Billy Unotti ENC 1101 November 2012 Exploring Discourse Communities Throughout my time of learning about discourse communities,

I have found the concept to be particularly intriguing, but I was unable to put my finger on it. I finally realized my fascination originated from the fact that, despite that I have never heard of the term until now, I had been participating in them my entire life. This led to an analysis (and discovery!) of all the discourse communities I had personally taken part of, and more importantly, the ones I hadnt. In particular, I studied the lifting community, who are people who work out predominantly with weights, at UCF. What I found ended up being quite worthy of notice. Before I began my research and observations, I had several doubts that the lifting community would be considered discourse, and why it would even matter to discover so in the first place. These doubts soon ceased as I dove deeper. Not only did it fall into most of the criteria that is used to shape discourse communities, but it also uncovered some unusual anecdotes about human nature, and the ways we operate and interact with the same and opposite sex. Pretty interesting stuff!

Methodology My first challenge was to come up with a group that could even fall into the category, so I immediately referred to John Swales criteria for discourse communities: (p. 471-3) It must have a set of common goals, methods of intercommunication, it must provide feedback, possess genres (texts), had to have acquired a lexis, and contains a varied membership that included experts and amateurs. Having established the UCF lifting community as such, I commenced observing them over two six hour periods. My job working at a gym certainly played to my

favor, and I was able to gain additional insight into the community due to my prior knowledge and experiences as an outsider. After each of my observations I took a lot of notes of what I saw, heard, and witnessed. Another step I took was to interview a member, one of my coworkers, a girl named Rylee, who is a certified personal trainer, group exercise instructor, and someone who has been using weights for about five years, three of which were spent at UCF. Her individual experiences helped create an even more complete picture of what I was getting myself into.

Texts And Their Purpose One of the criteria of a discourse community is that they possess genres and texts to aid in reaching their goals. The weight training and lifting community is no different. One thing I actually struggled at first was to find the most basic and universal guide to working out with weights. After discussion with many people, I found the website bodybuilding.com would indeed serve the purpose. Bodybuilding.com has many detailed pages, but the two I focused on (which aid the d.c. the most) were the Best Beginner Weight Training Guide, and the Mass Gain Program. These texts were displayed online, and heavily promoted by the site, in addition to being in the top three results in a Google search. The site itself is run and maintained by dozens of fitness professionals, plus its online community, where thousands can partake in discussion. It is navigated easily and has several sections devoted to helping those who wish to begin training for the first time. (Appendix C) This is in slight contrast to what I discovered when observing the UCF community (as opposed to the weight training/lifting community in general) but these differences will be discussed below. When observing, I found that sometimes, patrons brought in small pieces of paper or notebooks with them, filled with workout methods and ways of dong each muscle group. These genres all had detailed explanations of each work out, so that one

would not work out different muscle groups on different days, all of which is available on the website. That being said, this website is an excellent tool in helping this discourse community achieve its efforts. Another text I associated with the UCF lifting and weight training community were the continuous ads I saw in the UCF gym for the Powerlifting Competition. These ads appeared several times as I explored the vast gym, and depicted a muscled man pressing huge weights. It was targeted at a very masculine audience, despite the fact that it also said it was open to members of both sex. I also found it notable that the ads for it were only placed in the UCF gym, and not the student union or near the arena, it was strictly at the gym! This does not invite a lot of participation, because the same people who frequent the recreation and wellness center are the only people finding out about this competition, the ultimate test in strength and muscle.

Discussion and Findings While all of this is well and good, the bulk (pardon the pun!) of my interest came in analyzing my findings. (Appendix A) The most glaringly obvious observation I made was that the lifting and weight training discourse community at UCF is predominately male, and many were wearing UCF fraternity affiliated tank tops. However, just as many seemed to be independent from any organizations. One thing that really piqued my attention was the way the men seemed to have the need to impress those around them. Every member of this community seemed to want to get someone to notice them working out. I noticed plenty of guys reach for ridiculous, overweigh dumbbells and plates only to groaned and slam them down, to the point where many people would look around in interest or disgust. A different observation was that they all had a similar goal. In addition to the need to look good, and look tough while doing that, a lot of the people thrived on the social interactions,

