Also communication doesn't just take place on stage, it takes place backstage and after practice too. Another way the group communicates with each other is using terms that and average person wouldn't understand. Throughout this paper I am also going to explore the idea of Discourse community and relate it to the drama club.

In order for something to be a Discourse Community it has to fulfill many requirements including a broadly set of common goals, communication between members, a way to provide feedback, possesses at least one genre, has a specific lexis, and has a threshold of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales). After observing this group of people I have come to a decision that they do in fact represent a Discourse community. The groups broad set of goals woul...

... middle of paper ...

...nterviewing members of that group and I been able to discuss and analyze the ways in which they communicate throughout the group. I learned the meanings and some customs and terms that are usually only know to this type of Discourse community. All in all this Discourse community was an interesting community to observe and analyze.

Works Cited

Balzer, Emily. Personal interview. 22 March 2014
Belonwu, Valentine. "20 Ways to Communicate Effectively With Your Team." Small Business Trends. N.p., 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 March. 2014.
"International Thespian Society." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 March. 2014.
Irwin, Zach. Personal interview. 22 March 2014
Nordquist, Richard. "Lexis." About.com Grammar & Composition. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 March. 2014.
Polcyn, Lindsey. Personal interview. 22 March. 2014
Ross, Kayleigh. Personal interview. 22 March 2014

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