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Mirabelli’s argument is that the assumptions that waitresses and waiters are ignorant and stupid are incorrect. He argues that there is complexity and skill that may go unrecognized by the general public. Mirabelli states his argument after the first story from bitterwaitress.com.  The data in the chapter came from, “direct participation, observation, field notes, documents, interviews, tape recordings, and transcriptions, as well as from historical and bibliographic literature”. He also pulls from his personal experience as a waiter, both part and full time.  The data was taken from Lou’s restraint and the three waiters; John, Harvey, and the author.  The overwhelming data type is transcripts. Mirabelli explains the importance of menu knowledge and the complexity of the menu, but he uses more examples from customer interaction to point out the intricacies of the craft of waiting tables.  Mirabelli’s conclusion argues that the menu is the catalyst for interaction between the staff and customers, but ultimately, the customer has authority over the waiter or waitress. This idea of servitude can be tied to the general view of waiters and waitresses. The knowledge they hold isn’t valued because the discourse community they’re in is seen as inferior. I was a waiter in high school and I can argue from experience that while no formal education is needed to be a waiter; the ability to do a good job hinges on knowledge of the discourse community. The ability to read a customer and understand what mood they’re in and how to respond isn’t something that can be taught in a classroom.

Proposal

My proposal for the discourse community analysis is the Civil Engineering program at Ohio University.  The difference in dress and interaction between the engineering students and other parts of the college; like the Scripts school of journalism or the business program, is substantial. The program is composed primarily of white middle class men. I can literally count the number of women and minorities with ten fingers. The program is a professional program, but the typical dress is more of something you’d see at a construction site.  I am a member of the discourse community and have been for two years.

Analysis of the civil engineering program is useful because it clearly highlights conventionalism and anticonventionalism. (Johns). We dress and speak extremely informally while working on projects, but presentations and interviews are a professional affair and we treat them as such. The program breaks general stereotypes about the Appalachian student. Most of the CE students come from rural areas with poor dialects, but we take every calculus class offered, advanced courses in physics and chemistry, and statics and dynamics classes, like thermodynamics or structural analysis. If you passed a CE student on the street they would look like a construction worker, but that same student could hold a conversation about advanced concrete design, computer programming, and real estate law.

The civil engineering program is an interesting case because the discipline exists all over the world. The discourse community of civil engineers in Korea is completely different from the discourse community in England. The same holds true for the discourse communities at different colleges. An interesting case of this difference was apparent at the Ohio Valley Student Conference. Each university prepared a technical paper and presentation. The language used by Appalachian schools was different from those outside Appalachia. From the outside, all civil engineering seems to be under the same envelope, but citing Ann Johns and her idea of varying levels of community, we can see that each university and area of the world has its own discourse community.  The interesting question is; where the line between a discourse community and the individual. Furthermore, can any individual be a perfect fit for a particular discourse community. Gee doesn’t explore the concept of the individual, but an individuals’ background has a serious bearing on their ability to join a discourse community.

I’m going to cite Ann Johns, “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice”.  I’m going to cite James Paul Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics”.  For general information I will cite John Swales’ “The Concept of Discourse Community”.

Bibliography

Gee, James Paul. "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics." Elizabeth Wardle, Doug Downs. Writing About Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Matin, 2011. 482-494.

Johns, Ann M. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice." Elizabeth Wardle, Doug Downs. Writing About Writing . Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 499-517.

Wardle, Elizabeth. "Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces." Elizabeth Wardle, Doug Downs. Writing About Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 521-533.

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The three interrelated modes of belonging are engagement, imagination, and alignment. Engagement is the common work the new member of a community and veteran members. Imagination is using your mind to imagine a world changed by your work. It can be aligned with what will really happen, or be completely different from the true outcome. Alignment is the bridge between the other two. Alignment shifts our imaginative scenario to the engaged scenario. This can be a good or bad thing depending on the original imaginative idea and the true alignment of the work. When I was hired at the bank I work at I didn’t understand my role completely and had to imagine what being a bank teller would be like behind the scenes. When I started running my own window and began to understand the scope of my engagement with customers and coworkers I had to align myself accordingly. I had imagined a lot more phone calls and responsibility, but the work proved otherwise. At first I fought it, asking for more responsibility; but, as time went on I realized that the added responsibility didn’t translate to respect or income. I slowly crawled back into my role as a peon, accepting my place in the discourse community. The Civil Engineering Department’s rules of engagement are simple. I am a student, I learn from the professor. That’s well and good except for the students’ self-image isn’t one of a lump of clay. I came in to the discourse community expecting to contribute more in and out of the classroom than I do. I learned that what I had imagined to be the CE department is slightly off. The courses are focused more on conceptual work than hands on. With concepts there is only one right answer, but in the real world there is more than one way to get things done.