Salgado1

Andres Felipe Salgado

Professor Dollings
UWRITE 1101
November 9, 2015

Fraternities
Before I wrote this essay I had no idea what a discourse community was or what it
was even about. John Swales, a linguistic professor, defined a discourse community as a group
that have common goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." Upon
reading that definition, I immediately thought about Greek Life and how closely it relates to
being a discourse community. I tried to narrow my subject by just elaborating on how fraternities
relate to a discourse community, excluding sororities. Even though Im not personally in a
fraternity, I know a lot of people that do participate in Greek Life. Members in fraternities have
strong relationships with one another and share similar goals and interests. With similar genres
and a specific lexis, fraternities share a common communication style. Joining a fraternity means
joining a lifelong brotherhood that can last past college. Fraternities share four basic values and
goals: brotherhood, philanthropy events, leadership and scholarship.
Joining a fraternity is very different from joining any other organization, there any many
steps in becoming a true member. The first step in becoming a part of Greek life is rush week; a
week in which you attend different fraternity events to see which organization best suites your
personality and goals. After rush week, the experts of the group bid on the new pledges. Each
pledge can receive more than one bid from different fraternities, but ultimately the pledge
decides what fraternity he will join. David A. Kucsmanski, assistant director of fraternity growth,

Salgado2

discussed how experts of a fraternity look for three things in a pledge, academics, vision, and
involvement. Once the fraternity has chosen all of their pledges, they begin the long process of
becoming a brother. There are many more steps in becoming a brother, as during the first
semester pledges must to demonstrate the value of team building and create relationships.
Joining a fraternity is very beneficial in countless areas, from forming friendships to
furthering your career goals. It is always interesting meeting fraternity guys from the same
organization as, for some reason, they all seem to have very similar characteristics. Most
members of a fraternity have a certain goal set before even joining the fraternity. In my opinion,
people who join fraternities are goal-oriented and are trying to further their college experience. A
lot of my friends who are in Lambda Chi Alpha are very motivated and are always looking for
new ways to serve and help the community by attending new philanthropy events. For anyone
who likes to socialize and further their experience in college, Greek life is highly suggested.
One common goal shared throughout every fraternity is how to build leadership and how
to build character. For example one of my close friends, Logon Combs, is currently pledging in
Kappa Alpha at East Carolina University. Every week they have a chapter meeting, during which
the fraternity discusses upcoming events such as mixers and charitable events. In Kappa Alpha,
the pledges speak in front of all the brothers during meetings and read out the upcoming events
to build leadership and character. Kappa Alpha also encourages pledges to join an intramural or
club sports team as a team building exercise. Fraternities offer plenty of opportunities for
leadership growth, preparing you with vital skills needed to become successful in the future.
As previously mentioned, I chose to write about a discourse community that I am not
affiliated with. Analyzing a fraternity as an outside observer definitely gives you a different

Salgado3

perspective of the lifestyle of people in Greek life. Its kind of funny how society can skew your
perspective of a certain subject just through media. Before I was in college, all I thought
fraternities did was drink beer and party with sorority girls. I have now come to realize that a big
part of fraternities is giving back to the community and helping out others that need help.
common goal that all members share are being involved with philanthropy and charitable
events. For example, David A. Kuczmanskis fraternity, Delta Phi Sigma, would participate each
year in a week long charity event for The American Red Cross. This charity event was Delta Phi
Sigmas largest philanthropy event and every brother would always look forward to raising
money for The Red Cross.
On top of helping the community, fraternities also help out other brothers from different
fraternities as well. For instance, a fellow student in Pi Kappa Phi at University of North
Carolina at Charlotte was diagnosed with cancer early this September. Not long after, his father
was diagnosed with the same cancer, the student withdrew from school as the father could no
longer work. With the mother then being the only member of the family with the ability to work,
their expenses were far too great for the mother to handle. After some of the other fraternities
heard what happened, they came together and decided to host a fundraiser through a raffle to
help the family pay off their expenses. On top of all that, fraternity Sigma Epsilon Phi hosted a
Shave a Sig Eps Phis head charity event to raise money for the family as well. Hearing about
this tragic incident really changed my perspective about fraternities. Anytime I think about the
relationship between fraternities I think about rivalries, thinking that fraternities avoided each
other. However, to hear that multiple fraternities in University of North Carolina at Charlotte are
coming together to help a fellow brother represents the true meaning of brotherhood.

