Chen 1 Yun Chen Ms.

Stacey Dearing ENGL 106 30 March 2014

Evaluating Gymnastic Club As a Discourse Community For the past decade, the Purdue Gymnastic Club has always been a popular club and attracts Purdue students to join every semester. The Purdue Gymnastic Club is not a academic club or a hobby group, but it is very likely to be a discourse community Because according to John Swales, a community can be seen as a discourse community when it meets six characteristics as he defined: 1) a common public goals, 2) mechanisms of intercommunication among members, 3) uses participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, 4) utilizes and possesses one or more genres, 5) unique language used in the community known as lexis and 6) has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales). If the Gymnastic Club has met all six characteristics Swales described, it would be considered as a discourse community. In order to find out if the gymnastic club as a discourse community, I have conducted research to seek both primary and secondary sources that may provide evidence to show whether gymnastic club contains those characteristics. In order to obtain evidence that can prove gymnastic club as discourse community, I have conducted interviews with club members, had casual conversation with them, done observations at the club meeting and check the club website as methods to find supporting sources. Total number of two club members is interviewed. These two interviewees represent two different

Chen 2 types of membership in the club, which are gymnastic enthusiasts and new club members. Besides doing interviews, I also had conversations with them about their opinions on the gymnastic club. Interviews took place during a regular club meeting. One observation has conducted during a club meeting. The Gymnastic Club has its own club website as well as a Facebook page that is easy to access to and both provide useful information. First of all, the gymnastic club meets the criteria of a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. The club has total number of 151 current club members (Purdue Gymnastic), all the club members are all Purdue Undergraduate students, they represent several different majors, and every undergraduate Purdue student can join the club. So, not all the members in the club are professional. In fact, none of them are. The Gymnastic club was consists of a group of Purdue students of diverse skill levels who practice gymnastics for enjoyment(Purdue Gymnastic). There is still difference in skill level between members. Since Purdue University doesnt have a NCAA Gymnastic team, many high school gymnasts have joined the club and eager to practice Gymnastics and compete in college (Cummings, Interview). They are the professionals alike in the club, they not only practice gymnastic for themselves but also appear as mentors or coaches in the club. They help and lead exercises for club members that are new to gymnastics. Despite all the professionals alike in the club, there are more members that are just new to gymnastic and have never done gymnastics before. For almost all the club members, both new and old, have at least one thing in common, that is their enthusiasm of practice gymnastic. The gymnastic club has an agreed set of common goals. The club holds meeting very frequently at five days a week and set up practices at Lambert Fieldhouse (Cummings, Interview). According the club website, the gymnastic club is

Chen 3 a part of the NAIGC (National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs), the club attends an average of 6 meets around the Midwest each year (Purdue Gymnastic). Every year, club members represent school to compete with other schools club athletes. That is main reason why the gymnastic club has club meetings so frequently and all members practice so hard. The club goal is obvious, that is to be the top competitor in NAIGC and win medals back to Purdue. However, despite of competing in gymnastic and staying fit as a group, there are club members sees Gymnastic Club as a mean of socializing. Many people join the club just for fun. For them, the priority of joining the gymnastic club is not to be a top gymnastic competitor but getting socialized and make friends with other members in the club. A new member of the club said that he joined the club out of curiosity in the beginning and the reason he sticks with the club is that he makes lots of new friends at the club when he first arrives at Purdue and Gymnastic Club became a good place for them to hangout and exercising at the same time (Briggs, Interview). During a typical club meeting, laughers and music fill the atmosphere; the practice doesnt seem to be serious and boring but rather fun and exciting (Gymnastic Club, observation). At this point, the Gymnastic club have two specific reasons for club members stay in the community, the club itself utilize and possess two genres for club members to do while in the club; for the most part, Gymnastic club members practice gymnastic but at the same time, many of them use the club as a median of socializing and meeting friends. During the observation of a club meeting, I notice that the club members use some technical terms to communicate. Those words used by the gymnastic club members during practice and the ways they use these words dont make sense to outsiders, words such as kip or giant lose their original meanings and were given new meanings in the gymnastic world (Gymnastic Club, observation). In gymnastics, kip refers to the movement from a position

Chen 4 below the equilibrium to the position above, usually on the uneven bars, or parallel bars (USA Gymnastics). So, a kip drill simply means the practice that help athlete get on bars. Giant does not mean huge or big in the gymnastic, it refers to a swing in which the body is fully extended and moving through 360 degree rotation around the bar(USA Gymnastics). Many of those technical terms in gymnastic represents certain movements, they tend short and easy to pronounce for athletes during the fast-paced practice. The gymnastic club adopted many of the technical terms and uses them as lexis during practice. For all Gymnastic Club members, there are difference in skill levels but it is not hard to tell who are the big shots in the club and who are just newcomers in gymnastics based on the difficulty of movements they are doing and individual performance during a practice in club meeting (Gymnastic Club, observation). In general, older members in the club are better performers, their body motions are smoother than newcomers and they tend to do more difficult moves than many new members. However, when someone got stuck on bars or failed to do some moves such as a simple cartwheel, nobody in the club would laugh at the failure, instead, they take them seriously, old members or the big shots would come over and help. Many older club members take place and become coaches and instructors in the club, they monitor each action other members made during practice and give comments on how well they perform; they would always be encouraged to give another try when other members failed. They teach by providing proper instructions and giving advice based on personal experience. The Gymnastic Club meets the criteria of providing information and feedback to others on their performance and makes all members to improve.

Chen 5 The Gymnastic club manages to have a mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, they use Facebook, the course website and newsletter by emails.

(Purdue Gymnastics) In the Gymnastic club website that is shown above, theres a schedule links that has information for each meet the Gymnastic Club will attend as well as the NAIGCs other information (Purdue Gymnastics); it is used as a form of communication within the club. Also, club executive members will frequently update practice schedule, activities and events on the club Facebook page and send newsletters by emails to forecast incoming events (Briggs, Interview). Purdue Gymnastic Club is a place full of gymnastic enthusiasts, the membership represents different skill level in gymnastic. It is a cool place to hang out and meet friends, everyone in the club are nice people, they wont let other members down in the practice, they comment on how each other doing in practice, provide feedbacks and thriving for better performance to achieve the common goals of winning medals in competitions. The club has its own language\lexis and it is used among communications within club members. The club

Chen 6 Facebook page, the club website and emails are the forms of intercommunications within club members. The Gymnastic club is not an academic club or a hobby group but it has met all six characteristics John Swales introduced and it is proved to be a discourse community.

Chen 7 Citations Briggs, Nick. Personal Interview. 13 March, 2014. Cummings, Will. Personal Interview. 13 March, 2014. Gymnastic Club Personal Observation, 11, March, 2014." Purdue Gymnastics." Purdue Gymnastics. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 466479. Print. "USA Gymnastics | Glossary of Terms." USA Gymnastics | Glossary of Terms. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.