Not many people know what a discourse community is but are most likely involved in at least one if not many. These communities are everywhere, for example, one could be anywhere from AA to a legal firm, a synagogue is also a type of discourse community. The community being discussed in this paper is the Beth Abraham Synagogue (BAS). The Beth Abraham Synagogue meets all the qualifications of a discourse community while also publishing texts about their history and education program which reflect the members of its congregation.
The Beth Abraham Synagogue is the only conservative Jewish synagogue in Dayton, Ohio. It is a small congregation that was founded during World War II. They have weekly services and celebrations, an innovative religious school, an award winning bulletin, and even its own cemetery. The members of the congregation identify themselves as a warm and welcoming family. This community’s goals are to spread the Jewish values and the understanding of Judaism, to learn Hebrew, and spread the belief that the Torah can be a source of meaning in any person’s life. They greatly value the history of their religion, specifically the Jewish people in Israel, and the understanding that being a Jew means they are part of the “extended Jewish family.” The Beth Abraham congregation is also very interested in continuing the tradition of Conservative Judaism and welcoming new members into their family according to the homepage of their website.
According to John Swales definition in his article, The Concepts of Discourse Community the Beth Abraham Synagogue is a discourse community. They exemplify all six of Swales’ defining factors of a discourse community. The first definition, “A discourse community has a bro...
... middle of paper ...
...ective to an extent but could have been organized differently and been more effective by combining some paragraphs and including titles so the reader knows what they are going to read about. The structure and organization does reflect the audience it was written for by being informative to everyone, members and non-members, who would visit this site.
The Beth Abraham Synagogue in Dayton, Ohio is a fully functioning and current discourse community. BAS has common goals, intercommunication, participation and feedback, its own genres, specific lexis, and different levels of expertise within its congregation filling all the requirements of a legitimate discourse community. Its genres analyzed above, despite some ineffective organization and layout patterns, do reflect the congregation to some extent while also informing “outsiders” of their Education system and History.
A discourse community has an agreed set of common public goals. It is a group of individuals that have a specific way of interacting and communicating with one another. It is also used as a means to maintain and extend a group’s knowledge, as well as initiate new members into the group. Specific kinds of languages are used as a form of social behavior. Such discourse communities vary in size, purpose and importance.
The Essential Features in an Orthodox Synagogue Recall, select, organize and deploy knowledge of Jewish belief and sources of authority, practice and organisation. The main function of the Jewish synagogue is worship, with the emphasis on prayer and reading. For Jews the synagogue is not just a building the word synagogue also refers to the community or congregation. The main features of all synagogues, especially the symbols, are designed to help people to worship God. The layout of the building is rectangular, with seats arranged on three sides.
Discourse Communities are defined as “a group of individuals bound by a common goal who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated” (Couzelis et al. 12). Every person on this planet belongs to a discourse community whether they realize it or not. If you start at a larger scale, Texas A&M University-Commerce is a large discourse community, and within that larger discourse community there are hundreds, quite possibly thousands of smaller discourse communities. Many of the discourse communities overlap with members belonging to several communities at the same time.
A discourse community for all intents and purposes is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particularly very particular topic, issue, or in a kind of very particular field, or so they thought. As stated in “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by John Swales, a discourse community literally is defined by six characteristics, or so they thought, which for all intents and purposes is fairly significant. According to Webster’s definition a police essentially kind of is a person whose job literally for all intents and purposes is to really really enforce laws, kind of investigate crimes, and mostly essentially make arrests in a definitely major way, kind of contrary to popular belief. The definition basically shows that a police
“A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory
Looking for an activity that is is fast-paced, aggressive, and competitive? There is a discourse community that perfectly fits this description. These communities are a defined as a group filled with individuals who share a main interest, idea, and goal. Each discourse community has its own set of intercommunication, lexis, genre, and hierarchy within the members. This year, I was lucky enough to join the Women’s Water Polo Club at Purdue. When I first joined the organization, I felt as if it was going to be difficult to fit it into my busy work schedule, but I was wrong. With school work and other priorities that come with the college lifestyle, the Women’s Water Polo Club works hard to win as many games as possible with the implementation of daily practices, team meetings, and many versions of communication. The team is welcoming of new members, whether they be novices or previous players, and encourages other students to join the organization through social media and campus advertisements. Overall, this active club allows a group of athletic females to bond with one another in order to achieve the main goal of being a successful water polo team.