and being seen out at this particular location. There was a clear camaraderie between most of them, even ones across particular social groups. A unique lexis existed between them, including such vocabulary such as: *swole; meaning extremely muscular or buff. *preworkout; a pink protein drink consumed before a workout containing massive amounts of caffeine, and *supplement; extra protein, eaten or made into a shake or drink after a workout. *liftoff; when helping someone bench press the first *rep; which is a series of lifts, short for repetition. *spot; when someone is lifting a lot of weight, to make sure they don't drop it on themselves. At the same time, however, those who were inferior and size or strength tended to be together, working out alone, or excluded all together. A blurred line existed however, because there were many genuinely nice people who were there to build a healthy lifestyle. So while the members of this community were all united under one goal, there were also several sub goals that varied from person to person. Something else notable that I observed was the amount of time most of the patrons stayed - well past 2 hours, to ensure maximum social exposure, since I also witnessed the fact that most of the people knew each other, and there were many introductions between friend groups on the weight floor, so I believe it is safe to assume that while some enter this community with preexisting relationships, it's also a great way to meet new friends with similar interests. For the ladies, however, it seemed to be a great way to meet guys. I saw that girls fell into three categories: fearless and confident, totally intimidated, or shameless flirt. The tougher and experienced girls definitely had authority, and I noticed on a few occasions that they would bring friends (typically the intimidated girls) and teach them how to properly lift. My favorites were the flirty girls though, who would all come in dressed in very tight clothes, with their hair and makeup done, and saunter around the weight floor for a couple hours. I witness, many times, that if an attractive girl passed a group of guys "recovering" (that is, when you

should be resting between sets, but really socializing) they would immediately talk about her, using a lexis typically spoken by males. This agrees with what I learned by interviewing my friend Rylee (Appendix B), who has been a member of this discourse community for nearly five years, and who described her experiences and how long it took her to be accepted as on the same level as the boys, who make up the majority of this community. "you can automatically look at a boy and the muscles they have and get a good idea of how strong they are. With girls you can't" This brings up the notable point that feedback is mostly peer oriented. Mainly, the men are going to judge the results of their work out by the comments and admiration they get from their peers. Likewise, females strength will be judged by whether men respect or objectify them. A girl does want to win the guys respect, because of the time you will be around them. This is a dedicated community, who's most committed members devote at least ten hours a week to, and according to Rylee, the guy to girl ratio is about 10 to 1. Therefore, respect is essential. There is also a wellness center inside the gym at UCF, where members can go to get professional feedback, get a body fat and muscle mass test, and an overall health evaluation. In her article entitled Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity, Ann M. Johns discusses the cost of affiliation (p. 511): the things you give up in order to engage in this community. Her definition is that "full involvement or affiliation in academic discourse communities requires major cultural and linguistic tradeoffs" While not academic, the tradeoffs that members of the UCF lifting d.c. encountered was that you must give up a little bit of your individuality and self-confidence, because the entire point of this community is improving the way you look on the outside, and if yours is improved enough, make sure everybody sees it. In general, the fitness industry is rooted in vanity, and many people

who thought they would never compromise themselves may find that they have changed because being a part of this community, unless you have authority, puts you in danger of questioning yourself completely. So What? And Further Conclusions The biggest question of them all still remains, however. So what does this all mean anyway? I believe I have discovered that if I take my studies and observations of the UCF lifting discourse community as a sample of all weight training communities in general, then these members display an amusingly accurate portrayal of human interaction at its earliest levels. In my opinion, there is nothing different between (most of) the men and women of prehistoric times and those at a present day bar and each of those mirrors the discourse community I chose to study. The men display heavy masculinity, and a disposition toward being noticed that parallels the way the women in this community act. There are certain terms, actions, and habits that are unique to them alone, and members range from the extremely fit to the obese. They utilize texts online and displayed in the real world to help them achieve their goals, and feedback is critical. Their goals are crystal clear, though varied, and most telling of all, their methods of communication exist, and paint a perfect picture of human nature today. All generalizations aside, however, as someone who is not completely excluded nor included in this particular club, this study revealed to me a tight knit, unyieldingly dedicated group of people who (on occasion) could be surprisingly inclusive and generous, and who greatly represent the interactions between men and women in our world. While there are no actual consequences of a society like this, it will always be held in distain by those outside it and reverence by those who are a part of it, and division will continue to occur.

Works Cited Johns, Ann M. Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 511. Print.

Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 471-3. Print.

Bodybuilding.com. Web. 13 November 2012.