Brenton Ellison Professor Jessica Schley English 1101 October 15, 2013 Discourse Ethnography Outline Are communication

and interpersonal relationships actually important in solving the problems and accomplishing the tasks given to an accounting team? Elements of the Discourse Community
Common GoalsOf course an accounting team has common goals associated with them. They are all involved in solving the accounting problems which are assigned to them. Participatory MechanismsThe team has a dress code of business casual and everyone on the team is expected to act in a professional manner. Also, there is a hierarchy within the team, which has an established and recognized manager who acts as the teams sole leader. Information ExchangeThe bulk of the information exchange between team members concerns accounting work. Often they are speaking to each other in order to figure out how to solve a problem, delegating tasks, or coordinating schedules. If the team does not communicate face to face, they will use Instant Messaging if they need to communicate with each other quickly and the information they are relaying is not very detailed, but they will resort to emails and phone calls if they need to communicate more complex ideas to one another. But the team members also share information about their personal lives with each other, such as how their kids are doing or where they plan on going on vacation. Genres- The main system through which the team operates is the Transaction Control Requests, which is a database that allows other departments within Wells Fargo to submit their requests for accounting corrections to the team. LexisThis team uses highly specific terminology that would be completely foreign to any outsider. The term reconciliation, which actually describes the purpose of team, refers to the balancing the accounts between a trust system and a record keeping system. The trust system and the record keeping system are themselves part of the unique lexis of the team, a trust system being a system which shows the monetary transactions at a company level, while the record keeping system shows these transactions at an employee level. High General Level of ExpertiseThe manager of the team, Eric, has the highest level of authority within the team as he is the appointed leader of the team. However, due to his lack of experience and his difficulty in making decisions, he often relies on the expertise of older, more experienced teammates. My mother, Annette, along with two other members of the team, Susan Greer and Pam, are three of these

more experienced teammates and are considered experts on the team, as every one of them has been working for Wells Fargo for at least fifteen years. There is, however, a worker named Joe who has been working at Wells Fargo for the same length of time as Eric, five years, however, he is considered a valuable asset to the team in his own right, contributing with his knowledge of computers to help fix problems that may occur with the computer systems that the team uses. There is also a worker in the team who is regarded as being incompetent due to his lack of understanding of the social guidelines within the group and his low level of ability to contribute to the team. Methodology I began my research by interviewer my mother, asking her how long she has been working for Wells Fargo, what it is that her job requires of her, what her teammates are like, where she is positioned within the group, and how the members in her group communicate with each other. I also found it necessary to ask her what kinds of different programs her team used in their day to day jobs and what kinds of terminology they used in their field. I asked her these questions not only to understand her as an individual, but also to get a hold on the characteristics of the group so that I would know what to look for in doing my observations. In actually doing my observations, I sat in my mothers cubicle and observed what she was doing and what her teammates were doing, and made special note when they came together to communicate with each other how they interacted and what they spoke with each other about. I honestly chose this community because it had a member who I knew, which would give me easier access to the group. Also, because I have grown up hearing about this group all my life, I was interested in wanting to know more about and getting to know the team dynamic. Background A. The team was formed originally ten years ago with the purpose of creating a team whose sole task was to handle accounting reconciliations and corrections rather than have all the departments fix their own errors by themselves. The team members were gathered according to their abilities and their work backgrounds, with the goal of creating a team which had a collection of team members who were diverse in their talents and skill sets. B. Annette, Tanya, and Susan are all experienced members of the team who are given a certain amount of authority due to their seniority. Eric is the manager of the team, however does not have the experience or ability to exercise full control over his team or be a strong leader for the group. Matt is viewed as the incompetent in the group, often unable to act according to the social expectations of the group and lacking the ability to contribute meaningfully to the team. And Joe, who is relatively new to the team, five years a member, is actually considered an expert in the group due to his expertise with computers and is often relied upon to fix issues which may occur with the computer systems.

Specific Observations I saw Susan visiting Annette in her cubicle to discuss a part of a project after sending her an IM initiating the conversation. I observed the team gathering together in a meeting room to discuss a project and to delegate tasks. Conclusion Seeing how the team was comprised of members who had very diverse backgrounds and talents, each of which contributed their unique abilities to the common goal of the team, and how communication was vital to pooling all these human resources together to work on a project along with the observations that the personalities of the team members could have a profound effect on the productivity of the team showed that both communication and individual personalities are a crucial factor in the effectiveness of the team.