Wherever people group together, there is at least one community. Fathers and mothers form a community of spouses, and when they have children they form a community of family members. Businesses, neighborhoods, churches, fantasy football leagues, and the list goes on ad infinitum. What ostensibly initiates a community is the catalyst that brings its members together (professions, interests, etc.) but the adhesive element in any community, the feature that keeps it all together, is the unique discourse of each community. Discourse is the language that members use, not only to facilitate community actions, but also to establish the non-geographic boundaries of a community as well as reinforce the bonds that give it structure.
While a significant form of communication within communities is interpersonal verbal exchanges with often very specific lingo that broadcasts to each member who belongs and who does not (a social language), an equally substantial medium is the written word. A community may produce written discourse that the public is meant to see, such in the case of a newspaper or advertising agency, but there is also the discourse that is exclusive to the community’s own members. In large corporations this takes the form of memos that are formulated by executives and disseminated throughout the hierarchy. In the medical field this takes the form of patient charts which are nearly exclusively for doctors to record information for others in that specific community. These texts are constructed for internal efficiency and most often mean little to outsiders.
This all seems very straightforward until one considers the impossibly complex network of overlapping communities and the dizzying array of written texts with which a single person must be intimately familiar. I will once again use my current job as an automotive parts dealer for an example, but in this case I will draw from some of the various other communities that I must belong to in order to simply operate. The reason there are other communities that any employee must join is because, as with any organic entity, there must be incoming elements and outgoing elements for the health of the organism which necessarily involves members of other communities. In my last post I discussed how I have to adjust my language for customers in order to adequately assist them; this is my interaction with their discourse community, that of the automotive parts customer (their discourse is mostly dripping with irritation over mechanical malfunction). That effort is a result of the output from my business, and it is similar (not identical) to the discourse I must be fluent in for the technicians (I can use jargon and acronyms to my heart’s content with them). On the other end of the process my communications get more technical and somewhat more mundane. To illustrate this as briefly as possible, there are all of different aspects of running a retail and wholesale business such as shipping. This community is complex in the automotive industry because the US Department of Transportation heavily regulates the movement of heavily and potentially dangerous components. The latter has the most involved community with the most specialized language, HazMat (hazardous materials). In order to legally receive or ship parts I have to certify in hazmat training, which involves extensive training in complicated coding and documentation. I hardly ever use this discourse, but I am required to be familiar with it. This discourse touches all other parts of the shipping industry, so I find myself in the company of tens of thousands of others who speak this same language, and it is for their sake that I learn it well enough to establish myself within the community. By this I mean that a poorly constructed written communication on my part could result in confusion on the community’s part and if that happens during a crisis there could be disastrous consequences. Though not all professions involve such risk, all inter-community communications bear the weight of efficiency.
The crucial lesson to be learned here is that every interaction in which we engage thrusts us into a mixture of discourses that can either benefit from our input or be disadvantaged. Understanding our myriad roles in the wide spectrum of communities to which we belong empowers all parties involved because comprehension is a significant facilitator of improvement and growth. Whatever your community we find ourselves in, mastering the local discourse offers each of us untold potential.
Writing in Professional Communities 2014 
Hi Justin.
This post contains a lot of gems. I liked your drawing attention to how each community is defined, not by geography, but by discourse, and that within a group of people the community can be defined in many different ways, or groups within the group, depending on how members relate to one another. In the third paragraph you give example of kind of communities are a part of and interaction that takes place: with disgruntled customers (funny!), with technicians, and the unique HazMat community. You describe the different kinds of discourse and give good reasons why you need to specialize; to console, to share lingo and jargon, and to clearly understand for safety.
I would like to know some examples of the lingo and jargon. Perhaps also the paragraphs could be simplified or reorganized to attain sharper clarity overall. Great ideas but some more defined structure might help the reader a bit. I would like to know more about the hierarchy you mention as well. Do all communities have hierarchy?
An interesting example of how hierarchy can influence communication is in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”: he conjectures that languages which have a stronger hierarchy build in, for example Korean, can be indirect which in some cases has caused people lower on the hierarchy to communicate too softly/indirectly in times of urgency, and caused serious accidents. Indeed hierarchy in language or communication can influence the effective transfer of information.
Thank you for sharing your evocative post.
Rhea
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Justin,
When first reading your blog, it was clear that you understood the readings assigned throughout the week. Communication in a forum of discourse is essential. However, having the correct “style” or “form” is equally important.
The decision to use your work place is appropriate. I had never considered, prior to reading your blog, that the automotive field could be such an appropriate place to practice inter-community modes of discourse. For example, last month, I had to buy new tires for my car. The salesman had tried explaining to me the benefits of other tires that they had in stock. Unfortunately, the salesman had used terms that I had never heard of and failed to define them. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Michelin or Yokohama — I just need to get a fresh set of treads!
Anyways, the salesman had failed to communicate in the way you specified in your blog. Due to the highly technological aspect of automotive parts and equipment, this information needs to be relayed in a simple, but understandable fashion. However, the customer doesn’t need to be too bogged down with information. They just want their care fixed and to get back out on the road.
For your particular job though, I can see how one could benefit from imploring multiple modes of discourse for different communities. For just your job, you have to be able to speak to your employees, your customers, and your vendors. Each one requires a particular dialogue, as demonstrated by several of our readings.
Your blog otherwise is informative and acts as a great tool for understanding discourse communities and their purpose. However, I still think that there are some minor improvements that you can make relatively quickly. One area of concern for me is your third paragraph — it is extremely long! On my laptop, I have to scroll down twice just to read it. This text can be overwhelming for some readers, or some readers might just skim the information entirely. Lastly, even though your text demonstrates your comprehension of the reading, I think your blog would be greatly strengthened by quoting secondary sources. For your particular blog, look to Martha Stewarts’ chapter “Connect with your Customer.” You certainly seemed to connect with your customers at your job.
Great job though! Just some simple edits will make your blog look polished.
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Hi Justin,
You have clearly shown your understanding of discourse communities and I think you use some great examples from your own personal experiences. I like how you mentioned the HazMat certification and that you must learn a whole separate discourse community for your job yet you don’t really have to use it much. I experience something similar in my job. I work as a project manager in quality assurance for a food retailer. Because of the department that I’m in, I need to learn a lot about food safety audits and compliance regulations for our suppliers, however, I don’t really speak the lingo very much. I might occasionally do so with some of the other people in my department, but people outside of my department don’t understand the lingo and definitely don’t need to be bogged down with the fine details of compliance related terminology. Yet, I need to have an understanding to successfully perform my job, even though I don’t need to proficiently speak the discourse community’s language. One thing that I’ve noticed a lot with where I work also is that there are acronyms for everything!! This is another aspect of our discourse community for our department and this is something I do need to be proficient in. Especially when it comes to certification schemes. We work with our suppliers to partner with a select group of certification schemes or auditing agencies for their products. For example, we launched a gluten-free product line earlier this year. We are requiring that our suppliers become certified by one of the three schemes that we have approved. Each one has its own acronym and we refer to them by the acronyms rather than their full titles; GFCO, CSA, and GFCP. These are the acronyms for gluten-free. We have at least 40 others for regular plant audits to met with FDA regulations. It can get very confusing.
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