Discourse communities generally are a group of people with the same goal in a subtle way. These groups have a help system for people that are just starting or just generally need particular help to achieve this goal in a particular way. Discourse communities are everywhere and can be for anything. They can kind of be generally found in a workplace, in schools, etc, which makes them fairly significant. These discourse communities do not have to, for the most part, be for work though. They can even be for people looking to get better at a hobby. Everyone for the most part has an inside saying or other when conversing with cohorts/discourse communities that others would question the meaning or story behind. These words particularly are almost symbolic, demonstrating how these discourse communities can be almost like a secret club. The particular reason for this statement is that a word or phrase can be used in order to show who you actually are associated with and sometimes even how long you knew them. This term can be a common term that takes on a new meaning when with this group almost like a story or inside joke. A term me and my discourse community often use is the phrase “capping” or “no cap”. We use this word as a way to show we are being truthful or trying to specifically call someone out for lying. The term cap for the most has definitely taken on many meanings from bullets to lies. The term being used as a lie can be specifically found in the early 90s in the phrase “high cap” or “high capping”, which particularly is fairly significant in terms of how old this phrase has been used.
My discourse community formed in highschool around technology. Most of the members are pursuing careers in that field while others look at technology as a hobby. So the question remains, how did the word “cap” kind of become a word frequently used in our community when it particularly has nothing to do with technology. Well, the use of the term started fairly early in the sophomore year of high school when one person used it on someone who said something we specifically believed to be outlandish. This first introduced the word into our group where we would, for the most part, eventually add it to our vocabulary as a common saying. Eventually, in college, I joined another discourse community, demonstrating how these discourse communities are almost essential in everyday life. This one was a group that we would try to help one another in the constant math classes we were struggling with doing, as well as play video games and get better at them the different skill levels each member possessed, demonstrating how discourse communities do not always have to just be work-related. This went on till about the start of the third semester due to the fact I switched majors and have not had time to essentially play with them. This discourse community never really had a phrase or inside term or at least not to my knowledge. I have though met up with the high school discourse community more recently. They all still use the phrase “cap” which shows that this first introduced word into our group where we would for all intents and purposes add it to our vocabulary, which is fairly significant since I try to speak very formally. I only really met up with this discourse community sort of due to the fact they are significantly closer to me in terms of distance and how long we knew each other. Most of the members are pursuing careers in the field of technology while others virtually look at technology as a hobby. The term “cap” and “no cap” for all intents and purposes is still going fairly strong to this day it seems, with it being used in the same way it has since high school. That word really had essentially become an essential word to that discourse community sort of due to the fact it could be used for almost any situation. I kind of realized that this word has also joined my vocabulary because of this reason. Though, I for all intents and purposes do tend to use it in a generally more casual or informal environment since the word is still slang and can not be used in an important discussion. This word definitely is a word that is used most by most if not all people so they should already understand the meaning. This word also mainly makes it so there is essentially no real exclusion since anyone can in fact use the word particularly due to the fact it being a popular phrase used in songs.
Discourse communities are generally special and the one I am apart of in no way can sum up all the different, generally unique, discourse communities generally that are out there, contrary to popular belief. There is an undeniable truth when it essentially comes to the theme of these discourse communities based on the two I specifically was apart of. They were to help one another and to look out for each other. These came in handy so someone can stop you from messing up before you actually messed up. These rules came up and helped me a lot in the second discourse community I was apart of since in electrical engineering, they made you work with a soldering iron and, there wasn’t a lot of room for error. With them, I had zero burns but, when I was working by myself I kept burning my hand since I would forget that I was working with a hot piece of metal.