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Johnny Zhang
Professor Marie Webb
Linguistic 12 Section 100
1 Jun 2019
Why Trade Stocks? Let’s Trade Sneakers！
Sneakers were invented for athletes and have evolved into both a status symbol as well as

an element of fashion. Hip-hop, basketball, skateboarding, street culture, and their associated

icons increase the popularity and appeal of sneakers. Due to the rise in popularity of sneakers

and the potential economic rewards from their resale, White argues that “the secondary market

for sneakers has reached a level of sophistication surpassing that of past collection fads, such as

Beanie Babies and baseball cards” (White). “Sneakerhead,” is the delightfully amusing term used

to refer to those who collect sneakers and purchase them via online sneaker trading platforms,

which are forms of secondary markets. Through the trading platform, buyers can either publicly

announce their bids and wait for third-party vendors to accept the bids, or they can purchase

sneakers at other platform-regulated prices (Massimb and Phelps 40). In consideration of this

rich market, my friends and I established a small sneaker business called "Fanchushi Sport." In

our group interactions and team processes, it has become apparent that the management team of

my sneaker trading platform can be recognized as an emerging discourse community.

Swales, a linguist best known for his work on genre analysis in the field of discourse

communities, argues that a collectivity of persons in pursuit of common goals through

communication tools is called a discourse community (464). He proposes six characteristics that

are necessary and sufficient to identify the conceptualization of a discourse community. These

characteristics are: having a wide range of common objectives, using channels of communication

among members, giving data and feedback through these channels, using one or more writing

styles to communicate its objectives, using particular lexical forms, and having a range of levels

of expertise (471-473). Taken together, these criteria suggest that a discourse community is
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mostly defined by its shared goals as well as common means and models of communication to

satisfy those objectives. The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of a discourse

community to my management team by applying Swales’ six characteristics to it.

To begin, the first criterion for Swales’ definition of a discourse community is to have one

or multiple generally-agreed upon goals (471). Indeed, the management team of Fanchushi Sport

has a set of broadly-agreed upon goals. Among the most prevalent, one is more crucial than the

others: making money. The major method of making money in the discourse community is by

selling limited and rare sneakers. Massive price inflation and high demand are two reasons why

selling limited sneakers is highly profitable. Steinberg claims that some sneakerheads are willing

to spend thousands of dollars for a pair of rare shoes because the limited supply for the shoes

creates considerable demand (Steinberg). For example, two pairs of Nike Air Jordan 4 Retro

"Eminem Carhartt" limited shoes – of which only 500 pairs were released worldwide – were sold

on the Fanchushi platform for a profit of approximately $30,000, while the initial price was only

$250 per pair (Fanchushi Taobao). By selling even just a few limited sneakers, the discourse

community can make money due to the huge price difference between initial price and market

price. By having the common goal of making money, the management team of Fanchushi Sport

can retain and motivate its members to work for company. Even though making money requires

re-investment of profits, the discourse community’s willingness to invest in ourselves is exactly

why the monetary goal is attractive to our members; everyone wants to see the company thrive.

Swales also asserts that most people join a discourse community with the hope of advancing

their income (471). Most people would love to make money while enjoying their hobby. Thus,

by ensuring that members are satisfied and oriented toward the group objective, it is easier to

ensure that our sneakerhead community shares the same attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions, which

help to form the team ethos. This motivation toward the goal -- and the goal itself -- demonstrate
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that our company meets the first of the six characteristics that Swales uses to define a discourse

community.
Apart from having commonly agreed-upon goals, Swales claims that a discourse

community employs various communication mechanisms (471). The management team of

Fanchushi Sport satisfies these requirements by utilizing both the voice and video calling

features of “Wechat,” a Chinese version of “Snapchat,” to communicate with each other. Wechat

is preferred as the common communication tool among members because of its neat and

simplistic interface. Using this interface, group members can create a voice chat room to talk to

each other about company information instantaneously and directly, instead of wasting time on

typing. In addition, according to Kuang my warehouse keeper, video communication via Wechat

presents another alternative for the staff to interact (Kuang). This kind of communication can

create a visual setting for the management team to monitor whether the warehouse keeper

records the stock accurately, since members can directly observe the sneakers on inventory. By

verifying the accuracy of inventory records via video chat, the discourse community prevents the

misplacing of merchandise and helps detect mistakes in inventory reports. Using this

communication medium for verification is important because selling as many shoes as possible

requires that all sneakers are in stock. Thus, these communication mechanisms enable members

to have effective and instant means to articulate, absorb, and verify important information.

