Analysis Of The League Of Legends: Harmless Discourse Communities

A discourse community is a social collective that shares ideas, goals, values, and themes. Discourse communities existed in all facets of life, and are important to each individual’s social life. We all belong to varies discourse communities. The people you hang out with, the social networks you belong to, and even your favorite sports teams are discourse communities. Today we will look at a specific one; we will look at the discourse community of Mixed Martial Arts.

Which is why we believe that fantasy football functions effectively as a discourse community. Scholar John Swales has done a lot of research and work to help others effectively understand the concepts of discourse communities. John Swales proposes six defining characteristics that are necessary and sufficient for identifying a group of individuals as a discourse community. Swales’ very first step says “a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (Swales 220) which are achieved in a variety of ways including the “mechanisms of intercommunications among its members” (Swales 221). “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims” (Swales 221).

Preschool teachers have not been given the credit they deserve, with lots of people over looking their importance. Being a preschool teacher is more than just watching a couple of kids for a couple of hours. This field requires a lot preparation and behind the scene work that put into the job, so it really is not as easy as it may seem. Preschool could possibly shape the rest of their academic lives. At this level of school the children learn their basic building blocks for learning that they will use forever. That leaves parents with big expectations for the teacher. And for the teacher, they will have to set goals, have a plan to reach those goals, and for the most part

Dear friends and students of UTA, I humbly come to you with a simple argument, one that is close to my heart. Though it may sound trivial, the argument has been raging on for three decades, and has grown to a nation wide debate. The question: is there such thing as a gaming community? Again, the question may sound inconsequential, but consider this fellow Mavericks, what makes a community? Is it just a group of people meeting and having a good time? Or is it more? Is something like gaming able to unite people from all across the world? Admittedly, the argument is rather close to my heart. I have been interested games since the age of five. I

When my buddy and I are talking about ganking or getting ganked, we sometimes get weird looks from bystanders that happen to overhear our usage of the word gank. When we use it, we are not referring to the definition as to rob or to rip off like the definition from etymonline.com states, but we are using it in reference to the video game discourse community “League of Legends” that we are in.

A discourse community is defined as a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. We all belong to multiple discourse communities.To earn a position of a discourse community one must possess accurate knowledge, establish reliability of members to be accepted and learn to persuade other members of the community. The discourse community that I identify with personally and the profession I plan to pursue is the world of film production. However, there are many jobs that need to be done on a film set leading to there being multiple discourse communities within the film industry, what I want to focus on specifically is the DP, otherwise known as the “director of photography”. According to “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by educator and researcher John Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics.

As video games become more and more popular, we will inevitably see an increase in amount of video games being produced. The growth in popularity of video games is facilitated by the creation of a website known as Twitch.com. This website allows gamers and content creators to stream themselves playing video games online and interact directly with a live audience via chat. This new platform makes gaming both more accessible and more acceptable. The social stigmas that accompany video games are diminishing; in fact there has been an increase in competitive electronic sports as well. Logically, the growing interest in video games encourages programmers to make more and more games. Melinda Burgess et al presents an interesting perspective about video games. She explores the prevalence of racial stereotypes and how their effects are detrimental to society as a whole. In Burgess’s essay, “Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games”, she provides fantastic commentary on how top selling video games show “overt racial stereotyping” (Lunsford et al 551) and negatively affect how we think. By providing statistics and data about the videogames that she is critiquing, she effectively shows that there is may be a correlation between video games and how we think and interact with the world around us.

As part of daily life, we communicate and connect ourselves with certain communities. School, jobs, families, sports, extracurricular activities, and many other communities are just a few we come into contact with. Although these may seem to appear the same, there are specific types of communities such as a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field (Webcourses, N.d, Website) that has a share a common set of goals and attempt to achieve these goals (Swales, 1990). According to researcher and educator, John Swales, there are six characteristics that define whether or not a community is considered a discourse community. Following the criteria Swales states is necessary to be a discourse community, I did an in depth research on the American Sign Language community. Through my study, I was able to meet all six characteristics.

