I plan on doing my discourse community ethnography about a baseball team and more specifically the Ohio University Club Baseball (OUCB) team. According to John Swales there are six criteria for a discourse community and I believe that this baseball team fits these criteria. The First characteristic is the discourse community has to have a common set of goals. This is true for OUCB team because the goal for the team is to make it to regional, which is basically the end of the year tournament for the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA). The Second is the discourse community has have methods for intercommunication. The OUCB team uses many different mechanisms for intercommunication including mass texting, email, and Facebook. Third a discourse community has to have participatory mechanisms, which for the OUCB team would include going to practice and trying to become a better baseball player in preparation for the season. Fourth, a discourse community uses one or more genres to complete it's goals. There are two major genres for a baseball team and that would be competitive and noncompetitive. Competitive teams scout the best players and tries to be the number one team in the conference. Noncompetitive teams play more for fun then to win, these teams are playing for the entertainment value of baseball. The Fifth, is a discourse community has to have there own specific lingo or lexis. Baseball in general has there own lingo and a good example of this is the term "Got Heem". The sixth characteristic is a discourse community has to have a hierarchy of it's members. The OUCB team fits this because as new player come in they start out as rookies and as they continue playing they move up in the chain of command. The Ohio University Club Baseball team fits all six of Swales criterion and thus qualifies as a discourse community.
I am involved in the OU club baseball team and I have been for the last three years. For next year, I will be the only remaining senior on the team, and because of this I have been elected as the coach for the team. I am very interested to find out how language is used to complete the goals of the baseball team. Baseball teams in general have an interesting use of language to achieve there goals and I would like to understand more about the use of language.
The most important individual that I should interview would be the OU club baseball president of this bast year. He would have the most knowledge of all of the behind the scenes paper work and also most of the on field knowledge aswell. Another person I can interview would be the general manager of the team for next year. This guy will be doiing all of the paper work for next year and it would be great to get his input on the language of this discourse community.
I will be able to analyze many different kinds of texts including text messages and emails. These two are the main forms of communication outside of practice. Due to the fact that I am involved in this discourse community, I will be able to collect a lot of emails and text messages very easily.
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds good. I think you already have a good handle on the project. A good source for you as you try to develop a focus for this ethnography is going to be the student essay in the textbook "Coaches Can Read, Too" (WAW 557). We're not reading this until next Thursday but it might be a good idea to look through it before then. This writer is trying to raise awareness about the different types of "literacies" used in sports communities-reading players, enacting plays, reading the other teams, interpersonal communication etc. One of his main claims is that people don't realize how complex and rhetorical sports are and how you need to be literate to participate and understand what's going on.
You could certainly do something similar, but you might also look at how authority and identity influence the way players and coaches communicate with each other.
Since being elected coach, how has the way you communicate with other members changed?
you also bring up that you're interested in "find[ing] out how language is used to complete the goals of the baseball team." I think this is a great research question. And you could certainly tie it into a larger claim about the kinds of literacy needed in athletics. I have a sense that language is used often on sports teams to evoke a sense of community and belonging, and this in turn, works to motivate players to achieve certain goals. But your observations might turn up more than this as well. Hopefully, I've provided a few ideas. This is going to be really interesting.