Blog #6 Discourse Community and Community of Practice

Me, Myself, and, I

Growing up I continued to develop many identities depending on the situations I am in, roles I am taking, and the people I am with. I am a daughter, a twin, and a friend. I am a student, and an employee. These identities may be different, but they all are “me”. There are certain qualities of me that makes me who I am and is present in all of my identities. Let us put it this way, if I were to ask a friend and a co-worker about my qualities, chances are that they both would have some similar answers such as that quiet, nice, and, friendly. Those qualities are what I always hear whenever someone describes me to someone else and I believe that those are some of my dominant qualities.

In the article, “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity,” Ann M. Johns discusses the discourse communities (Groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals) and communities of practice (complex collections of individuals who share genres, language, values, concepts, and “ways of being”). Discourse communities uses language for effectively communicating within their groups and they also have “unwritten rules” about what can be said how can it be said such as in academic journals. On the other hand, communities of practice can exist in physical settings such as school classrooms, or virtual settings such as thru email, and social media.

An individual may engage in many discourse communities and communities of practice and each community have different set of goals. Thus, it makes sense that we also express ourselves depending on the goals, purposes and values of theses communities. Trying to become a member of a community may be a struggle at first but once you get the rules, and goals of that community, it will be easier to be involved.

At work, I find myself conversing more with other people (just because I have to be friendlier especially with customers) than when I am at school where I pretty much just want to be by myself and not talk to anyone. It was definitely a struggle at first to have to talk so much to strangers when I first started working but once I got the hang of it, it becomes easier. There is definitely some more room for growth and I am continuously learning new things every day at work.

When I am at home or with close friends, I am a different “me” in a way because I am more comfortable to talk to and act around my family and friends. Also, I find that language is also a factor when conversing with other people. For example, the way I talk to my Filipino friends is certainly different than the way I talk to my friends of other nationalities. If I said something funny in my language, it may not be as funny if I translate it in English and may have different meaning.

Learning about these communities is important in establishing my future identity because the groups and organizations I will try to join now will either help or not help me gain experience that would be beneficial to me after I graduate.

Blog #5

"Breaking Stereotypes"

In the article “Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers,” Tony Mirabelli discusses the common negative stereotypes associated with the food service 

workers. Sadly, a lot of people have many negative stereotypes on workers in this type of industry because they may think that it is so easy to work at such industry and because workers earn a minimum wage. One of the stereotypes is “that waitresses (and waiters) are ignorant and stupid and that waiting on tables contributes little to society...” (Mirabelli, p 144)

It also doesn’t help that this kind of work is defined as a “low skilled profession” by the 

government of corporate entities which strengthens the negative stereotypes. However, this 

is not entirely true, and that people should not generalize food service workers as such because this type of job is not as easy as it seems like. Mirabelli argues that “there is complexity and skill that may go unrecognized by the general public or institutions such as universities.”

One of the many skills that is required of this job is “literacy” such as language and work 

literacy which may be different from what is taught in universities. For example, food service workers need to be able to understand their wide range menu, how to take regular and special orders, how to deal with rude customers, and many more.

I can totally relate to these stereotypes because I have worked in three food service 

industries, including my first as well as current job. At my first job, I have learned to take 

customer orders, make food and drinks, take drive-thru orders, tender cash, and hand out orders at the window or the counter.

I was overwhelmed on my first day! And I assumed that most people who worked at a food 

service industry for their first job felt the same. There were a lot of food items I needed to memorize and locate in the POS computer, I also needed to be able to learn to do tasks pretty quick because it is a fast-paced environment and it was very surprising how easily customers get mad over waiting 2 minutes for their order.

It took me about a week to be able to take orders as well as do other tasks without someone shadowing me and eventually, I just relied on my muscle-memory. I am very thankful that I worked at that job as my first job because I have learned a lot about hard work, patience, leadership, and it opened up my mind to the crucial reality about stereotypes that many food-service workers experience every single day.

Food service industries are not just the works that are stereotyped, all other types of jobs 

have negative and positive stereotypes associated with them. I, for one, would not deny that 

I sometimes rely on stereotypes about a certain job that I don’t know anything about. 

However, as I continuously gained work experience from food service industry, I have learned not to rely on the stereotypes too much since most of the time they are just not true. 

As a Foods and Nutrition undergrad, I am hoping to become a registered dietitian in the future. There are many stereotypes associated with this job. I was one of the people who assumed that dietitians always eat “perfectly”, engage in physical activities all the time, and that all dietitians are thin and have perfect health. When I started studying nutrition, it became obvious to me that these are all just stereotypes and that dietitians are also normal people who may or may not have the “perfect” body, and health. Some other stereotypes include: assuming that seeing a dietitian means that you are going to end up on a diet, dietitians focus exclusively on nutrition, and that dietitians judge what people eat. In reality, Dietitians help people achieve their specific goals by providing sound recommendations without sacrificing the taste of the food, considers other factors such as exercise, stress and sleep, and most of all, Dietitians do not judge people by the food they eat.

To prevent relying on stereotypes, it is important to research a little bit more about a certain job and the skills that is required of the job before jumping into conclusions because we might be surprised how wrong we are about assumptions, whether negative or positive.