Diving into Research

Hi Everyone! October always feels like such a busy month, doesn't it? First off I have to say I had an amazing weekend. This weekend my Sister got married so congratulations to her. It was a very fun but also very stressful weekend. Still I am happy to have experienced it all. Now I'm getting back into university mode, though I'm typing this from my phone because my computer broke down.

Anyways, now that we've finished the narrative assignment in class, we're shifting focus to the discourse community research paper. The community that I am choosing to focus on is actually the one that I have written about in previous blog entries, AB Samahan. In the past I have written about it as a discourse community, but for this paper I may define it as a community of practice. This is because our discourse is not only to be used for function, but also a social aspect. This particular community is so interesting to me and I know so much about it because I am a member and a previous leader. That may make things more complicated though. This project seems to encourage more of an outsider looking in perspective of a discourse community, which is difficult to use when you are a member of said community. Then again, it is a cultural organization and I don't share a lot of said culture. I feel that there is still a lot of outsider views that I can bring, but my insider knowledge will also help me to gain a lot of information.

For this paper I really want to focus on how the community, it's discourse, and the values of that discourse have changed people. What is the cost of affiliation? Also, the genres that the organization uses hold certain values, but do those values align with the values listed in the constitution? Is it possible that there is some dissonance between the two? I wonder how well the executive board is at communicating with new members to attempt to get them to share their values within the organization. And who holds true authority? Is it the executive board, or is it the mentors?

As for questions, I'm still not sure what to ask. I want everyone to answer honestly without and inhibitions. I know I can't ask anything too bluntly, or in a way that makes them believe their answer might offend someone (especially questions about authority). I also can't use any of the jargon that we use in class to study discourse because they likely won't know what lexis or discourse means. Still I can still get an understanding of what people gave up to join the organization or how their identities have changed. I want to get a diverse group of people to interview because I think that will give me the best information. Freshmen and transfer students will work great because they are still fresh to the whole experience, so I'll have a good sense of how difficult it is to get encultured into the community, the difficulty identifying who is in authority, and cost of affiliation. For older members who have already been with the organization for a year or more, I can find out how much mentorship plays a part in the community's dynamic and community values.

In AB Samahan, we have weekly GBMs, weekly eboard meetings, Facebook posts, newsletters, there is honestly so much to work with that it's difficult to think of which genre to start with. I wonder if the readers of these genres utilize one more than another and why. Is there a great deal of difference between members and which ones they use, or is the enculturation so unifying that they all hold similar genre use. Since the organization's name literally means unity, I want to analyze just how much members are united in terms of discourse.

Over all I'm really excited to start researching for this project. Everyone there already feels like a friend of mine, so it'll be super easy to go through the process of interviewing them, plus it'll be a great way to meet new people in an environment that I already love. It's also going to be nice to see all the things I'll learn that I had never thought of before regarding the organization. I'll come back from this project with a new understanding and appreciation of AB Samahan, and I'll be able to share that and maybe even help to improve the community with that knowledge.