University of Memphis Discourse Communities Paper

Description
Your goal is to compose an interesting description and insightful analysis of the language
practices (spoken and written) of a discourse community of your own choosing.
Choose one of the following prompts:
1. Imagine you’re writing a briefing for someone (spy, cop, investigative reporter) who’s
going undercover in your discourse community. How can they blend in?
2. Explain your discourse community to an outsider with opposing views or goals.
3. Write a how-to guide on how to become part of your chosen discourse community
4. Write a brochure to introduce a new member to your discourse community
5. Prepare an overview of your discourse community and their language to be put into a
time capsule set to open in 200 years.
Choose a Discourse Community: Identify a discourse community that interests or intrigues you.
You may be a member of that discourse community; you might be an outsider. For our purposes,
a discourse community could be any group of people who identify themselves as a group.
Collect Information: Once you have identified a discourse community to study, you will need to
observe the group, take notes, collect communication materials, and interview a member.
Analyze Information: As you gather and review information about the discourse community,
what catches your interest most? What stands out to you about that community? What surprises
you?
What Makes It Effective?
I will grade your analysis based on how effectively you answer the following questions:
? What makes this a discourse community Interesting? What makes it unique?  
? What matters to members of the community? What do they do? What do they value?
? How is membership in the community established? Maintained?
? How do members use spoken and written language to accomplish their goals?
An effective analysis is vivid: rich with details, examples, descriptions, and insights. An effective
portrait will demonstrate that you have done sufficient research and organized the material to
present clear ideas.