Dela Cruz 1

Isabell Dela Cruz

Professor Adler
English 1A #32475
8 April 2016
Restaurant Facility Management Association
In the article, The Concept of Discourse Community written by Mr. John Swales, he
writes and discusses about the characteristics that a group must possess in order to be considered
a discourse community. In his own words, Swales defines discourse communities as groups
that have goals or purposes and use communication to achieve these goals. The Restaurant
Facility Management Association (RFMA) would be considered a discourse community because
it possesses the characteristics that Swales mentions in his article. The RFMA has their own core
purpose and mission statement, genres such as online webinars, blogs, forums and conferences,
lexis with their complex terminology, the use of mechanisms to implement instruction and
observation amongst fellow associates and community members, and members that participate in
the community.
Of the many characteristics that Swales mentions, the first one he states says the
community must have a common goal they are aiming towards to accomplish. According to the
RFMA website, the mission of RFMA is to advance industry awareness of restaurant facility
management, while promoting professional and ethical standards to serve the customer with
added value (RFMA). There is also a core purpose displayed on the RFMA website. The core
purpose of this association is to promote the advancement of the restaurant facility
management professional (RFMA). In simpler terms, their goal is to contribute in helping
restaurant managers all around the world in enhancing their facilities and own self personally and
professionally.

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The managers and their facilities in this association are extremely diverse. They are all
from numerous different places around the world. These managers have facilities from small
food business franchises, popular fast-food chains, to fancy fine-dining five star restaurants. The
RFMA attends to these communities in sharing brand new knowledge by interacting with others
apart of the community with new ideas and improvements in the restaurant management
industry. Also, they aim to let everyone in the community know about these new concepts so that
fellow members may contribute their own input of the new information to debate and further
develop. Restaurant managers make use of this new knowledge to better their facilities by raising
health and hospitality standards, emphasizing customer service/satisfaction, and caring about the
overall experience of not only customers, but associates as well. Aside from inside of these
facilities, members of the RFMA want to educate others outside of their business about the
passion and excitement in the restaurant management field to further interest them, and therefore
demonstrate the goals of the RFMA.
The second characteristic that Swales expresses in The Concept of Discourse
Community, is for communities to possess one or more genres in the communicative
furtherance of its aims (Swales). Members of The Restaurant Facility Management association
interact and communicate with a certain genre to accomplish their common goal. These genres
include online webinars, forums, and blogs (RFMA). The website contains sections where
members can discuss and input their own personal observations and idea. This demonstrates the
idea of Erik Borgs in his article Discourse Community. In his article he talks about a
community with a common goal and says, a society of stamp collectors scattered around the
world but united by a shared interest in the stamps of Hong Kong (Borg). He also speaks of the
genre that is used as a means of interaction to reach the goal. Borg says, collectors never

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gather together physically; instead a newsletter that has a particular form of text organization,
making it a genre, which they use to pursue their goals, unites them (Borg)
Another characteristic Swales lists is in addition to owning genres, a discourse
community has acquired some specific lexis (Swales). In a short interview on 1 April 2016
with the general restaurant manager of The Pizza Press, Michael Yang, he discussed with the
interviewer the certain lexis or technical terminology restaurant managers use (Swales). He
mentioned lexis used when dealing with food, inventory orders, speaking with associates or
partners in the facility, and also speaking around customers. The first term Yang mentioned was
cross contamination. According to AllFoodBusiness.com, Cross contamination occurs when
bacteria, chemicals, etc. from one product are allowed come into contact with another product.
An example would be storing vegetables under a meat product in your cooler and the juices
dripping onto the product below. Yang mentioned this term because he said he strongly cares for
the health of customers and does not want them consuming any foods that may be contaminated.
He emphasizes the phrase amongst his fellow employees because he believes the word
contamination will further reiterate to his workers the dangers of products being mixed with
others (Personal Interview). Another term Yang talked about was backordered. Backordered is
a term used when ordering inventory, but the item is not in stock and will be shipped at a later
date (Personal Interview). Instead of going through the troubles of explaining in detail why a
shipment has not come restaurant managers use the term backordered when speaking to fellow
associates. When speaking with the owner of the restaurant who is also Yangs boss, about costs
and money they use terms such as cash-in sheet and drink cost (Personal Interview). A cashin is used to account for all the funds during a members shift. AllFoodBusiness.com states that
drink cost is the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly dollar cost total of all items pertaining to the

