The definition of a discourse community is as yet undefined; it does however require a set of specific characteristics, which allow the term to be narrowed until the point when many competing notions are eliminated. It is more a set of ideas, relating to the world of research and academic writing. There are many uncertainties surrounding the qualities and characteristics of a discourse community, many of which rise from a lack of definition. The following research is aimed at reducing confusion by identifying complex ideas and breaking them down. The information provided has been obtained through various sources of conflicting views, further illustrating the complexity of the topic. Many school settings are considered discourse communities, fitting each of the six characteristics.
The six defining characteristics of a discourse community require a set of common goals, there must also be mechanisms of communication within the community as well as feedback among members. Genre is the fourth characteristic, describing the various methods of output. Similarly, lexis is required, a set language with exclusive terms and expressions. Finally, a discourse community must have a threshold level of membership; there must be a steady flow of changing memberships including the transfer of knowledge between novices and experts. It is this transfer of knowledge that allows the community to grow, novice members become experts creating room for more novice members. From the outside it appears that an English major studying at the university level may belong to an academic discourse community, having met the criteria. However upon further inspection, one notices that each characteristic can be molded to fit any community. The vagueness of the c...
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...e made. Transferable skills are acquired through life at varying stages; however, participating in an academic community allows for further development of those skills, and at a rate that can only be achieved within such a stimulating environment.
The academic discourse community I chose will prove to be very beneficial to my future, whatever it is I end up doing as a profession. It will have provided me with skills I can take with me to all parts of my life. I will be able to find gainful employment in order to begin my life in my desired discipline, and eventually pass those transferable skills onto someone else looking to enter the English community. Although this discipline did not exactly fit each of the six characteristics defining a discourse community, I feel that in some way, each characteristic can be altered so as to accommodate the English community.
Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Wardle, Elizabeth and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing a College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2011. 466-480. Print.
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.
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.
John Swales theorizes that discourse communities must meet six elements of shared criteria: commons goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genres, have highly specialized terminology, and members who possess a general level of expertise. For the purpose of this paper, I will analyze three of these components and observe how they function within the CPhT community. My analysis will emphasize the unique lexis that is necessary to function as a member of this community.
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 is a group of people that share a set of goals or discourses and within this group, find ways to communicate about these set goals. Discourse Communities can mean having a spot on a sports team, being a part of a school club, and even your workplace can be considered a discourse community. To be accepted into a discourse community, one must seen as a credible source, one that has knowledge on the topic at hand and can help the group reach the goals of the discourse community. When joining a discourse community, it is important that one learns how those in the group use effective ways of communicating.
You belong to a discourse community! Whether you know it or not almost everyone belongs to some type of discourse community, but how does it affect you as an individual? From the studies of multiple authors, it has been established what defines a discourse community, what effects intertextuality have on a discourse community and even the overall dynamics, but even with all this research there is still something missing. Elizabeth Wardle, John Swales, and James Porter all make very good discussion points and arguments in their research, but none of these writers stop to examine the effects that these communities could possibly have on the individuals that make the community what it is. Just as it’s the simple stone block that when combined become
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.
As a student at San Jose State University (SJSU), I understand that it is very hard for students to change their field of study. If science students want to change to art majors, they may have to start over because each field has specific skills and requirements. Therefore, it will take a lot of time to build them again, especially the discourse community. From the handout, “Preparing for the DI”, a discourse community is “a group of people who share specialized uses of language that enable them to participate in working, playing, studying, or socializing for a common purpose” (Judnick). In other words, each area has its own language and rules that distinguish it from any other communities. For instance, the language uses
Swales depicts that a discourse community must follow six characteristics in order to properly be labeled as a discourse community. These characteristics are: “agreed set of common public goal, mechanisms of intercommunication among members, uses its mechanisms to provide information and feedback, utilizes and possesses one or more genres, acquired some specific lexis, and has threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (Swales, 2010, 471-473). Porter, on the other hand, gives us a shorter definition that combines Swales’ characteristics: “A "discourse community" is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated” (2010, p. 38-39). Such things that would fall under a discourse community would be certain clubs like national honor society, thespian club or 4H club. Others could be sport based groups such as basketball, football or baseball.
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
The discourse community that I have chosen to research is the forensic computer community. I chose this community because of the way it intertwines with the culture and technology of today. Today, the only time anybody really hears about a computer forensic expert is in a courtroom or on a TV show. Even though it is not a fancy job, it still beats being a pig keeper.
Discourse communities play a big role in life and how humans interact in general. A discourse community refers to a group of people who have language, life patterns, culture, and communication in common with each other. The idea of a discourse community has also been used to bring people of different orientations together, like family members, students, or committees. All of these types of people might have different standards of living, like their level of income, education, and work abilities. Discourse community can also refer to a speech community, because the main feature of a discourse community is communication. A discourse community can include groups of different regional areas that may or may not share norms and living patterns
Millions… millions of discourse communities exist all around us each and every day. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, and Group Me are just a few of the many examples of the functional discourse communities that our world consists of today. A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses that are agreed upon as basic values and expectations and use communication to achieve set goals. There are six requirements to have a true discourse community. They must include: a community of people who share the same goals, regular communication, steady feedback and advice from one another, at least one means of communication that will assist in achieving an aspired goal, a lexis which is a
A simple college English class or a department in a hospital are examples of a discourse community. One might not even know it. A discourse community is group, club, organization, etc. that share common values and goals and communicates using some form of writing. An English class is a perfect example of a discourse community because the students and professor communicate in and out of class using writing, they share common goals, values, specialized language and certain types of a genre. Unlike an English class, I want to be a registered nurse and work at a hospital someday. My plan was to interview a nursing student at the University of Texas at El Paso and observe a nursing class. I was unable to complete the interview and observation so I went to my plan B. I ended up observing a restaurant because if I’m not able to become a nurse I’d one day want to own my own restaurant.