Salgado4

The language or lexis of a fraternity have no relation to any other organization. Theres
no way in explaining how fraternities speak with each other to other people. Its almost like there
is an unspoken code or secret language guide that only fraternity brothers know because they all
share similar dialect. For example, during social events like mixers the language style of the
brothers are very informal and relax. They use a very blunt and simplistic style of
communication, consistently using slang in their language. Then, for formal events like career
fairs, job interviews and chapter meetings, their lexis/language changes from informal and
formal. Fraternities know the proper time for formal and informal language depending on the
occasion or situation.
After interviewing David A. Kusczmanski, the assistant director of fraternity growth, he
explained how communication is vital within a fraternity. He said a fraternity without a strong
communication structure really isnt an impactful fraternity (Kusczmanski). We discussed all
the different genres of communication that large organizations use in order to keep every
member informed. Fraternities use many forms of communication genres, for example, every
Greek life organization owns and runs a website that keeps their members informed about
upcoming events. Facebook is very popular in Greek life as they use it for almost everything,
from sending party invitations, to informing you about the dress code of a certain event. David
also mentioned an app called GroupMe which is a large group message-like platform app that
works on any smart phone. It is extremely effective to get any recent or modified information
across in a short period of time. Lastly, once week or once a month depending on the
organization, fraternities have these things called Chapter Meetings. In these meeting they
discuss anything from upcoming events to disciplinary action. These meeting are very important
because it lets new members and past members know of any new changes happening. My friend

Salgado5

Logan Combs, a current pledge of Kappa alpha at East Carolina University has to take detailed
notes in every chapter meeting. He related it to taking another class on top of all his other college
classes, but without receiving any credit hours.
An important part of being in a fraternity is respect. Like any organization, fraternities
need respect in order to function effectively. Fraternities are considered a brotherhood, so even
if you dont like one of your brothers, you are still required to respect him. A part of gaining
respect is having experience and being an upperclassman. Being a senior in a fraternity is a
completely different experience than being a freshman in a fraternity. Authority, like respect, is
gained through years spent in an organization. Through every year spent in a fraternity, more
responsibilities and duties are given to you within the organization. Once you start gaining
responsibilities, authority and respect are naturally given to you.
Fraternities share many goals and values; Brotherhood, Scholarship, Leadership and
Service to the community. Even though each separate individual might have different beliefs or
traditions, they all come together wanting more than college has to offer. They come willing to
make strong connections, build character, and help one another and the community.

Salgado6

Process Memo
Before I started this assignment I had no idea what a discourse community was. When
my professor began to explain it in class I thought it was related to race and ethnicity. I got pretty
excited because I thought I would be able to write about my ethnicity and culture. I have already
written about my Colombian culture before, so writing another essay about my discourse
community would have been a breeze. I later realized that a discourse community had nothing
to do with where you were born or what ethnicity you are. A discourse community was defined
as a group that have common goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals
(swales). So I started to brainstorm on what groups related to a discourse community, the only
two groups I could come up with were Sports Teams and Greek Life.
I ended up choosing Greek life because the majority of the guys in my class already
chose Sport Teams as their discourse community. Furthermore, I chose to narrow my research by
only writing about fraternities instead of all Greek Life in general. I thought it would be difficult
writing about sororitys only because of the gender difference.
During our peer review workshop my group gave me some very effective feedback about
my essay and how I could improve it. Finishing papers is always very challenging for me, the
toughest part of an essay for me is the conclusion. My group demonstrated how to write an
effective conclusion and also helped me come up with more ideas for philanthropy events that
fraternities participate in. By the help of my group I was able to complete the length requirement
and also answer the main idea questions. I was very impressed with my writing group and

Salgado7

myself, before starting this assignment I had no idea how I was going to be able to write a 5 page
paper about a subject I had no experience in.