Greetings. My name is Madi. I have been skating for 8 years and I built skateboards at a skate shop in a huge city for the past year and a half. I'm a freshman in college now and am writing an essay about the communities of people who build skateboards. Whether it's your own boards that you buy the pieces yourself and put together or (preferably) if you have a career or extensive experience working with others that have helped you become familiar and involved with the process and the people anything helps! Below I will have some questions to help me defend that this group of people can be considered a discourse community. Don't worry too much if you don't know what that means though I barely do.
Just to clarify I am talking about BUILDING the skateboards NOT riding them
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What are the shared goals of the community? Why does this group exist? What does it do?
What mechanisms [or genres] do members use to communicate with each other (meetings/ phone calls/ email/ text messages/newsletters/ reports/ evaluation forms/ THIS FORUM/ big events or meetups/ skate parks maybe/ etc.)?
What kinds of specialized language (lexis) do group members use in their conversation and in their genres? Basically what special words do we use and know when we talk about building the boards or like the pieces and parts. What is The jargon and vocabulary you need to know?
Who are the “old-timers” with expertise? Who are the newcomers with less expertise? How do newcomers learn the appropriate language/ genres/and knowledge of the group?
I really appreciate anybody's help and would love to hear about your personal experiences within this community. I loved my job building boards and now that I'm at school there's no skate shop here. I miss being so involved with the community. Thank you
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2.skate dates,contests,demos,autograph signings,community meetings,forums,messages boards,social media,skateparks,skate shops
3. deck - board, trucks - the metal hangers, wheels - obvious,bearings- obvious,plies - the sheets of ply to make the board,stoked - means ur happy,bummer - something sucks,rad - something is awesome
4.the way older skaters would be considered veterans or legends and the newbies would normall be called beginners or if they are a little kid then they would be called groms which is ppl 13 and under and terms and stuff is something u just learn along the way or teach to them
as for my personal experience been a skater for over 20 years and have 2 skate companies of my own