I have been in the Military now for over 3 years. The military is known for it's excessive use of acronyms. They abbreviate everything. Even the word Flight, which stands for a small group is sometimes written FLT. It's not even an acronym, but is a shortened word. I suppose it is to make things quicker, shorter and easily recognized. I've discovered with the Air Force that in my job specifically, there are more than one discourse community that mold together. There is the discourse community of Engineers, and the discourse community of F-16 avionics technicians. The way in which they mesh is through the language of aircraft. The language of engineers and my job is the same because we work on the same parts. All the parts on the F-16 have a name, and usually a conjunctive acronym.
FCR - stands for fire control radar
The fire control radar is a specific part, the radar in the nose of the aircraft; FCR is also the name for the radar system. Many different parts that make up the combined radar system:
DMT - dual mode transmitter
MLPRF - Modular low power radio frequency
PSP - programmable signal processor
There are tons of systems on the aircraft that have multiple integrated parts. We learn how the systems work in order to fix them and troubleshoot. This is done through classes and books that Engineers have written to explain how the part they made works. Through my career field and learning more about how the F-16 works, I am becoming more of a part of the F-16 engineer discourse community, and using their language in my everyday job.
One engineer who works for a company that makes radars, may not know what an ARC-210 radio is, or it's capabilities, but someone who knows what UHF frequencies are can most likely work on any UHF radio despite the manufacturer because all UHF radios operate in the Ultra High frequency band.
There are millions of terms used for daily tasks in my job. The military also has tons of terms that are specific to members of that discourse community. A person in the military may not be familiar with the language of my job, but we share the language of the Air Force discourse community. Every Air Force member would know what retreat is - when the flag is lowered at the end of each duty day, or a PHA - yearly physical health assesment.
It's very interesting to me, and until now never thought about the ways in which very specific, discourse communities interract, or overlap.
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My dad is retired AF, and he just to abbreviate just about everything. He was OSI, so he had his own special lingo, but he never really shared it with us since it was sensitive stuff. I think anothe rmilitary thing, is that he write in all caps all the time. I guess to make it easier to read and quicker to see and all that. Must be just how the military works! Efficiency! Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience in the military. I think it's cool that there are specific registers for your own job, as well as common dialects if you will for AF and then the military in general. It provides a sense of unity. Good job!
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