Running Head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY Frias 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Sergio Frias

University of Texas at El Paso

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY 2

A discourse community consists of different people working together towards the same

goal. A discourse community is made up of a group of people communicating and working with

each other to get a better understanding and succeed together. Every discourse community must

have the same common public goals and share intercommunication among the members in order

to provide the proper information and feedback. In this essay, I will explain the discourse

community that takes place inside a hospital and how every personal has different tasks but yet

they are all reaching out to succeed the main goal.

At a hospital, everyones goal is to work towards giving the patient as much health as

possible. To achieve this goal, all the staff needs to work together and need to have great

communication skills between themselves. At a hospital, you have the doctors, the surgeons, a

physician, nurse practitioner, therapist, technicians, pharmacy staff, and food services members.

All these people play very distinct roles, but what they all have in common is that they all had to

attend a university and must have completed a professional career to guarantee ones health. If

youve ever been to a hospital you would probably notice that everyone is doing something.

None of the staff is ever just sitting down, they are always in a rush and try to get their job done

as quickly as possible. Also, you would have probably noticed how they communicate to each

other. Most of the staff writes down all the important stuff, I would say so there would be no

miscommunication. For example, when we were younger and got sick, we would attend our

pediatricians. There, the nurse would check our weight and temperature first, then they would

ask how we felt and what was wrong with us. After, or while we are telling the nurse, they would

write everything we said down and pass it on to the doctor. When the doctor gets to the sheet of

paper the nurse left for him, he will already know our symptoms. This makes the doctors job a

lot easier and makes the process go a lot quicker. After the doctor figures out what is wrong with
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our body, he gives us a recipe to take to the pharmacy and get the medication we need to get

better. This is a discourse community because of the way the nurses communicate to the doctors,

and how the doctors give us a recipe to take to the pharmacist. Like I said, they all write down

the important stuff so that there is no miscommunication and the goal is reached. If it were a

more serious case, you would have to go to the hospital. Here is where the discourse community

really comes into place.

At the hospital, you have very important people, such as the surgeons to not so important

people such as janitors, but they are all still working together to achieve their goals. For example,

if you need to have surgery, there are going to have to be many personal there to attend you.

When a surgery is taking place the surgeon, in charge of the operation, isnt the only important

person there. Everyone such as the other doctors attending the surgery, all the nurses, and the

technicians, are doing something throughout the surgery. Even the janitors job, which is to keep

the place clean, is important because you cant be performing a professional operation in a dirty

place. The other doctors are going to be assisting the surgeon and helping in whatever they can.

The nurses also have a very important role, such as putting in the anesthesia so the patient

doesnt feel any pain during the operation. The technicians will be helping out the nurses in

whatever they need assistance with and will be learning for their future. I really believe that the

skills they grow must be very strong, because there can be absolutely no miscommunication

during this process. In this field, it is very important that you do not lose concentration. Everyone

has to be on top of what they are doing, or else the other staff members, or clients, will get on top

of you.

Although it is very important to be serious with your communication skills in the

hospital, Ive noticed that some of the nurses try to have conversations and be very friendly with
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the people waiting for their families or friends who are being treated. I believe they do this so

that people dont get too nervous or sad. I think this is a very good thing to do because if you

think about it, if you were in a situation like that waiting for a response on how the treatment is

going on one of your loved ones, it would probably be best if I were able to get my mind off of

that subject so that I dont end up overthinking things or getting sad. Doctors also try and have

some short conversations with the people waiting to gain some confidence and so the people can

get to know the doctor who is operating or giving the treatment better. I would say having a good

relationship with your doctor is really important so that the confidence level between you two

goes up and one doesnt worry as much.

I am currently a nursing major so I really find all this stuff really interesting. My whole

life I was debating if should do engineering or medicine. I didnt know which one to pick so I got

an internship at a small engineering company, and I volunteered at a hospital to help me pick a

major. During this time, I really learned a lot about the environment at both places and I decided

I really liked how the hospital works and how the people work with each other. If you think

about it, I chose my major due to the discourse community at the hospital. I didnt know what a

discourse community was until I came to this class and now I realize that it had a really big

impact in my life.

If we really think about it, discourse communities are everywhere. Some may not be as

big as the others but every business has its own owner, then theres a manager, then the

employees. These three roles are very different but they all need to come together and work as a

team if they want to become successful in what they are doing. No one can run a business

without communicating with one another. Many people today, end up quitting their jobs because

of the poor relationship they have with either their boss, or with their co-workers.
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Communication in todays world is the key. If you know how to talk to people and be able to

grow strong relationships, I am sure one will reach out and complete their goals. It doesnt matter

if its at McDonalds or if it is in Trumps company, the discourse community is always going to

have to take place if one wants the company to be successful and come out in front.

Throughout this essay I have explained what a discourse community is, and what it really

is to me, and how it has affected my life. What I got from this essay is to always try and work

together as a team and build good communication skills if you want to be successful and reach

your goals. It doesnt matter in what position you stand on in the future, I believe one should

always try and keep the communication doors open to everyone. The sooner we realize that the

communication we have with others is really one of the most important things one can know how

to do, is when one will start be come out on top, and succeed in their goals.
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REFERENCES

John Swales: Genre and discourse community. (2014). The Discourse Studies Reader, 305-305.

doi: 10.1075/z.184.512swa

Who's Who on a Hospital Staff. (2016, May 10). Retrieved February 13, 2017, from

https://www.mercy.net/whos-who-on-a-hospital-staff

Discourse community. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2017, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_community