A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. John Swales defines a discourse community as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." The community I choose to identify with is special education. Special education teachers, or aids, really dedicate themselves and their time to others who need special assistance or treatment. The California Department of Education supports high quality educational programs for California’s big student population. According to the ideas from the federal government, the variety of the education working environment is one of the fastest growing areas of the American economy. The importance in understanding this career includes emotional, and physical growth of each student. Working with students who have disabilities can be very rewarding, but it is sometimes emotionally demanding and physically draining. Before stepping into the job of becoming a special education teacher, it is important to understand the patience that is needed in order to work with special children.

For the past week, I've combed through the pages of Reddit and delved deep into the community of one of the internet's most popular website. It is not unusual for me to waste away hours on Reddit on any given week, but this time it was different. Having read "The Concept of Discourse Community" by John Swales, a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, I spent my time on the website paying close attention to the nuances of this online community. While doing this, I took some notes, which I will now use to test whether Reddit, as an online community, meets the criteria for a discourse community. Before I get into that, I will go over what exactly is Reddit or a discourse community.

Since the dawn of time that humans have reigned around the world, they have formed groups or communities that share common goals or interest. John Swales (1990), a respectable professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, developed a list of characteristics to determine communities or, as he calls it, a discourse community. He identifies these characteristics as all the discourse communities has agreed upon common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, provide information and feedback, possess one or more genres of communication, distinguish vocabulary or lexis, and requirement for memberships (Swales, 1990, p. 1-5). The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), falls into the category as a discourse community. Founded in 1994, IGDA is a non-profit professional association that collaborates with projects that encompasses members from all fields of game development. They bring together developers to improve their lives and prepare the next generation of developers. The IGDA is a professional discourse community that defines all of Swales characteristic to be considered as a discourse community.

Imagine a large arena filled with two competitive teams. The tension grows and finally, one team prevails and is greeted by stupendous amounts of cheering. There are a wide variety of video games that are popular worldwide, and are played by many different people. Video games, and gaming in general, should be considered to be added in the many sport selections because of how similar it is to any other sport: how pro players that get paid, and how a lot of talent is necessary to play.

Last October, Riot held the League of Legends Season 2 World Championships, a tournament that brought the world’s best teams together for a week of intense matches. $1 million went to the overall champion, while a total of $5 million was spread out over the course of Season 2. Apart from the unprecedented cash prizes, the League of Legends tournament was able to bring in over 8 million “unique viewers” online, viewership that is greater than the National Hockey League’s (Heaven and Robinson). In South Korea individual e-sports events for the popular real-time strategy game StarCraft 2 bring in over 100,000 live attendants to go alongside huge numbers of online spectators (Robinson). On top of this, competitive gaming’s popularity is continuing to grow through 2013. David Ting, founder of Imagine Game Network’s professional gaming league, states that online traffic for the company’s tournaments is “doubling every six months”(qtd. in Heaven). Who would’ve thought that playing video games would turn into such a loved spectator sport?

The way League of Legends is a part of me is not the same one as other people. They might be similar, but not the same. The way League of Legends is part of who I identify can be seen as my ambitions and the way I act. I want to become someone great in this game. I want to become the Lebron James or Kevin Hart of League of Legends. I want to be on the World stage and feel that drive in my bones while people around me cheer and scream with passion. League of Legends is my ambition, it's my passion. This game has also been part of my humbleness, showing me to not talk high and always expect the best and worst out of any situation. You can be amazing at the game and you're the most viewed streamer or the most praised professional, but once you enter the Rift, all of that doesn't matter, it all

Online gaming is a fast growing past time. Many of the people who already played offline video games are moving to playing games online with their friends and family instead of in the same room. Part of the reason for this change in video game playing is the distance between each other, and the times people are available. Because of this new platform for gamers to use, there are changes in communication. My question is, how do the relationships outside of an online game effect the interactions of the players during game play? What I mean by this is what exactly is the speech code being used by online gamers, and how do the relationships offline effect it.