Atenza 1 Kaylene Atenza Professor Wolcott ENC 1101 11/15/12

Drafting Discourse Community Paper During this project I came to the agreement that I do believe SouthBeach Tanning Salon is a discourse community because everyone within it shares a common goal and interest in which is to be tan and look beautiful. The SouthBeach I observed is located on East Colonial Drive in the MadHatters Plaza; the hours of when there opened are Monday-Friday 9a.m-10p.m, Saturday 10a.m- 9p.m, and Sunday 11a.m- 7p.m. In this SouthBeach they have 18 rooms with tanning beds in them. I went into SouthBeach and observed my friend Chelsea Acker. It quickly came to my attention that anyone was allowed to be a part of this discourse community as long as your over the age of eighteen and have access to join this discourse community. As I sat there an took notes while observing Chelsea in action I noticed everyones goal that was a member of the tanning salon was to become tanner, but as I sat their and thought about it I realized it had a lot to do with your self esteem. Growing up you are constantly hearing on the media of beauty, and its importance and you see how just about everyone that they classify to be beautiful is tan; so your brought up with this mind set that being tan means your beautiful and I believe that is one of the biggest leading factors into why people tan. As a participant-observer the reflection it has on me is I believe it is a self esteem thing because when I was in high school and prom was coming up I started to go to the tanning salon to become tanner because I wanted to be beautiful on my prom night. As I was observing Chelsea I caught on that Chelsea took authority all the time and had the same step-by-step process with every single customer.

Atenza 2 Instantly I caught onto that the lexis within SouthBeach; are things such as the eyewear before you got assigned to which room you will be tanning in you would be asked Do you have your eyewear with you? You would only understand what they meant by eyewear if you were a part of this discourse community. Another question that you would be asked is What level bed would you like to go into today? If you werent a member of this community you would be completely clueless as to what they meant by that question. One of the most interesting Lexis I found at SouthBeach was the different type of lotions they had and how they were classified. There are exactly three categories of lotions which are called Tingle, Bronzer, or Accelerator. I was informed with the differences of each which are the Tingle lotion brings your blood vessels to the surface of your skin and makes the oxygen flow and blood flow faster to help you tan quicker and appear faster. The Bronzer kind has two different types to it which are Cosmetic, and DHA. The Cosmetic one is exactly like make-up and makes you tan as soon as you get out of the tanning bed but once you wash your body and take a shower the tan washes off immediately. The second kind of Bronzer which is DHA is the acronym for Dihydroxyacetone, which is a lighter form of spray tan and gives you a gradual color. The last type of lotion is the Accelerator which helps maximize and extend your color. Once your done tanning and leave the tanning salon this lotion is still effective when your outside in the sun. The Genres I found of SouthBeach Tanning Salon were things such as the Benefits of Responsible Tanning sheet that is placed in every single room. This sheet provides you with the information of what effects tanning in the bed could do to your health. It could give you skin cancer, damage your vision, and also the UV rays can damage you skin and make you seem to be aging quicker. Leaving you with things such as wrinkly skin at a younger age. This sheet is placed in every single room for you to see it but yet people still continue tanning. Other Genres I found with the tanning salon are things such as your membership card, which allows you to provide proof that you are a member and be able to access your membership plan; also the emails that SouthBeach sends you

Atenza 3 notifying the deals and specials they are providing for the month and ways on renewing your membership when the month is coming to an end. SouthBeach provides you with two different locations in the UCF area, allowing it to be more convenient for you and your location. I have found ads promoting SouthBeach in the store Vixions which is a clothes store for mostly women; it is obvious that there attempt is to target women to come into SouthBeach because most women want to look beautiful and care about there appearance to others. If you were to access the SouthBeach tanning salon website you would be provided with were all the store locations are, the deals they are having, and what great prices the memberships are. The location of the tanning salon is in the MadHatters plaza and gets very busy during the day. SouthBeach has 2 cameras inside of the store just incase anything is to go wrong.

Methodology

As I was observing Chelsea at SouthBeach on November 15 at 6:30 p.m I quickly noticed all the different colors and painting on the walls. The walls where painted red, purple, orange, and the roof was blue. The lights were very dim and there was electronic dance music playing in the background. The counter had two girls standing behind it, one of them being Chelsea and then behind them were rows of different kinds of lotions all in straight lines. The poster on the wall was one of the deals they were holding for the month of November and a picture of the free lotion you receive when starting a membership. There were two couches right next to the entrance and the couched were a mixture of multiple colors. One costumer came in and she was a young lady, Chelsea welcomed her with a warm hello and the lady returned the welcome, then chelsea asked her for her name, then typed it into the computer to pull up the membership information, Chelsea then asked what bed she preferred and

Atenza 4 assigned her to a room with the bed asked, Chelsea then asked if she had eyewear with her and her lotion, the lady answered yes and then Chelsea said Alright then your all set! The same steps where taken when every other member walked through the door. Once you were done tanning you would exit your room and throw the used towel into the hamper that is located right next to the desk near the entrance and Chelsea would thank you and wish you a good day. The other girl that was working with Chelsea would then go back the the room the person just exited clean it with a cleaning solution and rag to wipe off any lotion the previous person applied and got onto the bed.

References to readings During this assignment I realized I could reference to John Swales' criteria for discourse communities on page 471 because he states that in order to be a discourse community you must have a set of common goals, methods of intercommunication, and it must provide feedback, genres, and a lexis, it must also contain a varied membership. I believe that SouthBeach provides all these key concepts. The common goal is to look beautiful and become tan. The feedback that you will receive is complements on being so tan and looking so pretty and receiving that positive feedback your self esteem will grow. I believe that Swales would agree with me on SouthBeach being classified as a discourse community. I also will reference to James Paul Gee, he believes that language is a misleading term, and it is not just what you say, but how you say it. I believe that in SouthBeach they have a certain language style that invites members in and provides them with as much information needed to know about its community. I can also reference Mirabelli and say that the texts that are used within this discourse community are things such as the huge sale posters placed in the entrance of the store and on top of the desk, also the ads that are provided to you at Vixions.

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Conclusion: Like Swales said, discourse communities have very strict guidelines and I believe that SouthBeach tanning salon is considered a discourse community. After studying this community I understood why people tan and how to become a member of the salon. I now have more of an insight on information of how to join the community if I wished. Understanding the lexis and genre of this community was the key concept of this project and once I figured them out it helped me write a better paper. There is a mass amount of information on tanning salons and observing SouthBeach taught me all the information I needed to know and answered all the questions I had. Work Cited

Mirabelli, Tony. "Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Services Workers." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. N. pag. Print. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Gee, James P. "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. N. pag. Print. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. N. pag. Print.

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