Discourse Community Proposal Grohowski::GSW1110 Due: Tuesday 8/28 Submitted via Google Docs

Mare’s EXAMPLE

“Name” of Discourse Community: Servicewomen of the U.S. Armed Forces

Length of involvement in community: No involvement but I have been studying women and the military for about a year now.

Briefly share what motivates your interest in exploring this discourse community: I know that people in the military are part of a Discourse—that they share values, beliefs, behaviors, ways of thinking, practices, etc. I also know that they share language (words) that we sometimes hear but I don’t know what they mean. I want to know more about women’s involvement in the military, particularly how they view their experience in this discourse community (of the U.S. Armed Forces).

Explain some of the ways writing and speaking (among other communication practices) are used by members in your community. For example, does your community publish and distribute newsletters, bulletins, handouts, etc.? People in the military talk face-to-face, the military itself (well, all branches) have materials that they create. I don’t think servicewomen create these works themselves, but they are influenced by them—because whatever gets published about them has effects on them. I do know that veteran servicewomen communicate through the Internet in closed and open groups on social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. I also know that there are a bunch of websites for servicewomen’s advocacy.

To what extent does your group share a specific language? What word(s) are specific to your group (think jargon, slang, etc.)? Do you know how/why these words were chosen for your group? There are many specific words that my group uses. Two phrases that gets used a lot are “semper fi” which means “always loyal” and “hoorah” which signals affirmation or agreement. Men and women share these language practices as well as many others. The U.S. Armed Forces as a Discourse Community is notorious for abbreviating things. Other common phrases are “the few the proud.” I need to do more research. But the words I am interested in exploring are the derogatory words used against women in the U.S. Armed Forces. Two I know and can say are “queen for a year” and “trou.” These words have sexual connotations and signal that the men see the women as things to be “used.”

What kinds of roles do writers and speakers have in your community? How were roles distributed? What specific language-using tasks did people perform and for what purposes? This is a hard question to answer because I don’t have any specifics yet. I know that servicemen and women have to write and speak for their individual jobs and in order to communicate with one another about work as well as in personal matters. Because I am interested in the derogatory spoken words used to refer to women, I would talk about how women and men use the same terms to refer to women—sometimes women use these words to fit in with men or to put other women down. Men use these terms to “joke” about women, to show that they have power over women.

What value(s) were placed on writing, speaking, or other forms of communication? How was/were these values promoted by members? I think speaking is particularly valuable in the U.S. Armed Forces. I also think that sometimes silence is a form of communication that I will need to explore in this Discourse community. I think there are a lot of things that go unsaid and that silence has an influence on promoting values. The way that spoken language is used against women signifies that men do not value women or see women only as sexual objects. This places greater value on men.

What kinds of communication tools were made available in your discourse community? (e.g. Computers, pen and paper, cell/smart-phones, books) I believe servicewomen and men of the U.S. Armed Forces have all available communication tools at their disposal.

What issues arose in your discourse community as people learned or performed communication tasks? What are the problems you see surrounding communication within your discourse community? I talked about the problems above. The problem is that men and women in the military have to work together but because women are such a minority, men often use their power to make women feel powerless. Men use mean language about women to bond with one another. But this excludes the women. I know other women use mean language if they want to exclude a particular women. Again, this is about bonding, or so I think. These acts are about power—giving and taking of power. They also show that people value bonding and can succumb to peer pressure and say things in order to fit in with others, even if they don’t believe them.

List three things you don’t know / still need to know about your discourse community: 1. 2. 3.

What kind of online and / or visual presence does your discourse community have? Perform a Google search for your discourse community. Share at least three of your search results. (Be sure to state if your discourse community does or does not have an official website.) 1. http://mothersatwar.com/ this is a website about servicewomen who are also mothers. This is a discourse community within in a discourse community, within a discourse community! 2. http://servicewomen.org/ this website is for an advocacy organization for servicewomen. The site focuses on online campaigns as well as local, on the ground events that seek to create change for servicewomen. 3. http://www.army.mil/women/ this is a website only about women in the army. 4. http://www.womensmemorial.org/Education/timeline.html this site is a timeline of women’s history in the Armed Forces.

I must approve each proposal before you can go any further with your research or drafting. Approved_____ Not Approved______Revise and resubmit for approval______

Thanks to Dr. Hoy for use of this document