A presentation by Aaron Poe and
Caleb McBroom.
The Question
Is there a
clique problem
between
theatre
technicians and
actors?
The Question
For my ethnographic research paper I took a look at cliques in
the theatre department here at TAMUCC. It interested me that
there seemed to be a lack of such cliques in this theatre
department, whereas in my high school theatre department
the cliques were enormous and very divisive.
A Reminder of the Characteristics of a
Discourse Community ;)
• “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public
goals.” (Swales, 1990)
• “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among
its members.” (Swales, 1990)
• “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to
provide information and feedback.” (Swales, 1990)
• “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres
in the communicative furtherance of its aims.” (Swales, 1990)
• “In addition to owning genres a discourse community has required some
specific lexis.” (Swales, 1990)
• “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable
degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.” (Swales, 1990)
The Community
• For my community I took a up close look at the theatre
department here at TAMUCC. Because this is a college
theatre department the obvious goal of the community
is to prepare the students for being professionals out in
“the real world”.
• The community has an enormous lexis with each subcommunity (i.e. actors, directors, seamstresses, lighting
technicians, etc) having an even more in depth and
specialized vocabulary. Whenever I questioned a
technical major about words he specifically uses only in
this discourse community he listed off words even I
had never heard of before.
The Community (cont.)
• There are many different ways that the members
of this community can communicate with one
another. An acting major I interviewed said that
he mostly communicates through face to face
interaction (Serna, 2011). A technical major I
interviewed talked about how lighting technicians
use a lot of diagrams to explain how they want to
accomplish certain looks for shows (Whitmire,
2011). Through my own experience, I also
observed communication via email and text
messaging.
Method of Research
The way I came about on the
research part of the
ethnographic paper was that I
went to the on campus library
and just looked up a whole
bunch of articles on theatre.
Then from the info I had in
front of me I just narrow it
down to form my question
because, I went into this
project not knowing what my
question is but only knowing
the discourse community.
I also interviewed a technical
design student at TAMUCC and
she had said that “I don’t see I
big techie and actor clique, but
I do see a upper classmen and
freshman clique.” (smith,2011)
I have also observed in The
Center of Arts building that
there are some upper
classmen that do stick with
other upper classmen. But
most of the time we all
intermingle with each other.
Methods of Research
• When researching I
used a lot of online
databases in the hope
of finding tons of
relevant material.
Useful sources were
scant and it wasn’t until
I interviewed someone
that I really got some
good information. In my
paper I plan to use
interviews of people I
found to be in the
theatre discourse
community here at
TAMUCC as my primary
resource.
The Cliques
• One of the biggest groups of cliques that came to mind when researching
the theatre discourse community was the big divide between acting
students and technical students. In high school the conflict between these
groups was enormous and constant so it often hampered everyone’s
experience in shows.
• Other small cliques existed and were often sustained because of personal
squabbles between 2 individuals. For example, in my high school my friend
Robert really didn’t like my other friend Alexandra. Thus, the department
was split into the people who were either friends with Robert or
Alexandra.
Cliques (cont.)
•
•
•
Through my research I found that everyone I interviewed felt the same way; that
there was an absence of such cliques in the department here. People had their
own personal qualms with one another sometimes, but overall a professional and
congenial attitude was maintained throughout the department.
One interviewee suggested that the lack of a divide between technical and
acting/directing students was able to exist because in college it’s required that
actors take technical student classes and vice-versa (Serna, 2011). This way, the
two different groups are forced to intermingle and most even enjoy the diversity.
For example, I enjoy my costume construction class very much and some of the
nicest people I’ve met so far have been technical theatre majors.
Another interviewee proposed that it was the overall heightened professionalism
of each individual here that kept us from being so divided over personal issues. He
even gave me an example of how he and another student here used to live
together and now they don’t even talk, yet even this has not created a clique on
either side (Whitmire, 2011). In a collegiate atmosphere such as this one where
everyone is striving to become a professional in their respective field, personal
differences seem not to matter as much in the face of the unified goals of the
department.
Sources
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Serna, David. Personal interview. 25 Oct. 2011.
Whitmire, Taylor. Personal interview. 6 Nov. 2011.
Smith, Jennifer. Personal interview. 14 Nov. 2011
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. Writing about writing: a college reader.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print.
[L-Arginine research and publications]. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2011, from: URL
(healthtechmall.com)
[Arts Festivals. Live theatre captioning]. Retrieved Nov 18,2011, from: URL
(captioningstudio.com)
[Magnum Opus: Researching your novel]. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2011, from: URL
(mithrilwisdom.blogspot.com)
[Writing about Writing: A College Reader – Trade paperback (2010)] Retrieved Nov.
18, 2011, from: URL (alibris.com)