Feehs 1
Caleb Feehs
Professor Jared Gibbs
English 1204H
10 September 2013
Discourse Community Essay
For me, the discourse communities I am a part of only help me figure out more about
myself. Something that I have been working on ever since about midway through high school
was to be myself, not someone that others wanted me to be. When I was in middle school, I was
a notorious chameleon, I wanted desperately to be accepted into groups of friends, mostly
because when I was younger, I was fairly overweight, and much less okay with my whole “being
bald” thing. Although I do my best to keep from letting my own discourse communities define
me, they do tell a lot about who I am, and what I am like.
The discourse communities that I find as the most influential in my life are the ones that I
spent the most time on, or with. Funny how that works. The most central discourse community I
am a part of is my family. My family is the center of my whole life. All of the other discourse
communities can be easily tied back to my family. The first example would be my membership,
and service in Life Community Church. I ran the audio visual for my church. The reason I went
to Life Community Church was because of my family. We had just left our previous church, and
we knew the pastor of Life Community Church, so we decided to join. My parents quickly got
plugged in and started serving, eventually they became the backbone of the church. My mom
was in charge of Women’s Ministries, and my Dad was the President of the Church, dealing with
the legal workings of the church (so he wasn’t the pastor). Seeing my family get deeply involved
into Life Community Church influenced me to do what I do for the audio visual team. Every
Sunday I help set up all of the audio cables, and the light cans. Then I run the slides for the
Feehs 2
service, for every song, and for every point in the sermon. Another discourse community I
became a part of because of my family was being a Virginia Tech engineer. My dad was an
Electrical Engineer, at the University of Delaware, and when we took a tour of Virginia Tech, he
steered me in the right direction by asking me questions about what I wanted to do, and told me
about stuff that he is allowed to do because of his engineering degree. Also while talking with
my dad I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a Virginia Tech engineer because it gave me
flexibility to do what I wanted in any of the STEM fields. If it weren’t for my dad, I wouldn’t
have even taken a tour of Virginia Tech. I’d probably be over at JMU as a computer science
major. Thinking about that makes me cringe a little bit. Another thing that I became involved
with because of my family was Indoor Drumline. My brother was a member of the indoor
drumline at my high school, and being a young impressionable 6th grader, I saw my brother do
some really cool stuff with the drumline. I got plugged into the drumline at my high school as
soon as I got the chance. I never would have gotten involved with the drumline if it weren’t for
my brother. Finally, I never would have become a Call of Duty gamer if it weren’t for my
brother. My brother is four and a half years old, so he got to play all of the violent videogames
before I was able to. But I always wanted to be like my brother, so watching him play games like
Call of Duty got me really into the whole first person shooter scene. All of the biggest discourse
communities in my life can be traced back to my family, and that’s something I think is kind of
cool.
One thing that every single one of the discourse communities I am a part of demand time.
It’s really simple when you think about it. If you want to be good at anything, or if you want to
be an “insider” in any community, you have to put time and effort into the community. The more
time I spend in each individual discourse community I get so see more and more about the
Feehs 3
community of people in them. Unfortunately, most of the time, people act a certain way in each
group they are a part of; and I don’t want to be like that. For example, at Church people aren’t
rude to one another, and people tread very lightly around other peoples issues, which although I
don’t agree with it, is something that people do at Church. Also when at Church nobody uses
vulgar language. I personally don’t swear myself, however I see many people who seem like
saints inside Church turn around and start talking badly as soon as they leave the building.
Another example of the Hippocratic actions of people in discourse communities would be the
“work ethic” of people in indoor drumline. Every practice people talk big about practicing more,
and trying to be the best drumline our school has ever seen. Then when they come back the next
practice, if asked about how much they practiced, they normally respond “oh I didn’t have time”
or “I forgot…” One thing I’ve learned from both of those examples would be that I need to be a
person who does what they say, I can’t only talk a big game, and I have to live it out. I don’t live
life as multiple people. I learn from the discourse communities I am a part of, and see examples
of things I don’t want to become.
I don’t change who I am as a person when I go into any different discourse community.
However that doesn’t mean that each community I am a part of doesn’t affect me. Being a part of
the Virginia Tech engineering community has taught me that results come out of hard work, and
not out of natural talent alone. Another thing I’ve gained out of my discourse communities would
be my work ethic. Being a part of indoor drumline I had to do a ton of memorization of drill, and
music. It takes a ton of hard work, and time to get every detail right in a show. Drumline has
helped teach me to work on something until its perfect. I want to make sure whatever I produce,
it is a good product. On a much lighter note, I’ve learned perseverance, believe it or not, from
being a Call of Duty gamer. Game after game I play, I get the privelage to play against scumbags
Feehs 4
who abuse the spawn system, or hack the individual servers of the game. I get to play with those
who gain enjoyment from making everyone elses gaming experience as miserable as possible.
Many of these times, I don’t get the option to leave the game lobby. So I have to keep on playing
through the mounds of crap I get from people who cheat at the game. Church has helped me
become a better, and more clear minded person. I’ve found my identity in Christ, not in who I
hang out with, or who I want to impress. Church has been the discourse community that has
helped me become a single person, not a person who has eighteen different faces for every
occasion.
Looking at my discourse communities I’ve been able to see more about my home. My
home is really with my family, and who I hold close. I wouldn’t be a part of all of the major
discourse communities in my life if it weren’t for my family. Also I’ve been able create a larger
“family” for myself through my discourse communities. I’ve got some really close friends that
I’ve made through Church, or Engineering, or Call of Duty, or Drumline. My family is the center
of my discourse community network, and its where I find home.