Laurencia Caballero

Discourse Community Ethnography

Writing is a vital, part of everyday life and society, and is needed to succeed and excel.
Because writing is used to convey information, thoughts, and ideas, writing can be on
any and every topic. But for each piece of writing there is a goal that is meant to be
achieved. There are varying forms and styles depending on which discourse
community one maybe be writing in. It can be in the form of emails, brochures,
advertisements, contracts, websites , and/or memos. Writing is an essential and
effective method to be used within every discourse community. And without writing you
have no communication in almost any professional discourse community. Writing and
communication has proven to be a lifeline in professional, everyday life, and the basis
for many discourse communities. The discourse community that I studied and
researched is the real estate community. I have been working as a real estate assistant
for the past three months and I plan on getting my real estate license this summer.
With this study we had to throughly understand what a "discourse" community
was, what it does, and who was included in this community. A discourse community is a
group or community of people that share certain "discourses" such as goals, and ideas,
with intent of achieving those goals and ideas. The idea of a discourse community was
presented to us in an article written by Swales. Swales explains that there are six
characteristics of what he considers a discourse community. First off the discourse
community has a broadly agreed s,et of common public goals , a discourse community
had mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, a discourse community
uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to prove information and feedback, a
discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one ore more genres in the
combinative furtherance of its aims, in addition to owning genres, a discourse
commenting has acquired a specific lexis, and finally a discourse community had a
threshold of member with a suitable degrees of relevant and discoursal expertise.
Within the community there are many real estate agents, specifically Monarch real
estate. During my observations I worked an open house, in which I opened up the
house, turned on all the lights, set the brochures on the table, and sat and waited for
perspective clients to arrive. My writing in this discourse community is some what
limited, and is mostly in the form of signs in front of houses being sold all around the
city, brochures, emails to clients, memos, emails, and text messages as well. Writing
from realtor to client usually stays more formal and more professional than the writing
between two realtors, or between a realtor and assistant in my case. Special language
within this community is somewhat limited The professionals of this community write, a
lot of emails, contracts and brochures. The the things they usually say or speak about
are about the house, and its details. In the real estate community there is some jargon,
but not as much as there would be in a medical community. Some of the special
language a realtor ay use is, ARM adjustable-rate mortgage, appraisal,ballon
mortgage/payment, and PUD planned unit development to name a few.
With this specific study we had to be part or observe and discourse community
that would possibly be in your future. With this observation our audience began to
understand the importance of a discourse community and its quality in different
professional areas. There are many similar goals, forms of communication, and purpose
for communication throughout the real estate community. The goal for most if not all
relators is to sell the most amount of houses. This group exists because there is always
going to be someone that needs to buy a house or sell. The forms of communication
that is used in this community is email, phone calls, and text messages. The purpose of
these communication mechanisms is to set up appointments, rely information to other
realtors or clients, inform others about open houses, and/ or to ask questions. When
clients arrive my aunt who is the one that I am observing and getting help from to learn
the basics of real estate hands them a brochure and explains the basic facts about the
house. The square feet, the number of rooms, the year it was built, and possibly any
other unique facts about the house. Later on after the open house is finished, there is a
meeting with another client. We drive to Starbucks and meet the clients with the
prewritten contract, my aunt begins to explain what the contract entails, and the clients
sign off on the contract. Depending on how the client may be paying the contract will
change.
With this study I began to learn more about the real estate community and
understand it better, I found the study extremely helpful because many students like
myself plan on pursing certain career paths and do not understand what happens daily
within the discourse communities of our future careers. Real estate is on the discourse
communities that I would really want to pursue, with working as a real estate assistant,
and hopefully getting my real estate license over the summer. This study has helped to
prove to me the importance of writing and communication in this discourse community,
and the importance of mastering it to have the ability to excel not only in this community
but all other discourse communities I may become part of