Therefore, the immediacy of communication – both audio and visual - is especially important for

the discourse community to make decisions about selling or buying. Since more sneakers can be

sold to customers without being misplaced or unrecorded, the revenues of the company increase,

which keeps members of the discourse community attuned to the common goal: making money.
In addition, Swales asserts that a discourse community exchanges information and feedback

through its communication mechanisms (472). Feedback and information exchange occur
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especially when it comes to offering opinions about verifying the authenticity of sneakers. Since

the demand for sneakers has increased dramatically, the market price for a pair of rare sneakers

can be thousands of dollars. However, the cost of making fake sneakers is much lower in

comparison to the market price, so long as they can be sold to sneakerheads as authentic. As a

result, “profiteers” are undeterred by production costs of fake sneakers because they can still

churn out a lot of money if fake sneakers are indistinguishable from authentic ones. As such, the

team members will discuss and express their own opinions about sneakers on the company

Wechat group, and these inputs are valued regardless of position in the company. We evaluate

sneakers that are sent to the team by sellers, so that the team can authenticate them before

handing them off to buyers. In addition, the discourse community will buy fake sneakers once a

month and compare them to the same authentic model as a means of monitoring counterfeiting

techniques. Community members will then exchange opinions about which aspects of the fake

sneakers are different from the real sneaker -- such as the spacing, lettering, and front size on

labels and tags, and how members can identify these differences. Even though opinions among

members may initially vary, we can reach a consensus with regards to authentication from

intense discussions on the Wechat group. Thus, these feedback channels are important in

determining our status as a discourse community because they allow members to offer their own

input to the commission of the objective. We are distinct from other companies in that we allow

for everyone to share their knowledge on sneakers regardless of their position in the

organization. It also ensures that our members are constantly learning about how to properly

identify authentic sneakers, as well as those that are counterfeit‘knock-offs.’

Swales also argues that a discourse community employs and has one or more type of writing

to promote its objectives in the community (472). Given that sneakers have much pertinent

information that needs to be announced, the management team employs a formal genre of
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writing in its encyclopedic entries. To explain: these entries helps to form a sneaker “reference

book” that tracks the history of sneakers. It is updated daily and posted on a public message

board by editors of discourse community; it can then be viewed freely by customers and

members of the entire sneakerhead community. There are three editors in the discourse

community that take turns writing encyclopedic entries, which include information such as

images, initial prices, and actual or predicted release dates from 2010 to 2019. Editors acquire

most images from factory owners in China, who have contracts with sneaker companies. The

reason why factory owners have access to these confidential pictures in advance is that most

sneaker companies send sneaker orders to factories six months before they are officially released.

The advanced ordering system allow editors to figure out the predicted release dates by simply

adding six months onto the dates when the images are provided. Editors can then predict the

initial price of a particular model of sneakers based on the initial prices of the same model

released before, since most sneaker companies set the same initial price for different designs.

After predicting release dates and initial prices, editors will list them, along with other pertinent

information, in bullet point form under images. It should be noted that any confidentialities are

censored by editors in order to avoid legal dispute between our company and the sneaker

companies. Most importantly, editors must ask permission from factory owners before posting

the entries. Since editors did not start recording encyclopedic entries until 2010, the reference

book contains only a few years’ worth of information and is continuously in development. To fill

in the gaps between 1985 and 2010 – the latter of which is the year when the first sneaker was

released – editors have to look through sneaker websites thoroughly and document the

information mentioned above. Overall, the significance of our writing lies in the fact that it can

record or forecast actual market prices, which are vital for the discourse community to increase
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its credibility and publicity. Moreover, having a comprehensive reference book demonstrates to

our team members, as well as our customers, that we are highly knowledgeable and resourceful

when it comes to finding information on sneakers. The construction of the reference book

records the entire history of sneakers and demonstrating our knowledge of this history creates a

sense of reliability among our customers, which is important in drawing and retaining them, and

by extension, reaping profits.

Swales also suggests that a discourse community should be equipped with some specific

lexis (473). As sneakerheads themselves, members of the discourse community utilize sneaker

terminology such as “Sample,” “DS,” and “Retro,” which might be hard for outsiders to

understand. First, a “sample” is an early model of an upcoming sneaker produced for developers

and distributors to see new designs. Samples sometimes appear on eBay or at test marketing

companies and consignment stores. The term is most commonly used by our editors when

writing entries based on images from China sneaker factories. Second, “DS,” is an acronym for

the term “Dead stock,” which means that the sneaker has never been worn. The warehouse

keeper uses this terminology frequently on the inventory report. Instead of writing that the shoes’

condition is “brand new” and that they are “ready to ship to customers,” Kuang can simply write

“DS” beside the sneakers’ images on Wechat. Members of the discourse community will

immediately understand the term, and as such, which types of sneakers they can sell as one

hundred percent new (Kuang). Finally, the word “retro” is used to refer to a previously-sold

sneaker that is being released anew. A retro sneaker allows sneakerheads a chance to purchase a

sneaker they could not afford before. Most retro models’ colors are popular and related to a

historical event. For instance, the Air Jordan 1 “Chicago,” which has been re-released twice, was

worn by Michael Jordan when he won the NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls in 1985.

