I planned on examining the discourse community of the Union Street Diner. The Diner is a “mom n' pop” restaurant that is an Athens local location. The restaurant is a community in itself: the workers interacting with customers in order to provide a service to others. As a member of the community itself, I feel that there's an interesting dynamic between the workers themselves and the customers they serve.
I believe this community is significant just to show the relationship between the community and the “outsiders” of sorts that aren't directly related to it. Swales talks about how others can be partially assimilated into a community and then they leave. I think there might be more to that statement. In the case of the Diner, I do not believe that there is partial assimilation. I think the customers they serve are part of the discourse itself; perhaps as a symbiotic relationship. Without the customers, the Diner would not be able to function; without the Diner, the specific demographic that takes advantage of the 24 hour service wouldn't have a cure for hangover food cravings. I believe there is something to say about specific relationships between the community and the people not assimilated themselves.
Without a doubt, Swales will be used as a source in the paper. Along with his characteristics of a discourse community to define it, I wanted to go deeper into his thoughts on an outsider's partial assimilation with a community in comparison to my thoughts about symbiotic discourse communities. With the Diner itself, the terminology used is not a hard code to crack. Anyone outside of the community itself can pick up on it easily with listening a few minutes to any of the workers talking to each other as we work.
I was also thinking about using Gee as a source talking about the different levels of authority. I wanted to compare new workers to old workers and how they differ. Myself, for example, I've worked their the shortest amount of time but I'm already in a position of authority in my own right. Other workers have been there for years and years, but do significantly less and are not as highly regarded as others. In the case of the Diner, it's also an interesting relationship because it's under new management. The Diner is trying to get it's feet before doing major expanding; everyone there is trying to learn everything (Owners and Managers are trying to learn other jobs to better train new workers).
I also want to look at Tony Mirabelli's article on “Learning to Serve”. The article itself is based on food service, so it will relate to the community as a whole. It might also address something on the relationship between the workers and customers. This article also talks about misconceptions between food service workers and other workers as part of a big business company. Food service isn't rocket science; treat customers well and cater to them. People think that food service are just blue collar workers who didn't want to go through school and get a “real” job. However, in some cases it's what's necessary to do in order to get that higher education and a better job. It's also, unknown to many people, a strenuous job trying to be a Diner worker (or food service in general) being able to think quickly and accommodate to everyone at once so everyone is happy.
Along with that, Mirabelli talks about how authority between the customer and the waiter changes based on who is the one talking. While the customer has higher authority because a waiter is to serve them, Mirabelli talks about how waiters can use witty techniques of conversation to 'suggest' a specific dish if the waiter knows what the kitchen wants to sell.
Resources
- Mirabelli, Tony. “Learning to serve.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.
- Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.
- Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.
Nice proposal, Eugene. This is well-written, focused, and you have really great ideas about how to use the concepts from Writing About Writing. I'm on board with all of your ideas. For your discussion of "partial assimiliation," you might find it helpful to look at Gee as well as Swales though since the two disagree (Gee doesn't believe in partial assimiliation, though he does believe in mushfake). I think you're right about the customers, they're definitely part of it-but how do we describe them? Interesting research question for sure.
ReplyDeleteFor your discussion on authority, you might find Johns more helpful than Gee. Check out page 513 where she uses Bakhtin to talk about how authorities shape the culture of a discourse community. I'm interested in hearing about how you have authority. When I washed dishes at a restaurant I never felt like i had any!
Mirabelli might add to your analysis of authority as well, as you've noted. BEcause you're doing something similar to Mirabelli, you'll definitely want to talk about his article in the lit review, what he accomplishes and what you're going to accomplish that adds to that. GOod work!