INTRO, Day 3: Wed. Feb. 1st

8 Comments

1. 

   Justin He

   February 1, 2023 at 9:30 pm

   A) I personally just don’t like to read in general so me not enjoying this piece of writing wasn’t because of the piece itself but because of my disinterest in reading

   B) The 6 features are “shared goals and purposes, common knowledge base, interaction patterns, genres and mode of discourse, participatory mechanisms, evaluative procedures.”

   C) The goals were to play music together, share favorite songs, and improve musical skills, bringing the members together and making a community in a sense.

   D) A mechanism for intercommunication would be conferences. With conferences, people can come together and pool their ideas, building off of each other and sharing their achievements.

   E) In the case of Melzer’s guitar jam group their genre would be coming together, to play and discuss the music, and they help each other, getting closer to their goal.

   F) Since I have been in an orchestra I can relate to Melzer’s group, the language musicians use would be the letter that is assigned to each individual note they are playing, the tempo, the clef for the different kinds of instruments they are playing and etc.

   G) the beginners and experts work together by using their specialties. For example, while a beginner is not especially good at playing music, the expert can give tips and advice to the beginner while the beginner can also help by pitching in ideas to help the group.

   H) I believe I belong to a gaming discourse group. While this discourse group is not working toward something serious, I believe it can be considered somewhat of a discourse group. Me and my friends play a competitive game against real players and we strive to climb the ranks symboling your skill. Right now we are all around the same rank “gold” which is a bit better than the average player. However, we will try to hit a higher rank this season.

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2. 

   KarriemTaylor

   February 2, 2023 at 5:16 am

    I found this piece interesting and informative because it taught me a concept that was brand new to me and is something that can be useful for college and beyond. This piece wasn’t hard to understand however sometimes I would find myself getting confused or lost while reading the text.

    According to John Swale (and Dan Melzer) the features all discourse communities have been:

   1. A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals
   2. Mechanisms of intercommunication among members
   3. Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information and feedback
   4. One or more genres that help further the goals of the discourse community
   5. A specific lexis (Specialized language)
   6. A threshold level of expert members (24-26)

   The shared goals of Melzer’s guitar jam group were having fun, enjoying the music, and learning new songs. Basically, the goal of the group was to share new songs with each other, increase knowledge and skills of playing guitar, and in general while doing these things enjoy and have fun. For example, according to the passage “Understanding Discourse Communities”, “I shared songs that no one had brought before, and that expanded the community’s base of knowledge.”

   A mechanism for intercommunication is telecommunication which means, the “transmission of messages over long distances” according to slideshare.net. An example that Melzer provides is in the passage he says, “The guitar jam group communicated primarily through the Meetup.com site. This is how we recruited new members, shared information about when and where we were playing, and communicated with each other out-side of the night of the guitar jam.” This example from Melzer shows the mechanism of telecommunication being used in the guitar group he is in.

   Melzer explains the idea of discourse communities having genres that further the goals of a discourse community by telling the readers when you use genres in a discourse community, it forms social action. And the social action can be used to further the goals of the discourse community. Melzer’s guitar jam group used two genres. The first genre they used was the meetup.com site and the second site was the handouts with song chords and lyrics.

   What it means for discourse community to have a specific lexis is to have specialized terms. An example of the specific lexis that Melzer’s guitar jam group used is a 1/4/5 chord progression. That was just some of the specific lexis that Melzer’s guitar jam group used to communicate with each other.

   The beginners and experts in Melzer’s guitar jam group work together with having the expert members be examples of how to do things while playing guitar to the beginners and being someone, everyone can be educated by. The beginners also can be helpful towards other beginners and experts. For example, in the passage Meltzer says “I shared songs that no one had brought before, and that expanded the community’s base of knowledge.”

   A discourse community I belong to is the students at The New York City College of Technology.

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3. 

   Santiago Jimenez

   February 2, 2023 at 10:53 am

   1. 1) I thought the piece was interesting by the informal tone used and how relatable it feels with the use of the guitar example.

   2) “1. A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals

   2. Mechanisms of intercommunication among members

   3. Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information

   and feedback

   4. One or more genres that help further the goals of the dis-

   course community

   5. A specific lexis (specialized language)

   6. A threshold level of expert members (24-26)”

   1. 3) Some of the guitar group goals were to improve their guitar skills and how to work as a community by expanding on it for example when the about bringing songs for the community to try out that they hadn’t seen before.
   2. 4) One example of intercommunication is how the more experienced player would bring handouts with notes on them to make it easier to understand for the less experienced player.
   3. 5) The guitar group would play different types of genres like rock and blues to expand on their skills as well change position so hat everyone got experience in all of them.
   4. 6) Every discord community having their own Lexis refers to the specific language that is used to explain concepts related to genre. For example the author used Em7 to refer to E minor 7.
   5. 7) The beginner guitar players get guides from the more experienced player and add their own inside to expand the community.
   6. 8) One discourse community that I’m part of is the community as citytech.

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4. 

