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Celine Vezina
Professor Mary Gomrad
ENC 1101
15 September 2014
Discourse Community: UCF Ice Hockey Team
In English recently, we were required to read an article by an author named
Swales. His article discussed discourse communities, which unless you have heard
about it from someone else, you may not exactly know what that is. Swales
described a discourse community as a group with six specific characteristics that
will be used to accomplish work together. These six characteristics include having a
broadly agreed set of common public goals, having mechanisms of
intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms to
provide information and feedback, utilizes and possesses more than one genre in
the communicative furtherance of its aims, having acquired some specific lexis, and
has a threshold level of expertise. A group that possesses all of these characteristics
can be considered a discourse community, whether the group is public or private.
Now what separates a public group from a private group is whether you have to
tryout or audition to become one of the crew. If you do, the group is a private
discourse community. Ive never seen any research being done on the University of
Central Florida Ice Hockey Team, so this was seen as a chance to show everyone
how this specific group of individuals is a private discourse community. My plan to
observe the team without becoming a member of the group started with
interviewing a few members to see their perspectives.

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The interviews that were conducted were a way to further an outsiders
understanding of the UCF Ice Hockey Team Discourse Community. Two hockey
players were asked a set of six questions. They were all interviewed in person but at
separate times, that way no one was influenced by the others answer. Each answer
was written down, and then they were analyzed to see which answer was the
clearest.
Shooting Pucks for Goals
Having a common set of goals is one of the main ways that a group is
distinguished as a discourse community. If they are a discourse community, then the
group is going to share the same aims and agreed on the goals to further their group.
When watching the team during a few practices and games I was able to configure a
few goals that I would confirm with a player. I found that some major goals were to
bond and become closer as a team, to become the best player you can be, to avoid
any sort of injury, to maintain a decent reputation, and to get the team to the States
Championship and eventually the National Championship for a D3 hockey team.
After collecting my data on goals being set for the team, I interviewed their starting
goalie who made it clear which goals were more meaningful to the group. The
question I asked was, Would you agree with the set of goals that I was able to come
up with after observing the team for a little while. He responded by saying, I agree
with the set of goals that you were able to come up with, especially the one
concerning us getting closer as a team because what a lot of people think is that if
one of us is a decent hockey player, then our team is solid. Well this isnt always true
because the chemistry between a team really matters too because were stronger as

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a team than we are as a group of individuals. I can clearly see where he is coming
from because, like the old saying, theres no I in team, and that is really shown in
their aims and their common goals.

Mechanisms of Intercommunication
Alongside having common goals, it is key to have a good mechanism of
intercommunication between your group members. You really cant use a million
different ways to communicate because otherwise nothing gets done and most of
the members end up being unhappy. Watching and hanging out with some of the
members of the UCF hockey team, I was able to pick up a few methods of
intercommunication that I felt they all used the most to make one another happy
while talking with one another. The guys will text each other, have face-to-face
communication, they have a Facebook and a Twitter page for team announcements,
theyre sent e-mails from the captains and the coaching staff, and they also have pregame and post-game speeches. I asked their starting goalie Blake, out of the six
sources of intercommunication I was able to pick up, which one he felt was used the
most, and he told me that they mostly talk using the group text message that a team
member created so everyone was informed about upcoming team events.
Intercommunication really is as important as any of the other characteristics
because this will help the team bond and become closer as a team, which is the
ultimate goal set.
Participation as a Team

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Intercommunication is what is needed so that all members of the community
are able to find out about ways to participate as a team. These ways of participation
will help provide feedback as to how the team feels it is doing and how it can be
made better. For the UCF Ice Hockey Team, this could be going to the games and the
team practices so they can see their strengths and weaknesses, ad if they feel that
they should be doing something differently, it can be open for discussion at one of
these opportunities. Other ways of getting involved in having a team dinner, going to
tryouts, and going on road trips. After asking the guys what they felt had the biggest
impact on participation as a team, I received most of the same responses from
multiple people. They said that even though going to a game or a practice was very
important as a team, that road trips really are the best way of participation because
theyre all sitting together in a bus for multiple hours which in a way, forces them to
talk amongst each other and thus making the team more communicative and
participatory.
Genres
Though intercommunication is a way for the team to talk amongst
themselves to discuss team-related subjects, it differs from the different genres of a
group. This is a way that a group will communicate with the public about things that
are going on with the discourse community. There are many ways that a group can
use and using prior knowledge as well as new thoughts made after observation, I
was able to jot down a few. They include distributing the team schedule to potential
fans, putting up flyers that discuss upcoming promotions and events with the team,
and having tickets available to be bought to come out and watch the team play. For

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this subsection of a discourse community, I interviewed the assistant captain Jake,
and I asked him which genre was most effective. He told me that distributing the
teams schedule really helps the attendance level of the games because without
them, nobody would know when or if there was a game. The reason that genre is so
important to a discourse community because without the public being aware of the
group then it would be hard for the group to function. This is due to the fact that,
even though, the team can still function without a fan base, it makes it a lot more
difficult. Having the public there helps with team confidence as well as financial
situations that they have to deal with such as renting a bus for a road trip or paying
for extra ice time.
Lexis
The fifth of six characteristics is the lexis of a discourse community. The lexis
is a set of vocabulary that is used specifically by the discourse community. This can
also include specific acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. I listened to some
conversations between some hockey players from the team and they used many
words that and outsider wouldnt use on a normal basis. Some examples of these
vocabulary words include wheeling, boarding, hip checking, cross-checking,
tripping, pine rider, beaut, sauce, and smoke show. An initialism that the team uses
is ACHA, which stands for American Collegiate Hockey Association. Lexis is a way
that the team can communicate with one another in a private way because the
public doesnt truly understand.
Levels of Expertise

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The final characteristic of a discourse community is the levels of expertise
throughout the group. This explains how long one person has been in the group or
the different job that one has been assigned. For the hockey team, I was able to find
many levels of expertise such as rookies, veterans, coaches, equipment managers,
the top line players, and the healthy scratches. When I asked the assistant captain
which level of expertise functioned the best, he told me that each level was equally
needed because when theyre all put together, thats really what makes up the team
and without one group of people, it wouldnt be able to function as smooth as it has
been. In a way, this supports their main goal of getting closer as a team because the
different levels are working together to make the group work.
I feel as if each one of these characteristics is a building block to the creation
of a discourse community, and without one the group cant be complete. A discourse
community must have common goals, methods of intercommunication, participation
methods, genres, lexis, and different levels of expertise, and the characteristics are
the same for each member of the discourse community, which is what makes them
unique as a group. The UCF Ice Hockey team has the main goals of improving their
skills as a team and bonding at the same time. They use anything from texting to
face-to-face conversations as sources of intercommunication using their own set of
vocabulary, and to talk to the public they use sources such as flyers or team
schedules. The team also participates together in games and practices that involve
all levels of expertise, anybody from a rookie to the coaching staff.

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Appendix A
Interview Questions:
1. Would you agree with the set of goals that I was able to come up with after
observing the team for a little while?
2. Out of the six sources of intercommunication I was able to pick up, which one
do you feel is used the most?
3. What do you feel had the biggest impact on participation as a team?
4. Which genre is the most effective?

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Appendix B: Observations
Terms used by team:
Wheeling, boarding, hip checking, cross-checking, tripping, pine rider, beaut, sauce,
smoke show, ACHA
Genre Example: