Project 3 proposal

        For this project, I chose to do an ethnography on the discourse community of theater. This qualifies as a discourse community because in the field of theater, the six characteristics that are mentioned by Swales apply. They have an agreed set of common goals, all which work toward the main goal of a great performance. They also have their methods of communication and terms that are used to commmunicate specifically between those in that community, an example of this being how they describe stage directions, which is a concept that I will explain more in depth in my paper. People get accepted into this discourse community usually by their level of talent or skill, however this level of skill varies, thus creating the "reasonable ratio between novices and experts" as mentioned by Swales. (WAW 473)
         I am interested in studying this discourse community because in high school I was involved in my school's theater department and either acted or participated in all of the plays. This is something that still interests me, and the fact that I was active in the drama community at school makes me want to learn even more about the higher levels in that discourse community and what those entail. I would like to find out more about their methods and terms of communication and how these vary between the higher and lower levels of experience within the community. I am curious about how the directors speak to the performers and crew depending on the levels of experience and even how this differs between the different types of plays. I would also like to know about the differences in how performers and crew communicate with each other depending on these same factors. When it comes to writing I would like to find out more about how different kinds of plays are set up and how the way they are written affects the way that a director would set up the stage and the performers. I think that this would be interesting because there are so many different types of plays and levels of experience in this field, yet there are so many things that are the same. Regardless of whether it is a high school play or a Broadway production, there are many of the same elements present in both. There are many differences between those two sub-communities, yet the main goals and many of the communication methods are the same, thus leading me to believe that the field of theater is indeed a discourse community.
            Some individuals that I could interview are those who are involved in the school of theater or other drama based clubs on campus. I could also interview some people that are involved in drama in high school and talk about the similarities and differences between the two categories of the community.
            Some texts that I could analyze are various scripts and playbills, and possibly some advertisements that are used to promote their plays, which are texts that can be used to further the goals of the group. I could also analyze blogs or discussion boards where people in the field talk about the subject. I could analyze the different scripts (these could be musicals, dialogues, or any other sort of play) by finding the similarities in the terms that are used in each, which can be used as an example that could show how this field is a discourse community.