   Maria Solis Cohetero

   February 2, 2023 at 9:46 pm

   • I found this piece interesting and relatable as we ourselves are part of different discourse communities. There were portions of the reading that lost me which I had to reread to understand the context.
   • According to John Swales, each discourse has the following features: 
   • A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals
   • Mechanisms of intercommunication among members
   • Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information and feedback
   • One or more genres that help further the goals of the discourse community
   • A specific lexis
   • A threshold level of expert members
   • The shared goals of Melzer’s guitar jam group were to have fun, enjoy music, and to learn new songs. The main goal was to all learn from one another and become better guitarist and introduce things to the group that weren’t seen before. 
   • A mechanism for intercommunication would be a group meeting. Melzer’s mechanism for intercommunication would be “Meet-up.com.” Through this site the group was able to communicate, recruit new members and share information onto when and where they would be playing.
   • Melzer explains the idea of discourse communities having genres that further the goals of a discourse community since genres can bring about social actions. The genres the guitar jam group used were the “meet-up.com” site and handouts with songs chords and lyrics. 
   • To have a specific lexis is to have a unique language that can be communicated within your community. An example that Melzer’s guitar jam group used was “putting a capo on different frets.”
   • The beginners and experts in the group worked together to expand their knowledge. The experts in the group would set the example and help educate the beginners on the conventions of the group. The beginners of the group would help expand the knowledge and introduce new ideas that weren’t seen before. As a beginner Melzer stated that he “shared songs that no one had brought before, and that expanded the community’s base of knowledge.”
   • I would say I belong to the Radiology Community. In radiology there are many words that aren’t used quiet so often. There is specific terminology we use when speaking to doctors, radiologists, and co-workers that a nurse wouldn’t understand although were all in the medical field. As a community, we are there to help one another, work as a team and gain as much knowledge to become better technologists

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5. 

   Mamadou

   February 3, 2023 at 8:07 am

   a) I really didn’t find his own experience in the piece enjoyable to read – perhaps it was just me or some of these noted setting events just weren’t needed in the article to make your point in discourse communities and writing. Though, Melzer makes a good connection with his own story and the shift change in the article really brings some sort of strong presence within his piece. As Melzer states, “You can write in a journal alone in your room. But most writers, like most musicians, learn their craft from studying experts and becoming part of community.” Important to note as this is how a ‘discourse community’ is formed, having intrinsic strategy and similar thought processes curated to sharing the same goal.

   b) According to Melzer, paraphrasing Swales, there are six commonly differentiated features surrounding discourse communities:

   • A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals
   • Mechanisms of intercommunication among members
   • Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information and feedback
   • 1 or more genres that help further goals of discourse community
   • A specific lexis (specialized language)
   • A threshold level of expert members

   c) The shared goals Melzer outlined about his guitar jam group is to play music, be together in a conjoined setting, and communicate with one another. Melzer used Meetup.com as a way to communicate with other people that also played guitar and as a result of this, he asked a variety of questions – how they found their passion for music, skill levels and how they all met. He also asked for information about certain chords and strings associated with X song(s). As noted by one of the features by Swales, Melzer is using communication mechanisms to provide information and feedback.

   d) As cited in the article, Melzer describes his own mechanism of intercommunication by outlining how he found this band of people who played guitar on Meetup.com. To preface once more, a mechanism of intercommunication can be through various sources of communication and engagement – with the information he used a website to meet up with a band of members, this constitutes a valid form of intercommunication mechanism.

   e) The usage of genre, or genres, further betters the set goals of a discourse community. Melzer explained that there are different ‘genres’ to music, outlining specific genres like rap, country, reggae, and heavy metal. Melzer states, “Genres arise out of social purposes, and they’re a form of social action within discourse communities”. To understand what he means, we can look back at his own experience using Meetup.com to communicate with other people of his same interests. To form a strand of communication within the group meant very much to Melzer as he describes that it was “critical in the formation of the group and to help it (meetup.com) recruit new members”. Another genre example Melzer explained was the handouts of chords and lyrics. It benefited the group in making sure everyone could play along and follow to the singer.

   f) The idea of specific lexis, through Melzer’s perspective, is the knowledge of understanding one another in a topic-generated discussion. In this instance, all of the group members are all geared in towards the guitar knowledge skillset. Melzer states, “We talked about the root note of the scale, a 1/4/5 chord progression, putting a capo on different frets, whether to play solos in a major or minor scale, double drop D tuning, and so on”. Right here, you can tell they’re very advanced in the guitar metrics as they’re engaging in discussion about very unique features of a guitar. In the end, they all needed these specialized lexis strategies to communicate and play effectively.

   g) The sheer experience paved the way for the entire group as they all depended on one another to learn something new. According to Melzer, sharing experience is vital in a discourse community. I agree with him, with the help of experienced members coupled with the same thought processes, a discourse community thrives.

   Meltzer uses all contributing features/characteristics of a discourse community perfectly in his own community, further cementing his own points.

   h) I would probably say I’m either in a basketball or book-reading discourse community. These groups fit with the featured criteria to further better ourselves as a discourse community, all with the same shared goals.

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6. 