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cost of drink sales inventoried in your restaurant. When speaking with his boss Yang says he
uses this lexis to keep a professional tone and because these are the specific terms used in the
restaurant management business. Yang also has some of his own personal lexical terms he uses in
his restaurant in front of customers. A small example is the use of the word towel instead of the
commonly used word his employees originally used to say, rag (Yang). He believes that the
word rag insinuates a dirty dish cloth used over and over again on several different surfaces,
while the word towel seems to have a more clean tone. He does not let his employees use the
word rag especially in front of the customers. These terms are lexis or explicit words used by
The Restaurant Facility Management Association discourse community in their own genre of
communicating with each other. They are specific in their terminology because these are the
words most fit to help each other understand to ultimately achieve their goal. Restaurant
managers of other facilities are very familiar with some of these terms and know exactly what
they mean when they hear them spoken by other managers. Without the use of these specific
words, communication amongst each other would definitely be slower and much harder to
comprehend if there were not any certain lexis involved. Restaurant managers learn this lexis
throughout their education, employment, and communication with other active members of this
discourse community.
The Restaurant Facility Management Association is a discourse community that has
mechanisms of intercommunication among its members (Swales). The RFMA holds annual
conferences and in-person committee meetings where members join together to converse about
new ideas, standards, or any new insight they may have collected and wish to share. They also
meet to talk about many different ways to help them attain their common goal. On the RFMA
website there is a tab on the home page titled RFMA Events. Under this tab, one can find the

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schedule of events that consist of annual conferences and committee meetings. This tab also
contains photos, conference archive, and the event calendar. There are a vast amount of articles
pertaining to news about fellow members and their achievements on the website. Even if one is
not a registered member of the RFMA, they still have access to these articles which are visual to
the public. When one becomes a member of the RFMA they receive a subscription to the
RFMAs official publication, the Facilitator magazine which administers members with what is
new in the restaurant management business. The Facilitator is published six times each year and
is made accessible to members as a hard copy as well as online for page by page viewing
(RFMA).This is how members are in the know with the latest and most improved tactics or
methods in the management of restaurants. The Restaurant Facility Management Association
website also contains an online store. The online web store is where people can purchase books
or journals on restaurant facility management. Most importantly, members can interact and
communicate on the RFMA web page where they can speak about new ideas and knowledge
gained.
If one wants to become an official member of the RFMA discourse community, he or she
may sign up online on the official RFMA website. There is an annual cost to become an official
member, but the benefits are great and well worth it. If someone signs up their first time with a
new membership, they can receive a ninety day trial-run that is completely free (RFMA).
Specific details on the yearly fee can be found on the RFMA website under the tab displayed on
the home page titled Membership Dues/Fees. The longer one is an active member of this
association and attends annual conferences/events, the better the benefits become that they
receive. Once one is a member for a certain amount of time, awards, recognition, and higher

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position within The Restaurant Facility Management Association may come along and be
accomplished.
Today there are thousands of active members that are a part of the RFMA from all around
the world. The Restaurant Facility Management Association is a discourse community because of
the common goal they all strive to achieve. They work towards accomplishing their goal by
communicating with their own terminology and discussing with other restaurant managers to put
ideas together. In coming together, whether it is through an online discussion or an in-person
committee meeting/annual conference they are enhancing themselves and their restaurant facility
personally and professionally.

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Works Cited
Borg, Erik. Discourse Community. Key Concepts in ELT. Print.
"Restaurant Facility Management Association." Restaurant Facility Management Association
N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.
"Restaurant Glossary." Restaurant Terminology. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print
Yang, Michael. Personal Interview. 01 April 2016.