Discourse Communities

In his attempt to define literacy, James Paul Gee first presents the term "discourse" which he defines as, "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or "social network."" The idea is a person has many discourses or identities such as gender, ethnicity, age, where they live, what they do, and potentially infinite categories. During an in-class discussion about the concept of discourses, the point was brought up about each discourse having many sub-discourses. The easiest example of this is where a person is from and the more I thought about it for myself, I realized how different the image for a discourse was as you got more and more specific.
Let's take a look at where I'm from. First, we look at how I'm from "the South." Most people think of southerners as people who say "y'all", are nicer due to "southern hospitality", and unfortunately somewhat racist. As for me, "Yankees" have complimented me on being polite and nice doing habitual things such as saying "thank you m'am." I also say "y'all" a lot, have been told I have an accent, and do tend to say things that the rest of the country wouldn't consider politically correct. An example is back home my friends and I would sarcastically say things such as "the south will rise again!" while here at Notre Dame, it wouldn't be seen as a joke and people would label me as the racist southerner.
To get even more specific, I'm from South Louisiana. I jump straight there skipping Louisiana as a whole because north Louisiana would be better described as "West Mississippi." Although many of the generic "southern" traits are still there, the stereotype shifts away from the typical bible belt southerner. Now I'm thought of as a Cajun and not a redneck. I eat Jambalaya, Gumbo, Boudin, Cracklin, and Crawfish . Mardi Gras is an official holiday and happened to be the day I was born. When I was in England on my senior trip, I was telling an American History teacher that I was from Louisiana and he listed things such as the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, and Huey Long. Although being from South Louisiana is extremely different than being from Mississippi, Alabama, or any other southern state, we still say "y'all" and are still nicer than the rest of the country.
Yet even more specific than being a Louisianian, I'm from Lafayette, the capital of the Acaidana region. This is the true Cajun heartland where you will find actual Cajun food, not something with extra spices or some New Orleans imitation. We don't just say "y'all" we say things that not even locals can spell. Acadiana even has its own flag. Also, we are recognized as the best city in America (link at the end).

We are still part of Louisiana and therefore the South, its just that the way we interact with each other is strongly different. Someone from Breaux Bridge would know what a good Gumbo tastes like but someone from as close as New Orleans wouldn't make it the right way. In Louisiana we all know about Mardi Gras, but people in Mississippi don't celebrate it like we do. The more specific we get with where we are from, the dynamic of that discourse shifts to something that can sometime share very little with the umbrella discourse community that you started with. Just from explaining where I'm from when I meet new people, I realize that I always say something like, "we're (south Louisiana) very different than the rest of the South." Yes we are very different, but we still have a lot in common. From these experiences, I understand the importance of knowing which discourse community you are operating in.

Lafayette, Louisiana Named Best City in America