Quote 1: A DC develops a sense of “silential relations” (Becker 1995), whereby there is a sense of things that do not need to be said or to be spelt out in detail in either words or writing.  (29)

Response: This is telling me that a DC develops an advocate of silence connections or relationships, where there are certain things as in this case words and writing that should be kept silent because there is no need for a DC to explain each word and writing in detail. I feel that this is because it is more confusing when certain things like these are detailed when it should be kept short and simple. 

Quote 2:  â€śMost definitions of discourse community get ragged around the edges rapidly.” (33)

Response: What I have found confusing about this quote is the part that says “get ragged around the edges”. I feel that the quote is saying that most of the definitions that define discourse community have a lot of negative qualities. When they mentioned rapidly, I’m assuming that these qualities happen too quickly, which is interesting because this situation hasn’t changed yet.

Three discourse communities that I participate in is:

WIAGA Golf Club

I am currently in a golf club called WIAGA (West Indian American Golf Association). I find this golf club that I’ve joined to have a broadly agreed set of common goals because all of us in the club share a similar goal, which is to shoot the lowest scores we possibly can every time we play. The way everyone including myself communicate about our goals is that we share parts of our game that we struggle on so that we can receive positive feedback on what we should work in order to improve our game. There is definitely a clear type of communication with all the members of the club. However, the purpose of us having these goals is so that we can become better golfers. We do not want to see others in the club struggle in the game, only succeed.  

Calculus 1    1475-OL21 class for the Fall 2020 semester

As in this class, I am in a discourse community because we solve math problems together in pairs (online). Our goal is to develop and strengthen our problem-solving skills making us learn how to read, write, speak, and think in the language of mathematics. We receive feedback from the professor and classmates if we missed a step or have completed a problem wrong. Communication as to my discourse community is done online through Blackboard. Also, if any of us are stuck on a certain step of a problem, we work together to make sure that we can get the problem right. The communication mechanism for this class is synchronous, where we virtually meet online as a class.

NSCS Honors Society

Last semester, I’ve joined an honor society called NSCS (National Society of Collegiate Scholars). As of right now, there are meetings, internships, ceremonies, and newsletters associated in this honors society. The goal is to provide a career, graduate school connections, leaderships, service opportunities, scholarships, and awards to college students who are doing well in college; GPA of at least 3.4. The communication mechanism is on ZOOM where we virtually speak to different students, members, and counselors about our education, what and how we are likely to work on in order to move on becoming successful leaders.