Some discourse communities that I consider myself to be apart of include:
- Roosevelt students
- immediate family
- friends from high school
- high school graduating class
- friends from college
- church community
- Eleanor Roosevelt Society
- Alpha Gamma Delta
- University Center
- Hometown
- Communications or International Studies Major
- high school athletes
- campers
- dog people
My friends from high school have been an extremely influential discourse community throughout my life, and they continue to be. There are only four of us, but we are incredibly close. We communicate through text messaging, phone calls, skyping, facebook, twittter, and when we can, casual hang-outs. Our common language is mostly sarcasm, inside jokes, and words we make up on the spot but all understand. I became a member of the group by growing close, personal relationships with each one of the girls. We all got a chance to get close when we played soccer together our freshman year of high school.
There is no real permanent leader of our group, and I like to think that we all share power equally. The only "rules" in our group are though that are implied by our shared values. We look down upon murder, drugs, and espionage, but there are no actual rules of our group. When one of us, "breaks a rule," they will be confronted, and if it is absolutely horrendous we will probably stop hanging out for a while. It would be extremely difficult to do something worthy of being kicked out of the group. In a group of friends, it is not the goal to gain more power, because my life isn't Gossip Girl, but if I did want more power, I guess I would just start being an awesome friend. By being a really good friend, I would have the attention and respect of all the members of my group.
Part 3
Pretty much all of the groups that I associate myself with have a similar idea of success, they all want me to have a career and have a happy, long life. The difference is what career I should have. My hometown would find success in being a farmer, while my university would like for me to take a job where i could fight towards social justice. My family would want me to be a teacher in order to be successful, but my group of friends that are high school athletes would say to just keep practicing and maybe one day I'll be good enough to be a professional. Success to my church community would be to grow in my faith and raise a God-loving family and at the same time, my friends from college would view me as successful if I looked deep into different religions and weighed my options.
This conversation could go on forever, but the main point is that success is viewed in radically different ways, just by the people that I surround myself with. Many of these groups would look at each other and be disgusted at their ideas of success.
