Journal 4- Ryland Hager

Some of the key words that I notice Gee using are discourse and acquisition. Gee defines discourse as a way of communication and thinking that a group of individuals with a common interest share. He defines acquisition as a way of learning that doesn’t involve getting taught. So, in this sense it would be acquiring a skill or observing something and learning about it without putting effort into being taught. The connection between these terms is that people in a discourse will acquire the lingo and expressions that are specific to that discourse without consciously learning it. They pick up on these mannerisms just by spending time around the people in that discourse. We can apply this concept to our discussion on knowledge in the sense that we differentiated between the ideas of information and knowledge by saying that information tends to be more factual and knowledge tends to be more derivative from personal experience. This can be connected to Gee’s work by saying that knowledge is acquired but information is taught.

The discourse community that I am interested in researching is the business end of the music industry. The most important part of being successful in the music industry is to stay in tune with the culture. And the culture of what people find appealing is always changing so there’s always new lingo being created and certain lingo that isn’t cool anymore. This means that the expressions of this community are constantly evolving. Writing plays a large role in this discourse community because people all over the world express how they feel about certain music through reviews or communicating over forums.

This discourse community interests me because music has always been a passion of mine. I’m not the most talented at creating it but I’ve always been fascinated in finding new artists to listen to and staying up to date on the culture surrounding the music that directly impacts the community as a whole. So, I figured since in my free time I read forums of how people perceive music and read different reviews on new music and stay up to date with different artists I may try to find ways to work that into my profession.