Discourse Community Analysis : Northwest Varsity Basketball Team Essay

About three weeks ago, the Packer Varsity baseball team beat Berkeley Carroll school for the first time in twelve years and in glorious fashion. Tears streamed down my face as our winning run crossed the plate in extra innings, dust flying up as my teammates and I mobbed each other at the plate. Yet a few short days later, our team was blindsided by the news that St. Ann’s had pulled off back to back upsets to squeak their way into the playoffs ahead of us - just as our season seemed to be looking up, it was over.

I walked off the floor with sweat dripping from my hair. So many thoughts flew through my head that I couldn’t focus on anything. My junior year of basketball felt like it ended as quickly as a blink. It was as if in seconds we went from the stars of the state tournament to the embarrassments of it. I tried to forget the disappointment of it but it still will not leave. My desire and love to win games comes from the more apparent hatred of losing them. Junior year we had a chance to win a state championship, but we lost that chance. That was when I realized that I had one chance left to win. Senior year our basketball success would only be as rewarding as we would make it. The pressure placed on ourselves was substantial, and we faced trials on the road to success. In the end, we stood alone, crowned as the champions, not letting our chance slip away.

A discourse community comprises of a group of people sharing a common and distinct mode of communication or discourse, especially within a particular domain of intellectual or social activity (Oxforddictionaries, 2017). Some of the discourse communities I consider to be a part of, include an Indian joint family, my peer group, high school education in India, the Apple community and education at Pace university.

To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time, a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre—type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. In the following paper, I will discuss three discourse communities and a genre that they typically use: people who read Nutritional Facts religiously, college students, and industrial organizational psychologists.

Coach Steve Rocker is one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Kentucky’s history. Coach Rocker was very successful in previous years. Strangely, this year was very different for him. For the first time in his professional life, he is falling short of his expectations, the community expectations, and the team’s expectations. His team lost a lot of games, but most importantly the boys had no motivation or desire to bring the team out of the rut they found themselves. His players have lost their will to win, their love for their teammates, and their passion to play. Coach Rocker’s motivational methods that have always worked before and resulted in success are now failing, and he doesn’t know why. He argues that his players have become selfish and bored with winning because they have been so successful in previous years. “And there’s no question that my guys have lost their drive to win because they’ve won so much in the past. Now all they want is individual ‘wins’…which just doesn’t cut it on a team” (Gongwer, 2010, p. 17).

With the Christmas tournament aside, we entered the post-season without a loss. We had a plan for each playoff game from districts to regional. We never deviated from the plan, keeping our eye on the target –

In order to be accepted into a discourse community, a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. In this paper I will prove that I entered the discourse community of my high school soccer team by acquiring knowledge, establishing my credibility, and learning the game I love. In other words, I will be using the ethos, logos, and pathos appeals. I love to play soccer and watch the professionals who play on TV. I have played since I was ten years old and always played in a city league team. The requirements of being part of the team were simple but at the same time very hard. I was recently part of my high school soccer team, the Crowley Eagles. People might

A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. According to the criteria conveyed in “The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales, Christianity can be considered as a discourse community because of its common goals, medium of communication, participatory mechanisms, specific genres, and its threshold level of members.

Effective writing allows for both the participation and addition of knowledge in discourse communities. A discourse community is a group of people that develop and share a sense of identity primarily through the sharing and exchanging of information on a specific subject or field. The two main form of communication in discourse communities are through reading and writing. Through reading one becomes familiar and starts to understand a community, and writing is when one participates in it. Each discourse community develops its own unique technical language, often referred to as lexis. The lexis allows communication between the community to be precise and to the point [6].

Rhetorical Analysis of “As Bad as They Wanna Be” In a world of commercialization and advertisement, college sports usually provide a welcomed oasis from the furnace of money-hungry advertisers. This, however, may not be true forever. In the past few years, an increase in advertisements and deals between colleges and corporations has become noticeable. In the article “As Bad as They Wanna Be,” the author and speaker Thad Williamson effectively describes his concern for the UNC Tar Heels and the amount of commercialism and advertisement that is appearing around college sports.

After I watched two hours of intense play and the huddle split, I observed high fives and complex handshakes of some sort. “Hampton on three. Hampton on three. ONE, TWO, THREE, HAMPTON!” They started coming my way; as an ex-basketball player, deep down I yearned for a handshake or some kind of acknowledgment, but I sat there like a fork in the road. Each member parted around me to my left and to my right, some giving head nods and some giving nothing at all. I quickly realized that I was clearly not a part of this discourse community.

According to John Swales (1990), there are six characteristics that are adequate and important for recognizing a discourse community. Firstly, a discourse community has standard public objectives that they strive to achieve. Members of a discourse community all share the same common goals they are anticipating to attain, and they do not have individuals with separate goals. For instance, the Salvation Army public goals are “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” They offer spiritual, physical, and emotional service to the public, as well as the opportunity to donate. Secondly, a discourse community has various techniques of communication for members to correspond with each other. For

Over the past class periods in ENGL 1301, we went over the rhetorical skills used around us in our daily lives. By persuading the audience using Ethos, Pathos and Logos, writers can maneuver their audience in any way that they wish. More specifically, in order to be part of a community, that person must share the views to be considered a member. All throughout my four years of high school, I believe I was part of a discourse community. That discourse community was the basketball team. This paper will allow me to confirm that notion with my teacher as well as my fellow students with the credibility, the community knowledge, and the same values that the community and I shared. A discourse community in the words of Linguist John Swales, are "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." Our goal as a basketball team was to make it to the playoffs and win the state championship. Although people saw that goal as a little farfetched, we as group of teammates believed that that was

Cambridge mass the city of chance, opportunity, diversity and most importantly basketball. Growing up as child in Cambridge all you hear is stories about basketball and the great tradition, reputation we have built to become the model of a winning basketball, program over decades that seamlessly trout out great teams contending for the right to be named state champions every year. This tradition is passed on to each generation of kids in Cambridge very young because most likely my father your father once wore the falcon jersey over his chest or if we go way back in the 90’s those teams wore the warriors across his chest. I played for the falcons and graduated in 2015 after having finished my high school basketball career on a memorable run to the Boston garden. Playing in the semi finals against catholic memorial to be one of four teams to punch in our ticket to the big dance and represent as eastern mass champions in the DCU center for the state championship. Looking back at this photo brings me back to 2011 when I was still just 16 years old just dreaming about wearing the Cambridge jersey but I wasn’t doing so well with life. I was constantly getting into trouble with the law, not respecting authority, not focusing on my education and not taking my basketball career seriously everything was a joke to me I didn’t believe I’d make it this far in life there wasn’t much motivation to either, basketball was my only hope. It’s hard to believe the kid in this photo

Winning is every coach or player's main goal in any sport or in life. Although winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Coaches spend countless hours preparing for a big game and this builds up the fear of a loss. No one wants to lose after you dedicate hours upon hours on the court and in the books scouting and preparing for a game. Therefore, winning becomes the only option for you and your team. Throughout this persuasive essay, dedication, toughness, and ** will explain why “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”