   Gregory

   February 5, 2023 at 9:51 am

   • I found it to be somewhat interesting, more so about younger Dan’s ambition to be a rock icon than anything else. It’s a cute story.
   • Discourse communities have the shared goals of:
   • Public purpose
   • Specific/Preferred modes of communication
   • A culture of respectful assessment
   • Specific genres of writing
   • Common lingo
   • A group of experts within the community(~24-26)
   • The goals of Dan’s Jam Group are best displayed by this quote. “I learned that they chose songs with simple chords so beginners like me could play along. I learned that they brought print copies of the chords and lyrics of songs to share…”. This indicates that the goal/purpose of the group is to teach; To educate beginners to the know-how of the community while having simple fun.
   • A mode of communication, like a phone, an app, I think there’s some people who still use letters? Anyway those are ‘Mechanisms of Intercommunication’, the one Dan’s group specifically used was their Meetup.com page.
   • Dan uses the example of music but in summary he explains genre as a format of communication. In the case of music the ‘format’ of its genres are based on not only the sounds it uses with its instruments, but how the musician would sing if they even do sing. The genres that Dan’s music group uses are music sheets and Meetup.com.
   • When a community has a specific lexis it means the group has certain ways of talking, words, and abbreviations that would make sense for that specific community. A specific one that Dan’s Jam Group used are music sheets, it contains notes for their instruments that those involved in the community will understand.
   • Less work together and more like the experts within their group listening to the beginners play and giving tips and tricks. An example of this is when Dan mentioned “I also got good advice from experienced players, like soaking your fingers in rubbing alcohol every day for ninety seconds to toughen them up so the steel strings wouldn’t hurt as much.”
   • I would say I’m involved in a non-serious/competitive gaming discourse community.

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7. 

   Zair Mardio

   February 6, 2023 at 12:30 am

   I found the essay very interesting, it was simple but impactful and was not too long which I enjoyed. I like the ideas of a music community because I used to play the Flute and Piano, having a community sounds fun and very efficient in improving as a musician. According to the text there are 6 features that all Discourse Communities have to follow, which is “a broadly agreed upon set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among members, use of these communication mechanisms to provide information and feedback, one or more genres that help further the goals of the discourse community, a specific lexis, a threshold level of expert members.” The goal of the guitar jam was for the “monthly gatherings are for having fun, enjoying the music, and learning new songs.” A mechanism for Discourse communities are forms of communication used among the group for information or just contact needs. According to Melzer, it “can be emails, text messages, social media tools, print texts, memes, oral presentations, and so on.” Genres that Discourse Communities use are different types of features in their shared interest or subject that is used to further their goals. A genre can also form from social actions within the group, which is also helping the community as a whole reach their goal. The Guitar Jam Discourse Community have two genres to meet their community goals, which is to use meetup.com for critical information and new recruits, the second genre is the handouts that some members brought to the meetups. A Discourse Community can have a specific lexis, meaning that they have their own type of communication for their interest. Like Forex, we have a different lexis than Stock Option Traders, we use Pips and Quantity while they use Shares and Contract Amount. Though they may sound similar to people outside the group, they have very different meanings. Melzer talks about the different lexis that is used in the Guitar Jam such as “root note of scale, a 1/4/5 chord progression, putting a capo on different frets, whether to play solos in a major or minor scale, double drop D tuning, and so on.” Which is used to better communicate with the group on how and what to play, also helping each other grow as musicians. Melzers community sounds very social and passionate about playing the guitar. Having people teach each other, bringing handouts, and even letting different people lead the group, making the community effective and inclusive. I run the City Tech Game Club with 3 other people, which would be one of my Discourse Communities. We have a vast lexis, pulling together from different gamers, since we are inclusive and open for more people. We make sure that we all have the same goal which is to make a safe space in our college and a place to have fun or relax from classes.

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8. 

   Miguel

   February 6, 2023 at 2:38 am

   . I like this piece becauseI felt a little bored when I read it at first, and then I began to get caught up in the content. By the end, I felt that I had learned something new.

   · According to John Swale and Dan Melzer the 6  features do all discourse communities have is 

   1. A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals

   2. Mechanisms of intercommunication among members

   3. Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information

   and feedback

   4. One or more genres that help further the goals of the dis-

   course community

   5. A specific lexis (specialized language)

   6. A threshold level of expert members 

   · The shared goals of Melzer’s guitar jam group is to having fun，enjoy the music and learning new songs. They show a very united team here, the main purpose of which is to teach everyone how to play the guitar and exchange skills.

   · Melzer guitar group Mechanism for intercommunication  in a website call Meetup.com and they use handouts with chords and lyrics to share information with other community members.

   ·Melzer defined they genre by making comparison to other jam group and the genre of Melzer jam group is the meetup.com website and second genre is handouts with chords and lyrics. 

   · For a discourse community to have a specific lexis can be more effectively when playing together and the specific lexis Melzer jam group have is putting a capo on different frets or a 1/4/5 chord progressions.

   ·The  experts help beginner in Melzer’s guitar jam group to play guitar provide information and teach skill to them and beginner and let the beginner play solo round，playing new songs come from the beginner.

    ·I don’t think I belong to any discourse community.

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