Who are the newcomers with less expertise?

In this assignment, write your field notes and share documents with your instructor for feedback on your research.

Observations

1. What are the shared goals of the community? Why does this group exist? What does it do?
2. If you can, observe members of thediscourse community (or the community website) and take notes: What arethey doing? What kinds of things do they say? What do they write? How doyou know who is in and who is out of the group?
3. What mechanisms [or genres] do membersuse to communicate with each other? Collect at 2-3 texts that membersof the community read or write. Be sure to ask permission beforecollecting genres that might be private to the community. Examples mightbe:

• • brochures
  • newsletters
  • reports
  • forms
  • notes

Analyze

1. What are the purposes of each of thesemechanisms of communication (i.e to improve performance, make money,share research, etc.)?
2. What kinds of specialized language(lexis) do group members use in their conversation and in their genres(name some examples—ESL, on the fly, 86, etc.)? What communicativefunction does this lexis serve (i.e. why say “86” instead of “we are outof this”?)
3. Who are the “old-timers” withexpertise? Who are the newcomers with less expertise? How do newcomerslearn the appropriate language, genres, and knowledge of the group?