The soccer team - Essay Example

the chosen group is indeed a discourse community when the characteristics are presented and qualified through the lens being used which is the aforementioned six characteristics. One can never know all the necessary information just by observing the group because there might still be other information that are not observable. Therefore, in addition to observing, this writer also used interview to gather the necessary information used in the analysis. The interview was done with a member of the group, Sharon Simons.

Swales says that, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (471). The interviewee says that as a team, their goal is to win the Atlantic 10 Season, the Atlantic 10 championship and the National Collegiate Athletic Association Women’s Soccer Championship. Obviously, the group does not just exist to perform or play but they have a goal that they are trying to reach. Secondly, “A discourse community has mechanism of intercommunication among its members” (471).

Asked about this, the interviewee says that thee team does not communicate in the field only but the members also talk off field to bridge the gap in their communications. She also claims that they do their planning during practices which often happen two to three times a week. Moreover, they do immediate planning during games and half-time breaks or whenever there are substitutes in the game. They do the talking and planning throughout the game because as it is observed in soccer games, there may be changes that might affect what could have been planned before the game or accidents that may cause change in plans.

The third characteristic mentioned by Swales is, “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” (472). True enough, the soccer team reflects this. As mentioned earlier, the team meets for practice, two to three times a week which is a fairly good number of times for good communication to