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Haldes 9
Discourse Community Ethnography: Dayton Men’s Basketball Team
Introduction
The Men’s Basketball Team at the University of Dayton is a huge part of the culture of the university. The basketball team is the premier sport of the school and the city of Dayton itself, generally selling out games, regardless of the opponent. With the University of Dayton lacking a high profile football team and the city of Dayton lacking professional sports teams, the basketball team at the university is the next biggest thing. Basketball is a sport but for so many people it is so much more than just a game. It is a lifestyle and many people cannot imagine their lives without it. It is about working together as a family with common goals and aspirations. The basketball team at Dayton is a discourse community of guys from different backgrounds all trying to help bring the team to a level never before reached. The motto of our basketball team is “True Team” which means being about all the right things all the time. It is about putting aside your own personal agenda for the betterment of the team, and being about the right things everyday. Most importantly it is about respecting each other, working hard for one another, and representing our university, our families, and one another in the right way.
Definition of Discourse Community
According to John Swales, a discourse community can be defined as a group of people who use a distinctive language with this language being apart of their social behavior and identity (218-219). The language used is unique to the group and an outsider would have difficulty just stepping in and talking in this way. New members are being invited and initiated routinely, and through this language they are able to become part of the group. “(There are) six defining characteristics that will be necessary and sufficient for identifying a group of individuals as a discourse community” (Swales 221). These include the common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication, participatory mechanisms, their genres, specific lexis, and a threshold level of members with a high level of expertise. These are different for each group and will also change in time. The veterans will have more knowledge than new members but it is their job to teach the next generation of members before they move on.
Discourse Community Under Analysis
The basketball team at the University of Dayton has for a long time been on the center stage of the city. In the 50’s and 60’s Dayton was a basketball powerhouse that rivaled the likes of UCLA in their prime. Dayton is known for their die-hard fans that are willing to travel any distance for away games, and pack home games that they know are going to be a blowout victory. They are true fans in both good and bad seasons. Many of the fans treasure their season tickets as a prized possession and have had the same seats for decades. In recent years the basketball team has had great success. For the first time in over 30 years the team has had back-to-back NCAA tournament wins. In 2014 the team made it to the Elite Eight, bringing the national stage back to Dayton and the following year the team was minutes away from a second consecutive Sweet Sixteen with a smaller bench than any other tournament team. The basketball team also went undefeated home, making UD Arena one of the most treacherous places to play in the country.
Methods
As a current member of the basketball, as a research participant, I had an emic view as I am inside the group as a member on a daily basis. I observed three members in the locker room after a workout after the season ended and I also interviewed one individual member of this discourse community. The team is always cracking jokes and having a good time which made the observation and interview process very enjoyable. I asked questions about what his goals were both personally and as a team, how he was recruited to the team, and how he perceives the team among other things. I was able to learn some surprising things I did not previously know, despite being an insider of the team. I looked at the responses to best go along with Swales’ six characteristics of a discourse community.
Results
Goals
The public goals and private goals were very different for the guy I interviewed. As a team some of the public goals included winning the conference regular season, winning the conference championship, making back to back to back NCAA tournaments, and to leave Dayton as the winningest class in Dayton history. A goal for the next season is to make it to the final four. Being the best team they can be is as much about the fans and doing it for the school and city as it is about their own personal goals and aspirations as a team. “When our fans come to every game screaming and supporting, regardless of the opponent, we owe them nothing less” (Doe). Among the private goals was to potentially switch to a bigger conference such as the Big East for better competition as well as to leave Dayton whenever he can to play professionally. He kept saying how blessed he was to be in this situation, but would consider leaving college early or transferring to a different school for better opportunities for them. He also described a desire for college athletes to be paid. “(I want to) be the person from back home that makes it” (Doe).
Lexis
The Lexis are the unique terms and words used within the community. There are a lot of slang terms used by the basketball team as well as short abbreviations not dissimilar to Ebonics. While observing the team one player called it “trapanese”. Emojis are also commonly used to signify a word when communicating via text, twitter, or snapchat. For example the fire emoji means something is really cool, for example, those shoes are fire. The emojis are also used to describe someone’s current emotions instead of actually writing them out. In order to understand all of the emojis used and what they mean to the basketball team would be similar to trying to decipher hieroglyphics or cave paintings. If you have not been around these guys long, you would have a difficult time deciphering what they are talking about.
