Cedar Grove Soccer Team: Discourse Community

As John Swales' once said in his excerpt "The Concept of Discourse Community", "a discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field"(Swales). Within these societies, they form their own type of subgroup, of people with similar goals who work toward the said objective. I encountered a discourse community in my first year of high school in order to broaden my knowledge of how this particular family communicates and to perceive the unique language used.

At the start of the school year, I joined the Cedar Grove boys soccer team.

When I first become a part of the team I was terrified that I would not be able to fit in with the rest of the players. However, they welcomed me in with open arms into their group and worked with me, so that I can become better at the sport. At the beginning of the season, which began in the second week of August and we are assigned mandatory practice from 8:30 am till 12:30 every day except Sunday.

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During these practices, we all suffered together and looked out for one another, making sure we all made it through the drills and nobody quit. Before joining the team, I was a shy and quiet person, however, becoming a member of this team indicated that in order to properly communicate and collaborate with my team I had to speak up. As the season progresses, the practices become difficult, which affects the entire team because at the end of everyone's practice our coach increases the pressure by making us complete sprints.

During these sprints, we are timed and have to make it across the street in a certain amount of time and if we do not complete it we have to complete the task again. It is at this moment where some players begin to throw up and quit, but within the team, we have a phrase that we live by "We all suffer, but we don't quit". In order to persuade the rest of the players to complete the sprints, our captain would say "Guys, we have all suffered through the same thing and if I can complete it so can you, so get on the line and burnout everything you got left"(Johnny). At the moment, he spoke those words it hit me cause that was me he was talking to because he knew I could finish it but just needed a little boost to finish.

Within, any discourse community communication is a key factor that impacts the way a group reaches there goals. For example, in a soccer game, certain phrases are said on the field, so that only our teammates understand what we are about executing and they are open to score. Common vocabulary used between teammates during a game includes the following man-on (which warns our teammates that there is somebody behind them or approaching them and they should pass the ball). Other similar phrases involve through ball (indicates that you are passing the ball to a teammate between to opposing players and get-wide ( signaling to your teammate that you are passing the ball to the sides and they should get open to receive a said pass. These are just a few of the plays we are taught to know when playing a soccer game to communicate on the field. In order to get a hang of these callouts, we incorporate these expressions in practices, so that we get accustomed to a similar environment. During practices, our coaches will have us fun drills and work on certain skills and work on mistakes made during the game. Our coaches push us to our max to enhance our endurance and stamina with drills that focus on building muscle and cardio.