Essay
woshinibaba
GRADED_XiaoxiYue-101-paper2.pdf
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Xiaoxi Yue
Professor Stanton
English Composition 101
06/12/2019
Branick Supports Klass
Various scholars have different perspectives concerning being a member of a given
profession and pretending or imitating one. Perri Klass passes through a lot of events to
categorize herself to be closer to the doctor rather than talking like a doctor. The article, ‘Learn
the Language’ by Klass presents the main thematic concerns about the special language that
professionals in the medical context use. Klass experience various challenges when she is
working as an intern in a medical field considering that she is just a student who has no
experience about the professional language in the settings. However, she later learns the
language and goes closer to become a doctor instead of just talking like one. On the other hand,
the article, ‘Coaches Can Read, Too: An Ethnographic Study of a Football Coaching Discourse
Community’ by Branick explores how coaches set the goals as one way of accomplishing their
professional goals and strive using several steps to accomplish those steps. Branick’s ideas
support Klass ideas in many ways based on professional contexts and how students or
professionals in the respective fields endeavor to achieve their goals. This essay seeks to evaluate
how Branick and Klass’ thematic concerns regarding professional development matches.
Both authors believe that there is a need for the professionals to have a goal that they will
strive to accomplish before commencing the journey towards developing their professionalism.
According to Klass, one need to know the pattern and not just the words while learning the
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language. The statement, “Harvey’s concern over not knowing the menu was not surprising. The
menu is the most important printed text used by waiters and waitresses and not knowing it can
dramatically affect how they are able to do their work…” (Klass 304) implies that understanding
the work without pattern is likely to lead to failure in one’s endeavor. Employees need to know
both their work pattern and special language used in their professions for efficiency. They need
to know and understand the language used such as wordings in their workplace alongside
understanding their work. Professionalism is achieved when a professional understands his
career goals and the path it takes to attain the goals. On the other hand, Branick points out that
coaches have a goal to develop as people. According to him, “to be a member of the profession,
the members of the community need to have a shared goal for them to be successful in their
profession (Branick 398)”. Branick posits that members of a profession have a shared goal they
need achieved. With the shared goal in mind, they identify strategies or paths that will lead them
to the shared goal. An individual is considered successful in his profession if he works through
the established strategies towards attaining the shared goal through his work. The two authors
share a common idea that a member who ought to accomplish something in life ought to
establish means and strategies and work by them to achieve those objectives.
Being in a community implies that one knows the pattern and grammar as well as words.
Branick argues that “it is effective to include characteristics and background of your discourse
community to allow the reader to understand what their D.C is about if they do not have a
previous background or knowledge about the text (Branick 388).” This means that members of a
community speak in the same language that they can easily understand. Even without previous
knowledge, they can understand the context since they know the language they use. This
argument supports Klass’ idea that “one need to understand the pervasive metaphors, how they
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are used (Klass 320)” to imply being a member of a language community. They understand the
wordings and terminologies used thus fit in a particular language community. The arguments
from these authors justifies that the community where the players are raised contribute much on
how they learn different contexts and how their respective professionalisms are developed
including special language used in the profession. For instance, the hospital where Klass went for
an internship program influenced the language that she established from the medical context
while the Coach, Branick established his language based on his trainees and the environment
where he conducted his lessons.
The two articles also justify how using special words in a community help people to
engage with one another to achieve specific objectives. According to Branick, “There are many
terms that are involved in football coaching communities that may not make sense to most
people but, among a team, makes perfect sense and help the community better do its work and
achieve its goals (Branick 8)”. This means that to fit in a profession, a member must be
knowledgeable about the language used including special words used in that profession.
Different professions have different special words they use that members of the community must
know. This is because certain words are only applicable to a given context even though they may
not be sensible in other settings. A team that is well organized understands all special words
since they are regularly used and may seem meaningless if they have no clue about them.
Branick’s notion about the application of special words to engage people to achieve a given goal
supports Klass’ argument who states that, “staff in hospital have their own words they use to
maintain certain distance from the patients (Klass 398).” This means that the staff in hospital will
use a language to communicate that patients may not understand. They will use certain words
such as medical terminologies that may sound meaningless to their patients. The later implies
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that special words that doctors use to achieve a given goal of providing services are not familiar
to the patients despite all being in the same environment. Hence, the two authors justify how
members of a given profession can apply special words to engage one another to achieve the
goals in their respective contexts.
Besides using the same language or special words in a profession, both authors support
the idea that language communities must continue improving their craft through learning new
aspects that will aid their endeavor to achieve given goals, help their peers work with them, and
people who they see or engage in the same environment. Branick provides that “the fourth
quality is being a learner… they must learn about the newest trends, philosophies, and strategies
in the sport that they coach (Branick 385)”. This illustrates that apart from understanding
language used in a profession, the professionals should be willing to learn new aspects for
enhanced career growth. For instance, coaches have different roles to play depending on their
specific sports that they lead and their precise goals set before they started undertaking their
roles. However, learning is endless and coaches ought to learn continuously to ensure that they
familiarize themselves with the new strategies established in the context. This argument supports
Klass’ who argues that medical context is dynamic and doctors have to learn new aspects such as
new diseases and cure being established for their cause considering that patients expects them to
end those diseases regardless of whether they are old or new. She provides that, “doctors have to
learn new aspects such as new diseases and cure…… (Klass 388)”. This means a professional
should be willing to learn new aspects in his career over time. He needs to increase his pool of
knowledge in new aspects from time to time.
In conclusion, Branick’s ideas support Klass ideas in many ways based on professional
contexts and how students or professionals in the respective fields endeavor to achieve their
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goals. The two articles have many common notions pertaining to being a coach and being a
doctor respectively. For instance, Branick’s ideas and Klass believe that there is a need for the
professionals to have a goal that they will strive to accomplish before commencing the journey
towards developing their professionalism. The two articles also justify how using special words
in a community help people to engage with one another to achieve specific objectives. In
addition, the two articles back up the idea that language communities must continue improving
their craft through learning new aspects that will aid their endeavor to achieve given goals, help
their peers work with them, and people who they see or engage in the same environment. Hence,
Branick supports Klass’ ideas in various aspects despite the two articles addressing different
professions.
On my honor, I have neither received nor given any unauthorized assistance on this assignment
