St. Thomas More: Discourse Community Analysis

Although it is not always considered, individuals are all members of different groups and communities. At the University of Oklahoma, qualified persons can involve themselves with a wide variety of discourse communities. In such groups, there are practices, concerns, traditions, history, beliefs, and ultimately something held in common that binds them all together. One such discourse community is St. Thomas More University Parish. As a Catholic Church, St. Thomas More is a community that provides services to the Catholic students attending the University of Oklahoma. The discourse community of St. Thomas More University Parish is a growing parish that is encouraging involvement and spiritual development.

Before delving into the discourse community,

Gee argues that, “The key to Discourses is ‘recognition,’ If you put language, action, interaction, values, beliefs, symbols, objects, tools, and places together in such a way that others recognize you as a particular type of who (identity) engaged in a particular type of what (activity), here-and-now, then you have pulled off a Discourse (and thereby continued it through history, if only for a while longer).” (Gee, p. 446). Consistent with Gee’s argument that recognition is crucial to a Discourse community, Catholics are recognized and socially identify by their beliefs and rituals (Gee, p. 442). Traditionally, Catholic Churches have a set meeting place to offer Mass that is held on Sundays. In addition, Catholics have specified times when they abstain from certain activities or consumption of different items. Kane named one such instance when she said, “Lent is one of the biggest Catholic tradition. This is where you give up something for 40 days to relate to Jesus’s suffering that he felt during the 40 days in the desert. This is done before Easter.” (Kane). Catholics have countless set traditional practices and beliefs that are not familiar to outsiders. According to Kane, Lent is one of the most significant practices

Thomas More’s Discourse community incorporates what Gee referred to as “conversations” within their community; this is a highly discussed topic (Gee, p. 441-2). In the early 1920s, the University of Oklahoma students began to petition to the Bishop to create a university parish for the Catholic students. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City took on this project to create a parish for the Catholic students of the University of Oklahoma. Now, it is estimated that the parish has over six-thousand members (St. Thomas More). With St. Thomas More and the University of Oklahoma growing, the priest has announced several times during their Sunday Mass that the church is hard-pressed to maintain enough space to serve all of their members. By even visiting the church, the lack of seating is easily observed. Kane says that this reoccurring topic of conversation and the solution for this problem is the community’s main priority. Because of this, expanding the church and how to maintain the expansion is highly discussed amongst the community members (Kane). Without the necessary funds to expand, the church will remain the same; St. Thomas More is accepting donations for their expansion in order to better serve the people of its