Mahendra Bassoo Discourse Communities
Discourse Communities are a part of our lives as everyone shares something with one another whether its a hobby, a major that they are studying in college or even the way people communicate with one another. Two Discourse Communities that I consider myself to be a part of is Baseball, something that I love a lot and Communication Design, the major that I am studying in college.
Baseball is a Discourse Community I love being a part of specifically because of the passion of the game itself that I love. The understanding of Baseball as well as the fanbase of my favorite team the New York Yankees make it very special to me as I consider the Yankees as a whole standard in a way of baseball. The first ever time I considered myself a part of this Discourse Community was a random day back in 2016 when i randomly scrolled through the channels stopping on a Yankees game watching them hit a walk off grand slam vs the Red Sox watching the Yankees celebrate not knowing what had even happened. That then led to me trying to understand the game and how it worked. From their since the seasons were 162 games it gave me time to watch more and more games eventually catching up with the curriculum leading me to find a passion and love for the game. The way I connect to other fans making this a Discourse Community is when we all cheer for our team when they do something positive such as hitting home runs and winning games. I experience connection with other fans when they end up asking me a lot of questions about what’s going on talking about the Yankees or all around baseball in general knowing I can answer them as I just keep up with baseball news all around the league. A nice nickname associated with the Yankees is the “Bronx Bombers” which just means the team hits a lot of homeruns. Homeruns are when the batters hit the balls into the crowd resulting in automatic runs which is obviously a good thing. Another popular term that every team in baseball can relate to is “ace” which just means the best starting pitcher (the guy that throws the ball for multiple innings) on that team. One very popular nickname was given to a player by the name of Aaron Judge which is the “Captain” and he was given this title because of the fact that his whole pro Baseball career will be spent with the Yankees as he was drafted by them, developed by them in the minor leagues and then eventually developing into a superstar with them as well as signing a massive contract (where he was then named our Captain) to remain with them. He is considered our leader and also could be seen as the face of New York. Some of these terms or nicknames might not ring a bell to casual people but that’s what makes Baseball a Discourse Community I’m proud to be a part of.
The other Discourse Community I am a part of is in my college and that’s my major Communication Design. I got into this Discourse Community because of Architecture as I was first in Architecture in this school but after struggling to keep up the one thing that I learned from Architecture was how much I really enjoyed designing and decided to switch into a major focusing on Designing which led to me switching to Communication Design, essentially meaning I didn’t belong in the Architecture Discourse Community as opposed to Communication Design. The reason why this Discourse Community is important to me is because even though I’m still new this is the field I will take part of for my career and I do enjoy Designing as well as having the ability to be creative along with some of the people I met makes me enjoy being a part of this Discourse Community. An experience I had when it came to communicating with others using terms was kind of the feeling of a normal conversation as it felt like we were essentially in a working environment going over what the boss assigned us to work on. Some terms that I’ve used so far in this Discourse Community are “type” which is just the different amounts of letter choices on different software’s used for typing, designing or advertising, as well as “Foundation Drawing” which is basically just one of the beginning classes that is drawing heavy which I took which I bring up to my friends a lot because that’s the class I met them from as well as “Photoshop”, “Illustrator” and “InDesign” which are the three main software’s that you must get used to using for this major which is where majority of your work will be on. I think an important step for me to further develop my passion of belonging in this major and fitting in is kind of simple yet effective and that’s just to work harder.
These 2 Discourse Communities are similar to a passage that was given to me in my English class called “HERS” which was about a woman in a medical field talking about her experience in the classes as well as talking about her struggles learning about a lot of the terminology commonly used in those classes as well as nicknames some of the professors gave to their students. An example of her not understanding the terminology was when she said “I started out in a state of primeval innocence, in which I didn’t even know that ”s C.P., S.O.B., N/ V” meant ”without chest pain, shortness of breath, or nausea and vomiting”. It made her nervous as she felt like she wasn’t going to catch on and keep up in this field, similar to me when I started out in Architecture. “I learned a new language this past summer. At times it thrills me to hear myself using it. It enables me to understand my colleagues, to communicate effectively in the hospital. Yet I am uncomfortably aware that I will never again notice the peculiarities and even atrocities of medical language as keenly as I did this summer”. This is another quote from the passage where taking time to learn and getting comfortable in a Discourse Community can take time as she studied and got familiar with the Medical field, similar to me learning and understanding the terms of Baseball.
I think that no matter what people thinks, this world is revolved around Discourse Communities as every single person shares a common interest with one another whether its work or a hobby or even communication to one another. Honestly I’m a person where belonging in a community doesn’t really matter to me but the further understanding of what a Discourse Community is made me accept that everyone is a part of a Discourse Community as everyone shares a love for something or works in the same field of line.
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