Intro and Synthesis

Kaylee Lang

Megan Pugh

Kyle Buehrer

Ethnography: Student Senate

                  Discourse communities are a very important part of our society.  It allows for people of similar scholarly interests to pursue common goals and share their findings with each other. They are a way for these scholars to communicate and get objectives completed. Out of the many discourse communities available at Ohio University, Student Senate is one of the most exciting and important.  Student senate is responsible for representing the student body of Ohio University in political matters at the school.  As such, it seems to attract people who are interested in possibly having a political career in the future.  When asked if he was interested in politics in an interview, Residence Life Commissioner Nicholas Southall said, “I've always been interested in politics.  I chose to major in Education for a reason though.  I plan to teach High School for a while, but if the opportunity to run for an elected position in the future presents itself, I would not be opposed”. Student Senate accomplishes many things throughout the year, and is constantly fighting for student rights. Nick Southall said “Right now Student Senate is fighting to have their voice heard in the guaranteed tuition debate”.  This discourse community is unique in the fact that it fights for the rights of all students of Ohio University, so it works for the interests of another discourse community.  This discourse community also has its own internal competition, in the form of election campaigning.  The members of student senate form different parties that attempt to elect their members to different offices in Student Senate.  This discourse community is truly a unique one, with lots of features that make it stand out from other discourse communities.  Even though they fight for the student body, many people are not aware of what they do to help Ohio University.

                  In this ethnography, observations and studies on student senate are comparable to the authors Swales, Gee, Porter, and Devitt et al. When comparing these writings to the physical observations we made while studying this discourse community many similarities are found. As previously mentioned, those who are involved in student senate are extremely compassionate about the work they are doing.  Each meeting has important topics as well as conversations that could be considered genres as described by Devitt et al. Not only do the members of student senate communicate through meetings but also through email, phone, and text messaging. These communications may not be understood by those who are not in student senate and thus is strictly for that community. Also, new members of student senate may not know how to contribute correctly in this discourse community. They must observe and learn from older members to fully grasp the community’s concept just as Gee describes. Members of senate may be part of this Discourse and not even know it. However, in Swales definition of discourse community is similar to Gee’s in the fact that student senate is working together for the main purpose of representing Ohio University’s students in a just way. These members get together to work on problems as well as possibly prepare themselves for a political future. Although, the members of student senate are working together they also feed off of one another in meetings to produce something great. As campaign season begins, leaders arise and just as Porter describes with his example of Thomas Jefferson’s intertexuality, a good leader can be guilty of this also. Many speeches and sayings are borrowed from the speeches of other great leaders. Although discourse community has many definitions and descriptions, these all come together and successfully define student senate and what this community stands for.