Retro sneakers are generally the highest in demand on the secondary market, which leads to high
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price inflation. These lexical forms, among others, help the members of the team communicate

with each other more efficiently since the terminology can express a long definition in the form

of one word, or two or three letters. Moreover, the special lexis helps the discourse community

grow further, since new members’ proficiency with sneakerhead terminology is a significant and

basic criterion when new members of the discourse community are recruited.
Finally, Swales claims that a discourse community should have a differentiation of

functional expertise, meaning that the community contains several different roles and a hierarchy

among or between those roles (473). Members of the company can be divided into two different

levels: warehouse keepers and editors. The distinction between these two levels is determined by

functions performed, which are often based on differential levels of knowledge on sneakers. On

the one hand, the warehouse keepers are similar to the “runners,” which were the low-skilled

workers mentioned in Jahren’s book, Lab Girl. The runners are responsible for “hand-delivering

intravenous pain medications to the nursing stations where they needed (33).” Similarly,

warehouse keepers have the obligation to take reasonable care of the merchandise, coordinate

shipments, and let the team members know when to replenish stock (Kuang). Since warehouse

keepers only need to do low-skilled physical work, they only require a small amount of sneaker

knowledge, such as the sneakers’ color-ways and sizes. In addition, the warehouse keeper, who is

more familiar with the location of sneakers in the warehouse, can help editors find the sneakers

they want to write an entry about. On the other hand, editors are professional sneakerheads who

write daily reports, which are collected in the reference book. The editors must use their own

language and knowledge of sneakers to organize the entries based on images. Due to this

knowledge, editors are more familiar with sneakers than the warehouse keeper. Fortunately,

warehouse keepers may get promoted if they acquire enough knowledge of sneakers. In light of

these considerations, functional differentiation and variant expertise are important because one
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person’s unique skills in a certain regard can make up for another’s shortcomings. Besides,

promotion between different levels of expertise can motivate members to acquire more sneaker

knowledge while also focusing on their own work, which helps the development of the discourse

community. The clear structure with different background knowledge requirements all certifies

the management team to successfully meet the last criterion posited by Swales.
In conclusion, it is clear that Fanchushi Sport’s management team meets the six criteria that

Swales utilizes to describe discourse communities, and therefore is a discourse community. As

technology continues to proliferate, and the internet further develops, small electronic trading

businesses such as ours will dramatically increase around the world, which makes discourse

communities more diverse.

Works Cited
“Fanchushi TaoBao” https://fanchushi.taobao.com/search.htm?spm=a1z10.3-c.w4002-

846799805.52.33a656691qcGUr&_ksTS=1559084490163_195&callback=jsonp196&mid=

w-846799805-0&wid=846799805&path=%2Fsearch.htm&orderType=price_desc. Accessed

28 May 2019.
Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl (1st ed.). Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.
Kuang, Da. "Re: 关于写作课内容 DC 的采访." Received by Johnny Zhang, 15 May 2019.

Email Interview.
MacMurdo, Walker.“Fake Shoes Are Big Business. We Spoke to Two Experts in Sneaker

Reselling About How to Avoid a Fake Pair of Yeezys.” Willamette Week, 14 Feb. 2018,

www.wweek.com/arts/fashion/2018/02/14/fake-shoes-are-big-business-we-spoke-to-two-

experts-in-sneaker-reselling-about-how-to-avoid-a-fake-pair-of-yeezys/. Accessed 24 May

2019.
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Massimb, Marcel N., and Bruce D. Phelps. “Electronic Trading, Market Structure and Liquidity.”

Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 50, no. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1994), pp. 39-50.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4479711 Accessed 25 May 2019.

Steinberg, Leigh. “The Profitable Hidden Sneaker Market.” Forbes, 19 Sept. 2018,

www.forbes.com/sites/leighsteinberg/2018/09/17/the-profitable-hidden-sneaker-

market/#26574f715925. Accessed 24 May 2019.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing: A College

Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011, pp. 466-

479. Originally published in Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings,

Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 21-32.

White, Ronald D. “Those Nikes - Buy, Sell or Hold? Sneakers Are Now Assets Trading like

Stocks.” Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2019, www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sneakers-wall-

street-stockx-reseller-20190419-story.html. Accessed 24 May 2019.