Jessica McDougal Arent all speech communities similarly different?

I hadnt realized that all speech communities have similar qualities until the video capture assignment. For the video capture I initially wanted to do a candid shot to see if my friends and I really do use the terminologies in our speech community but because of technical difficulties, I couldnt. So I approached the assignment from a different angle, an explanatory angle. This method of video capture, unlike the candid shot, had me dig deep and view my speech community not from my point of view but from an outsiders point of view. The candid shot would only prove if we use the terminology and how often, it would never explain the meaning behind it. Because I viewed my speech community for the first time to explain to outsiders, I realized how difficult it was. To explain my speech community you had to have prior knowledge of something else beforehand. Doing the explanatory video I realized I needed more than 30-90 seconds to explain my speech community. This tore down the writers block I was having with my essay draft. I never tried to view my community from an outsiders eyes until the video capture. So to better explain my community I started explaining by way of my speech characteristics, patterns, terminology, root, and realized that these are also key forms for all speech communities. I realized to explain my speech community, you had to have proper knowledge of Japanese and Japanese culture. So I had to say a key word, translate it, explain the meaning, and then also explain any cultural differences to show why this word is being used. I thought this was going to be extremely difficult; Difficult to explain and to not become too wordy. But from the video capture assignment I

realized that all speech communities are similarly different and vice versa. All speech communities have their own element of speech patterns, origin, terminology, and individuality. Realizing this aided me into writing this paper. From the start of the semester, I realized this wasnt your average English class. Instead of doing the everyday grammar and book analysis, this class challenged us by pushing us out of our routine, comfort zone. I noticed how my classmates found the assignments to be uncomfortable, some even verbalized this. I think the assignment that threw most of us in for a loop was the blogging. The blogging had us not only for us to hold back on our everyday English class writing style and forced us to write however we pleased. I also noticed during the blogging that some were holding back on criticism. The passages we were reading were controversial topics, I hardly believe that every single person in out class agreed with the things being read. But as days went by and we started to better understand the routine of our new English class, our new environment, I dont think the class noticed we were molding into a speech community. The class itself is a speech community because it has all the elements which I believe is necessary to be a community. It has its own origin, speech patterns, and even terminology. The class was learning and evaluating their own speech community while being discretely molded into a new one. Another angle I learned about my speech community was by the wiki building. Building a page to explain my speech community with sources was challenging. Challenging because my speech community is rare, its a speech community with unwritten rules and you grow into it with time. So explaining my

speech community in the wiki blog was difficult. I was having too much fun and lost myself a couple of times writing paragraphs for the wiki. I had to remind myself to go back to my original English writing style and write it in a more explanatory way. So if speech communities have so much in common, why do they seem so different? What I enjoy about speech communities is that you can be a member of more than one. And because of our ability to adapt so well, we can be in as many different speech communities as we like. I realized the mechanics of speech community and exploited the template of it, and saw that that was the reason why we can be a part of as many speech community as possible. It is also the reason why its easy to accept and acknowledge a speech community. As long as we know the origin, the members, and that they have guidelines and terminology is enough for an individual to see a speech community. Although this doesnt mean a non-member will immediately understand a speech community, its enough knowledge to know that it exists. Visual Kei and its members are perceived by the public as delinquents and music thats bad for children but such is not true. Visual kei has negative stereotypes, just like any speech community. Visual kei also has unwritten guidelines, just like any speech community. What I want to point out, is that even though a non member will not understand the depths of a communities rules, a non member knows enough about a speech community to relate and understand. All speech communities are similarly different. That is why it was easy for us to relate when we were learning about dialects. We all realized that we had dialects. Like an author mentioned: no dialect, no

language. And so I believe: If youre in a speech community, you have the ability to understand partially of an unknown community. I clung to this community because it was a way for me to have a chain to my mother tongue, Japanese. Not only my mother tongue but my culture. The move I made in middle school left me as an outsider and visual kei accepted me with open arms. A community full of outsiders, but were all good people. We may look scary and speak differently, but we accept those who are also different from us. This community is special to me because it taught me that its okay to be different and to not let peoples judging make me uncomfortable. I am a very firm believer in not judging a book by its cover. This community is always being judged because of the way we look, so I joined to go against those who judge others because of their outer appearance. My speech community use less words and more outward appearance as a statement. We display our message with our outer appearance and lyrics. Although the visual kei community doesnt use many words like many other communities, its easy for a non-member to relate because ever community as an origin, speech pattern, terminology, and individuality. All speech communities are similarly different.