Is the High School Football Team a Discursive Community?

A discourse community is a community that has communication methods between its members. They use these methods of communication to provide the members with information and feedback. We can find discourse communities everywhere. 

Take, for instance, California. There are many discourse communities in this state, especially in small businesses and sports teams. When disseminating information, the community uses posters, social media posts, flyers, and more. But can we consider high school football teams a discourse community? Let’s find out.

https://www.pexels.com/ru-ru/photo/274422/

What is a discourse community?

By definition, a discourse community is a group of people who share a set of basic beliefs and values. We call these discourses. Every discourse community has its own set of unwritten and written rules. They use these rules to work toward a common goal. Not all discourse communities are the same. Some are more strict than others. In such communities, they require an official membership. But there are more informal communities too. Try reading discourse community essay examples to learn more. 

Read about examples of discourse communities 

Having free resources online is a boon for students. You can find many discourse community essay examples at GradesFixer website. Here, the essays discuss the main characteristics of discourse communities to make any student aware of them. These written works are free to read. When tasked to write an essay or research paper, refer to the free essay examples available on this site. Reading the examples will make it easier for you to understand what discourse communities are. Then you can relate them to football teams and other groups that possess the same characteristics.  

What are the characteristics of discourse communities? 

Any discourse community essay example should include a description of its characteristics. All discourse communities share these descriptive characteristics. Without them, you can’t consider a community as a discourse community. First, it should have a set of shared public goals that are broadly agreed on. It should also have mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. The community should use participatory mechanisms mainly to provide feedback and information. 

It should possess and utilize one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its goals. Apart from having genres, the community should also acquire specific lexis. Finally, it should have a threshold level of members with an appropriate degree of discoursal expertise and relevant content.

The reality of discourse communities 

There are many films with sports themes as athletes receive more attention than any other group in school. The disparity is that the jocks usually group together socially, no matter what sport they play. But when it comes to reality, such a scene isn’t very realistic. There are some things you can do to get accepted in the discourse community, like the football team at school. If accepted, you can create a strong bond with your teammates. 

Parsing the high school soccer team as a discourse community 

We can consider a football team an ideal example of a discourse community. To be good at football requires plenty of communication. You need to communicate constantly because of the factors involved, like subs, fouls, time-outs, and more. As a member of the team, each player should know their role. This applies whether off or on the field. The common goal of the team is to play offense. This happens when the team holds the ball and tries to score. The team in this situation is on the offensive.

In some cases, the team will also play defense. In this case, the goal is entirely different. The team is not in a position to score. Instead, they will try to get the ball back from the other team. In this situation, the game can change quickly depending on what transpires. For example, one of the opposing team members fumbles. Because of this, your team could end up with the ball. 

In this case, your team, which is on defense, will now go on the offensive. While on the field, you need to change your mindset. This happens after the defensive members complete their tasks. They have prevented the opposing team from scoring. They have done this by getting the ball back.

Before going into the field, team members communicate in a huddle. For your team to win, each player must know their own responsibilities. They should also know how to play well. As a player who steps into the field, you should have only one goal in mind. You want to win with your team by playing your very best. 

Conclusion 

A discourse community is a group of individuals who have a set of common public goals that they all agree on. These communities have intercommunication mechanisms among all of their members. They use participatory mechanisms that are mainly meant to provide feedback and information between members. In football, players who follow a set of rules can be part of this type of community.