Leticia Zavala
You and I from part of many different discourse communities even though we don’t
realize it, but we actually get ourselves involved without even knowing. Discourse communities
are everywhere not just in schools, colleges, nor churches they are all over our community. From
interacting with your roommate in your dorm to since club you are involved they are all
discourse communities. Dancing by its self won’t function as a discourse community but once
we talk about Dance Teams we are creating a discourse community within dancing. According to
Swales in Writing About Writing he states, “We need then to clarify, for procedural purposes,
what is to be understood by discourse community and, perhaps in the present circumstances, it is
better to offer a set of criteria sufficiently narrow that it will eliminate many of the marginal,
blurred and controversial contenders” (Swales, 2011 para 5). Swales sets a criteria that a
discourse community has to meet in order to be classified as a discourse community. The criteria
has six characteristics that it has to meet which are: having common goals, participatory
mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genras, a highly specialized
terminology and a high general level of expertise (Swales, 2011 para 21).
Let’s analyze the characteristics that Swales presents for a discourse community. The
first characteristic, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals”
(Swales, 2011 para 11). This means that there is a purpose for every discourse that is being
created or for those that already exists. The goals in each discourse community are different for
every discourse. These types of goals are public and can be high level or abstract. Second
characteristic says, “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its
members” (2011, para 12). This doesn’t mean that all the discourse communities have the same
way of communicating the mechanisms of commination will vary from discourse to discourse.
Third characteristic states that, “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms
primarily to provide information and feedback” (2011, para 14). This means that if you form part
of a discourse community and you never participate in the discourse you can’t formally be part
of the discourse community, because of the lack of information not being provided. This
discourse should be able to provide information to those that have an interest to join in, and for
the same reason be able to get feedback from those who are interested. Fourth characteristic
states, “A discourse community utilize and hence possesses one or more genres in the
communicative furtherance of its aims” (2011, para 15). Refers to the topics, forms, functions,
and positioning of discoursal elements. Also how the roles of text play the operation of the
discourse community. The fifth characteristic illustrates that, “In order addition to owning
genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis” (2011, para 16). This is the use
of terminology within a specific discourse community. The last characteristic states that, “A
discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content
and discoursal expertise” (2011, para 17). This is the evolution of members in a discourse
community. The different member may range from different ages to different believes.
The six characteristics that define a discourse community are met by the discourse of a
dance team. Dance teams main (which sets the first characteristic) goal is to show their great
talent as dancers, and give a great performance to a crowd of people. Dance teams also construct
goals as an individual such as acquiring skills and techniques to develop as a dancer. The
mechanisms of intercommunication among the members of a dance team communicates is by
telephones, e-mails, schedules, practices, and meetings. The discourse mechanisms way to
provide information and feedback is by forming associations the same discourse. In order to be
able to form part of this discourse you don’t have to have skills in dancing just a person for
dancing discourse. There are ways in which you can get involved with this discourse community
by joining the National Dance Association (NDA) which provides grants and professional
development for those that want to become professional dancers. There is also the Universal
Dance Association (UDA) which provides information about competitions, special events, and
provides camps to attend. The genres in the community of dance teams are website (such as
facebook), flayers, and word of mouth. In a dance team there is always new music coming along
and the dance teams have to be able to interpret this music with what skills they have and acquire
new skills as well. All this incorporates the lexis of dancing which comes from the French
terminology for example, arabesque, alonge, bras, etc. Also the steps are done by an eight count.
To meet the last characteristic of the criteria, dance teams are made up of a variety of members
from different ages such as directors/ choreographers, captains/ head of the team, dancers,
parents, and family members.
Call it a dance team, a drill team, a pom squad, or dance squad; it's all about the field
event that keeps you in your seat during the half-time show. The art of dancing does not have a
specific origin. In most ancient civilization dancing was performed mainly in tribes as a ritually,
in prayer for a god, and in thanks for health and bounty. As the years past dancing was not
always objected openly by society as a whole. Certain conservative and religious groups objected
to the practice of dance, and delivered harsh criticisms and condemnations to prevent
recklessness and disorder. In today’s society dancing has changed dramatically over the past fifty
years. Dancing is all around from social dancing at clubs to professional dancing within a dance
team. This dance teams face one problem which is how people perceive their work. People don’t
give much credit to the work done by these discourse communities. Dancing teams need more
credit than what we, the public, are giving them. People don’t know how hard they practiced just
to give us a great performance just for two or three minutes of the night. We judge just upon
what we see on their performance and think that we can to it even better than them. The way
public perceives a dance team is wrong we need to learn how to appreciate all their hard work
and view it as a sport, by giving them the credit and support that they deserve.
My question is why people think dancing is easy to do. Every time we see dance teams
perform, yes some movements do amaze us, but we don’t really give them the credit for doing
such an outstanding performance. Is it because dancing does not require having a ball for it to be
seen as a difficult sport to practice, in order to give them credit for what they do in a dance team.
Yes, dancing is a sport! When people hear the word “sport” they think of football, basketball,
baseball, soccer, and all the other sports except for dancing. We have to end this nonsense and
delve in into what it takes to be in a dance team focus on the hard work it takes to be able to
perform with such technique.
Since I’m researching why public don’t give mucho credit to dance team as a sport I
interviewed people who are relevant to my discourse community. With these interviews I would
be able to prove that the idea that people have on dance teams should change because it requires
lots of practice and technique. I interviewed a retired ballet dancer, Felicia Dziadek, the coach of
the Islander Dance Team, Melanie Lowry, and an ex dance team member at high school, Valerie
soto. I also conducted a survey about what people thought about dancing as well as doing my
observations on the Islanders Dance Team. This will help me support my idea that public should
give more credit to and see that a dance team does function as a sport that requires effort and
determination. The observations helped me identify the gap between what public see on
performance night and how hard they practice when nobody is seen them. With this information
in hand I would be able to prove my findings, get my point straight out, and make people change
their opinion on dance teams.
Interviewing Felicia Dziadek a retired ballet dancer it gave me an opportunity to dig deep
inside what a dancer had to be able to do in order be a good dancer. When I asked her that what
was the most difficult task about dancig she said, “Pleasing the instructor you want to please the
madam; you want her to be proud of you” ( Dziadek, 2011). Not only do you have to look good
but also fulfill what the instructor wants. The dancers have to know what is expected from them
because an instructor is neither a babysitter nor their mother that is going to be after them every
minute and telling them what to do. As Dziadek when she first started dancing she was being
force, but later on she liked it and she herself went back to dancing when she was seventeen
years old.