Crystal Rodriguez

80475321
MWF 11:30-12:20
Discourse Communities

Ever realized that in our daily life, we walk passed through many business,
organizations, and even cliques? These groups may or may not fall into a discourse
community. A discourse community, according to John Swales in The Concept of
Discourse Community, is a group of members that form a community and must have
all six mechanisms that make a discourse community which are: have a set of
common interests goals, who communicate through approved channels, provide
feedback and information through these channels, have one or more genres among
their discourse, have a specific lexis, and have a balance between members of
suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales, 1990). In this
study, I will be proving that the El Paso Police Department (EPPD) is in fact a
discourse community, according to Swales interpretation of it, and I will be
exploring in depth the six mechanisms that compose the EPPD as a discourse
community.
For this study, I observed an EPPD police officer, named Officer Reynolds, for
a complete evening shift, which was from 1:00-9:00 pm, having a total of 8
observation hours. After the ride along was over, I asked Officer Reynolds if I could
interview him and a first year police officer. After getting these two officers
approval, I emailed them a set of interview questions. These questions consisted of
mainly their individual personal experiences while on duty, things they notice when
writing police reports or tickets, and their form of communication from a dispatcher
to a forensic laboratory (when necessary). And lastly, because of confidentiality
issues, I asked Officer Reynolds to give me a sample report based on a given
scenario he provided.
During the first two hours of observation in the ride along, it was very slow
according to Officer Reynolds. By slow, he meant that there wasnt a lot of action,
such as traffic stops or dispatch calls. Nonetheless, throughout these first two hours
Officer Reynolds did provide some additional information about his form of writing
in this law enforcement field. For example, when Officer Reynolds arrives at the
dispatched scene, he writes every victims and offenders/suspects (if any) names,
gets the story from the victim and any possible witnesses, and any additional
information such as address or date and time. The following is a mini sample rough
draft for Officer Reynoldss police report. Take note that this sample is based off of
a set scenario and did not happen in real life.

Officer Reynolds considered this sample of police writing on his notepad a
rough draft to his final police report that he writes once hes at the police station.
The reason this is his rough draft is because here, on his notebook pad, he writes in
abbreviations such as VI-01, which stands for Victim One, or OF-01which means
Offender One. He noted that when there is more than one victim or offender, they
write the abbreviation VI or OF and assign it the next corresponding number. Police
officers write like this in order to save time. What Officer Reynolds explained to me
is that, when a police officer is gathering the information at the scene, they try to be
as brief and quick in order to gather every piece of information at a quick pace. It is
necessary to gather every piece of information that is auditory or visual, such as a
witness or victim speaking or something the police officer sees at the scene. Also,
when writing this information on the notepad, after they identify the victims or
offenders with the abbreviations, they also include their full name the first time they
are mentioned. If at any given point throughout a testimonial, the police officer then
only writes the victims/offenders last name, excluding the initial abbreviations.
Here is an example:
OFFICER REYNOLDS #2483, WORKING AT 23768 WAS DISPATCHED TO 14241 ROGER
TORRES IN REFERENCE TO A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. UPON ARRIVAL, OFFICER MET WITH
VI-01 NAMED JANE DOE AND VI-02 NAMED ALLISON JOHNSON. DOE STATED ON
03/07/2014 AT 10:00 PM THAT OF-01 BY THE NAME OF JOHN SMITH SLAPPED HER
ACROSS THE FACE AT APPROX. 9:30 AND THREATENED HER WITH OB-01-KITCHEN KNIFE.
THEN SMITH TRIED TO FLEE THE SCENE BUT JOHNSON ATTEMPTED TO STOP SMITH.
SMITH THEN THREATENED TO HIT JOHNSON WITH OB-02-CHEVY TAHOE. JOHNSON THEN
WENT BACK INTO RESIDENCE WITH DOE AND CALLED 911. SMITH FLED SCENE.
As we were headed into the third hour, and after Officer Reynolds finished
explaining the additional information, his police scanner came on and alerted him of
a Public Disturbance at Whataburger on 3500 Dyer St. When the dispatcher said the
location, I noticed that Officer Reynolds wrote down the address on his notepad, and
immediately replied to dispatcher using only the code 10-4. Officer Reynolds
informed me that in the police academy, you are taught to know all the codes and
what they stand for. This is where I noticed, including in his writing, how the EPPD
satisfies one of Swales six mechanisms of a discourse communityspecific lexis.
Swales believes that in order to be considered a discourse community you must
have and use special and highly technical terminology (Swales, 1990). Since the
EPPD does indeed have their unique and special terminology, such as 10-4 or VI-01,
that no one outside of this career would know, they do possess one of the six
mechanisms Swales said were needed in a discourse community. However, the
EPPD needs to satisfy Swales other five mechanisms.
Throughout the rest of the ride along, I noticed that the EPPDs mechanism
of intercommunication among its members is the police scanner. Through this
police scanner, any police officer and the departments dispatcher can communicate
among themselves, for example the dispatcher sending an officer to a specific
location, or vise versathe police officer informing dispatch of his location or
whether he needs back-up. Now, not everyone can use a police scanner (legally), so
only a police officer has full access to this mechanism of intercommunication,
therefore satisfying Swales third mechanism a discourse community uses its
participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedbackthis
means that a discourse community needs membership to access the methods of
intercommunication among its members.
After the ride along was over, Officer Reynolds and I headed back to the El
Paso Regional Command Center and I observed how he interacted with his co-
workers at the station. He led me to his cubicle office, and we sat down with other
police officers around his desk area. When interacting among the EPPDs members
I realized that the officers talked about one main genrelaw enforcement topics.
These police officers talked mainly about how their day on the job went, such as
talking about the different people they arrested, the excuses they heard during an
arrest, or any traffic stops. Also, another thing I observed that, in this community of
officers, there seems to be an uneven balance between expert police officers and
beginning police officers. At first I thought maybe there werent many beginning
officers during this shift, but after asking Officer Reynolds about this balance, he
informed me that the EPPD doesnt often recruit many rookies. Officer Reynolds
himself has been working for the EPPD for 8 years, and considers himself an expert
in progress. Despite the uneven balance of experts to beginners, there is a
reasonable ratio between novices and experts the Swales explained. This ratio is
reasonable because, in this department, there are about 10 police officers that are
considered experts which are ranked as Sergeants, Captains, Lieutenant, etc. and
approximately 10 first-year officers (rookies); the rest of the police officers have
been in the police field for 5-15 years, making them neither experts nor beginners
and therefore satisfying Swales fifth mechanism of discourse communities. And
lastly, the EPPD has an agreed set of common public goals. The EPPDs agreed set
goals, or missions, are to provide services with integrity and dedication, to
preserve life, to enforce the law, and to work I partnership with the community to
enhance the quality of life in the City of El Paso and to be dedicated to serve (City
of El Paso, 2014). Since the EPPD satisfies all six mechanisms Swales described, in
conclusion, the EPPD is in fact considered a discourse community.