What Is A Discourse Community

In life there are many different groups that we become a part of, whether it is a friend, work, school, or music group. Researchers have deemed these groups as discourse communities. Ann Johns explains discourse communities as, “a basis for sharing and holding in common: shared expectations, shared participation, commonly held ways of expressing” (320). Discourse communities hold certain standards and actions that lead to the functioning of the group. The Bartlett City Court Clerk’s Office is a stand out discourse community that has certain vocabulary, genres, and tasks that allow them to work as a cohesive group. The Bartlett City Court Clerk’s office is where people typically go to attend court and go before a judge to handle their affairs.
It is also where people go to pay for tickets they have received in Bartlett and where they go to schedule their court dates. In most cases people know that police officers give tickets or arrest people and they go to court in front of a judge. Many people do not know that in between the police and the judge is court clerks. Working in a court system, everyone in the clerk office must work diligently and efficiently to ensure that the work is done correctly and in a timely manner. If this does not happen, everyone gets behind and frustrated with one another making the work community hectic. A chaotic environment can have a negative effect on how court is conducted and people attending court will not get the information they need. Because so many people come in and out of court, there are many different tasks that must be completed for the work to be done. Several tasks must be completed by everyone in the court clerk office.
Inputting tickets, filling tickets, and registering arrest reports are simple tasks that have a detrimental effect on the system if they are not completed, so everyone must be able to do this. These paper documents are examples of genres or written work that is used among the discourse community to allow goals to be met. Tickets must be inserted and filled quickly because if they are not in the computer system then people will not be scheduled for court properly. Because of the amount of work necessary in this discourse community, the tasks are distributed to different people to make sure that all jobs are completed with ease. In the interview with Jolane Cook, she informed me that seven people work full time at the Clerk’s office and they are all designated specific jobs. Bill Loyd is the head court clerk and he over sees everyone and make sure they all get their work completed. He also handles appeals, which is when a person pays for their case to be sent to another court and a different judge so their case will be handled there and violations of probation, which are when people that have been released from jail and are put under “a period of good behavior under supervision”,according to the dictionary, and this good behavior has been broken. Under Loyd is Jolane Cook, she assists him and helps the other workers. Pam Kirby and Ayasha Jones handle court on Mondays and Wednesdays so they can assist the judge by taking notes and making sure his verdict is sent to the clerk office so payments can be handled. Melissa Ripp handles held estates, which are cases that are sent to the grand jury. The other two ladies that work at the front counter handle people coming in to pay for their tickets and answering phones. Completing these different tasks brings fourth a hierarchy within the discourse community, with Loyd at the top and the two front desk women at the bottom. Although there is a hierarchy,
because of the levels of work and pay, the lexis usually does not change between the workers. Of course they do not talk to one another as they would to their children, but they all receive the same amount of respect and work together as an equal body to accomplish their goals of running an efficient court system. Typically in work places, the “Boss” stays in his office and his workers talk formally to him and informally to one another, but I observed at the clerk’s office that this is generally not the case. Everyone is open with each other because it is commonly easier to talk informally to produce the amount of work that is needed for a fast pace work environment. Speaking informally involves shorter phrases, allowing for conversation between workers to be short providing a faster way to pass information from one person to another. To everyone out of this discourse community, the lexis may be confusing, but for the clerks it is a part of how they communicate and work together. Lexis is the common vocabulary used within a discourse community that is typically foreign to outsiders. Some terms have already been explained, like; held estates, appeals, and violation of probation. Other terms can be more difficult to understand, for example; Mittimus (mit for short) is a difficult word but it is just a document that transfers a person from one jail to another. Another term is Expungement, which is something that takes charges off of the record. A code called TCA code stands for each charge that a person could obtain when arrested. Although these terms stand for simple things, it is much easier to use the term than to explain what you need,making it faster for things to be completed. All of the work that is put into the Bartlett City Court Clerks Office serves a purpose. The goal is to maintain the process of the court system. As the police write tickets and make arrests the court clerks must be ready to to handle the money and make sure that the people are taken care of. Without the court clerks the job of the police and judges would be much more difficult. With the clerks paper work is handled and even though most people do not know of the court clerks, they are a vital piece in our justice system. As James Gee says,” Discourses are ways of being in the word; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes”(274). In Bartlett City Court Clerk’s Office strong beliefs in doing good work and having a positive attitude play a big part in how they operate efficiently. Without having specific words and directions little work would be done and it would be done poorly. The goal of the job is to allow court to run smoothly and this is important for everyone because court is where justice is served in our nation. If court is not precise and organized then the entire justice system is in turmoil.