When a person is asked what he or she knows about discourse community, they might not have any idea of what that means. However, they are probably involved in more than one discourse community. Discourse community in a general definition means that a number of people who have the same interests, values, concerns, or goals. The discourse community term spanned to include everything from religions and morals to sports and games. In all these various kinds of discourse communities, there are some common fundamental forms of communication that participate in keeping these groups related like written regulations, requirements, instructions, and schedules. Being a
As put by Jen Waak in regarding the human need for community, “By surrounding yourself with others working toward a similar goal, you’ll get...yourself a bit further than you would have done on your own,” (Waak). By being able to see and participate in these different communities centered around different objectives, the goal becomes easier to achieve and bonds the group into something more through trying to reach it. This new unit is called a discourse community and is defined by John Swales as containing six specific characteristics: having a common goal, showing intercommunication and using lexis, having participation within the group, being defined by genres of texts, and having members with areas of expertise for the community. When looking
CDA looks to disclose the ways discourses are produced and distributed (Halliday, 1985), as well as how they work symbolically to disguise power (Thompson, 1990) and control others
At Children’s First, our mission is to keep a safe, healthy, prosperous environment for children. Being a part of this community, I know firsthand what it takes to maintain an ideal setting for children to grow. It is essential for the caretakers to communicate, share information, and work together to put the children first. This core goal of ours, along with my own experience, analysis, interviewing, and observation demonstrate that Children’s First Daycare is a discourse community according to Swale’s six characteristics of a discourse community.
In the Swales document we looked at in class, a discourse community has a set of common goals (Discourse Community). In high school basketball, the goal is to win the state championship. Also, a discourse community uses a specific jargon (Discourse Community). We see this in the rules and how some players and coaches communicate. Finally, a discourse community has its new members learn from experienced members (Discourse Community). This is evident when we talk about learning the fundamentals from the coaches. High school basketball can be a very diverse discourse community because while every team has different ways of doing things, they all have the same end goal of being the state champions. Basketball has always
My discourse community is Christianity. My discourse community involves people who believe in God and lives up to the guidelines of the Bible. The people from this community are trying to enhance themselves by learning the Bible. An impeccable member attends church, strive for better lives, and aim to help others spread and disseminate words of wisdom. There are several reasons why Christianity is a discourse community. My discourse community has all of the six characteristics defined by John Swales. In my paper, I will describe how my discourse community meets all of Swales characteristics.
To examine various discourses, it is crucial that the idea of discourse and the way in which discourses operate is clear. A discourse is a language, or more precisely, a way of representation and expression. These "ways of talking, thinking, or representing a particular subject or topic produce meaningful knowledge about the subject" (Hall 205). Therefore, the importance of discourses lies in this "meaningful knowledge," which reflects a group’s ideolo...
In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales describes a discourse community as a group of people that “have a broadly agreed set of common goals, contain certain mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, have acquired a specific lexis, and have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content discoursal expertise” (Swales #). An example of such a discourse community is the legal profession. The legal profession has the common goal of understanding and applying general principles to particular factual situations. In doing so, lawyers use language, concepts, and methods that are unique to their community. In order to become a recognized member of the legal community, a person must graduate from law school and pass the bar exam thereby demonstrating an in depth knowledge concerning all areas of the law and the specialized rules, methods, and jargon used by lawyers to communicate about legal principles.
The Franklin Road Church of Christ youth group consists of youth of all ages. The group is divided into three subgroups: Tots for Christ (TFC), Kids for Christ (KFC), and the Senior Youth Group (SYG). In particular, for this essay I will be explaining how the Senior Youth Group is a discourse community. Franklin Road’s SYG consists of the ages 11-18. Within the group we do various things such as going to youth retreats, youth conferences, and many more; just to name a few. The group has been around for many years, all the way back to when my parents were kids. I have been a member of SYG ever since I was a baby; therefore I have enough knowledge about how this group in fact is a discourse community according to John Swales six criteria.