Analyzing A Discourse Community

January 23, 2007

To: Teacher

From: Student

Subject: Analyzing a Discourse Community

I am analyzing my bowling league for our homework assignment, in which we were required to identify specialized terms, proper topics, channels, and rules.

Specialized terms

During a bowling league there are many terms that a person that has never bowled might not understand such as getting tapped. What could sound a little vulgar really means that a bowler's shot, or throw, was a good ball but left a corner pin such as a ten pin for a right hander or seven pin for a left hander. Each pin has a designated number starting with the head pin, or the front pin, numbered one then working left to right and front to back numbering the rest until you get to ten. It is a good bowler's goal to become lined up, or getting the correct angle to the pins, to reach the pocket. The pocket is an elusive creature known as the one and three pins for right handers and the one and two pins for left handers. The pocket can be very frustrating to find because of oil patterns. Oil is applied to the lane to make bowling more challenging. It can be applied in various amounts, lengths, and even shapes. This causes a bowler to use different types of bowling balls that are either are aggressive, that means to hook more, or balls that skid further down the lane before they hook. These are some of the most fundamental terms that an outsider would need to know to watch bowling and discuss it on basic level.

Member's topics

During bowling almost any topic is welcomed such as current events, entertainment, and sporting events. Some of the more specialized topics would include lane conditions, bowling ball types, and the way a person is throwing the ball. During match play it is the goal of the team to figure out the lane conditions first so they can score higher than the other team. So this is a very popular topic among the better teams. Complaining about these lane conditions is a very inappropriate subject matter because everyone has to bowl on the same pattern although there are very many people who do and are usually disliked because of it.

Communication Channels

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