From our class discussions and readings, I’ve learned that we all belong to more than one discourse communities. Some can be professional and others can be informal such as a group of friends. Aside from siblings and co-workers, I also belong to a rather unique group of friends with a specific set of rules similar to the US Constitution. Although not as important or strict as the rule or rather articles, in the constitution, there’s rules among my community. My group of friends are foodies meaning we go out to eat to random places. However, there’s one golden rule in this community. Every weekend, depending on our availability, we go out to a new place but this is determined by our cycle. In this community, we each have a turn to pick a place to go. Our means of communication is on the app Messenger or i Message in our group chats in which we talk mostly about our weekend plans. One of our most common words that we use is “bruh” or “ouwee”. At first, “bruh” was a word used in vines or memes as a joke and then it became a word to refer to one another or to express some slight annoyance. As for the word “ouwee” we use it to express being weirded out, surprised or simply bothering one another.
The US Constitution is far more formal than my foodie community though as it is the set of laws that we live by. In this set of laws, almost everyone’s’ power and capability is listed. For example, the articles listed within the constitution state the power of the branches: judicial, legislative, and executive. Within each group, there are rules to follow, certain terms expressed specially to that group and of course, an goal. Also listed in the US Constitution are the 27 Amendments. Among that list states the rights we have such as the 1st amendment which explains our freedom of speech, religion, press, and to assemble as well as petition. All in all the US Constitution is very important and has a very open minded type of language as it attempts to please everyone. Similar to my discourse community, we each try to make one another happy and consider their opinions as well as their wants and needs. Although the document itself is not a discourse community in terms of amount of people, it does have a goal, a specific language, and was created by a large group for another larger group. I have learned that no matter how different each discourse community is, each one finds a way to overlap each other into one big discourse community.