Genres
There are certain genres used within the basketball team to effectively communicate. Lexis used within the genre are slang as well as emojis. The most commonly used means of communication are sending snapchats, or short pictures and videos with text, sending messages on twitter or instagram through comments or direct messages, but most commonly used is facetime and texting. Facetime is a video chatting application for iPhonesand it is huge with our team. Instead of talking to someone on the phone in a call, the guys on the team prefer to video chat with one another, even for short messages. For more formal messages pertaining to the whole team we have a group chat for texting, hold group meetings, and in the games or locker room we hold hudles.
Literacies
Textual
Literacy is the ability to write and read. On the basketball team, our seniors and oldest members are able to talk to the team more so than new members. They are the leaders and everyone respects their ideas. They try to motivate the rest of the team, and tell us what needs to be done to succeed, since they were in our shoes before.
Interpersonal
Depending on who one is talking to, the tone and method may be different. Certain players take things more personally and do not respond to criticism, so any thing you tell them has to be told very carefully. Others on the other hand get complacent and need to be motivated through yelling and being critical.
Situational
Depending on the situation, the team acts differently. On game day the team is all very serious, but on a day off everyone is very laid back. After a loss, people are really quiet and disappointed, while after a win there is a great deal of energy amongst the team.
Relationships between Textual, Situational, and Interpersonal Literacies
Depending on the situation and the person communicating the ways people interact vary. It is through these methods that make the discourse community unique. If the team is winning the mood is very different than after a tough loss. However, sometimes it is the tough loss that motivates the team more than anything else. “I hate losing more than I love winning” (Doe).
Hierarchy of DCE
The structure of membership is a hierarchy among players. Scholarship players have hierarchy over non-scholarship, but the ultimate hierarchy is based on what year you are and how long you have been on the team.
The process for the acquisition of knowledge is to talk to the coaches for guidance and to learn the skills needed to help the team. In addition to this, talking to captains and veterans on the team is helpful when you do not know something. Most likely they have been in your shoes when you were unsure of something and they do not mind helping you out. The experts and old timers are the coaches in the program as well as the captains of the team, as well as the upperclassmen on the team.
The gatekeepers that bring in new people are the coaches that recruit players to come in. After a player is on campus for a visit, we all meet them; go out to eat with them. After dinner we hang out and try to convince them to come play for us. The goal is to get new members that will help our team win and we try to make them as comfortable with our team as possible. Initiates must be recruited or know the coaches and workout with the team. If the coaches really want a player, they will go to their games during their high school season, their travel club team games, as well as any practices they can to see what they can contribute to the team.
Our settings and environments we hang out in are very unique to the team. The locker room is used a lot as a place to hang out, as well as in the gym, even when we are not playing. We hang out in the rec, as well as in the players apartments, playing video games, monopoly, having a party with friends, or watching a game on TV. Something unique to our team is that we make a big deal, especially during the season, to go out for dinner as a team, and to do fun activities multiple times a week to build the camaraderie of the team. It is through these activities and hanging out in these environments that friendships are built and we grow stronger as a community.
Conclusion
The University of Dayton men’s basketball team is a family of young guys with a common language and a common goal. We all put each other before ourselves and try to help out one another. We view one another as family and would do anything for our “brothers”. Many people on campus have a certain perception of basketball players as being either really cool people who walk around campus like celebrities, or really stuck up jerks. It is really neither of these once you get to know the guys however. As a team we have a set of morals and goals we stick to and when you get to know the guys and are brought in, they treat you like family and are just like any other group of guys. When asked how much we all care for one another, the interviewed teammate said, “You’re all my brothers, I would do anything for y’all” (Doe).
Works Cited
Doe, John. University of Dayton Men’s Basketball Player. Personal Interview. April 11 2015.
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Readings for English 100: Writing Seminar 1. 218-228.