My Discourse Communities
- Mark Wang
- Sep 27
- 3 min read
According to John Swales, a discourse community is a group pf people with a public set of common goals, there must exist a way or a method for members to discuss, that method must be used by all members to discuss issues or topics related to their common goals, one or more genres that further the advancement of those common goals, a specialized way of speaking to one another, usually slang or terms that are used in the field related to the goals of the community, and a spread of skill level among members, typically from novices to experts.
AIAA
AIAA, or the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is a national organization here in the U.S., and I am a part of the branch at San Diego State University. Anyone is allowed to join AIAA, I myself am a freshman in college with nothing more than an interest in the field of Aerospace. However, since this is the SDSU branch specifically, the membership is largely made up of SDSU students. I joined for the same reason that many others do, for the connections that the organization can foster for future career development, as well as for the mentoring that expertly trained members can provide inexperienced people like myself. New members learn their way by attending guest lectures, GBMs (General Body Meetings), tours of facilities, and more. The goals and values of AIAA are directly connected, with their ideals and overall goal of furthering the Aerospace industry by helping to train the new generation of engineers.
The Rocket Project
The Rocket Project, similar to AIAA is an Aerospace Engineering student club/organization at SDSU. I have also recently joined this club with the personal goal of being able to gain needed industry skills in the field of Aerospace, which is also my major, and to help gain connections in the professional world. The Rocket Project is a student organization, so it is, of course, made up largely of students, with the exception being the SDSU sponsors; Aerospace engineering professors at SDSU who help the student group. The goal of The Rocket Project is to, well, build the best rockets that they can. In fact, the club proudly holds a few collegiate titles and awards. The Rocket Project's values are also in line with their goal of being competitive, with members expected to contribute, or at least learn how to contribute in the future. If you are a member, you communicate with other members using Email, Discord, Instagram, or GBMs. You can also expect members to throw around quite a few words or phrases that you may not be aware of, some that are specific to Aerospace Engineering and are more academic or professional in nature, or names of dozens of past, present, and future project names.
Sidemen Fandom
Finally, I am also a part of the Sidemen Fandom. I have already spoken about this, so I will go over it briefly, and if you want more information, please see my past blogs.
The Sidemen fandom is a group of fans of the Youtube group, the Sidemen. Generally consisting of teenagers and young adults who enjoy video games or fun sports minigames, the fandom is quite expansive. It uses many different online platforms, which if I were to name them all would span the length of this page, but you just need to know that the fandom talks in many forums, discussing the latest published videos or upcoming events. The simple goal is to have fun, and hopefully bond over shared connections between fans. Like any other discourse group, they also use a lot of slang, largely common British slang, as the Sidemen are all from Britain, and their largest fanbase is in that area.
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