Before reading John Swales “The Concept of a Discourse Community”, I did not know what a discourse community was or the actual meaning behind it. According to Swales, a true discourse community is defined using these six characteristics: broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, genres in the communicative furtherance of its aim, acquired lexis, and a threshold level of members with varying levels of expertise (Swales 220-222). After reading the piece, it all made sense to me. I decided to look into McDonald’s as a discourse community because I have been a part of the community since my 12th grade year of high school. …show more content…
Participatory mechanisms are the ways each member of the community participate to get the job done, which is to provide the best services to our customers. Each member of the community has a position that they are required to do to the best of their ability each and every day that they come to work. The store manager job is to make sure that the store is ran in a safe and properly manner. She is also in charge of interacting with the company regional offices, processing payroll, making the schedule, ordering food and supplies, and etc. The inventory person is the one who make sure that the store has enough items in stock. The shift manager is the person who runs shift and make sure everything is under control during their shift. The crew trainer is the person that passes on their expertise to the newbies, giving them the necessary training needed to master the different workstations. The grill team is responsible for making sure that the food is being handled and cooked in a properly and timely manner. As far as the fry person, they make sure that during the rush hours we have enough fries to keep customers from waiting and keep a constant speed in the drive thru. Along-side the fry person, is the runner. The runner bags up the food and makes sure that the order is complete. The presenter is the person in the window who presents the food to the customer in …show more content…
Lexis is referred to as terminology that is used by only members of the community for intercommunication that outsiders of the community would not comprehend. “Serve it”, “Hold It”, “HBO”, “WOW”, and “Working” are some of the terminology that we use at the McDonald’s that I work at. The first phrase “Serve it”, is used to serve off the orders on the screen in drive thru. There is a timer that keeps up with how long it takes to have the order ready from the time the order is cashed out until the customer makes it to the second window. You tend to hear the runner who is bagging the orders for the person in the drive thru window yell to “Serve it”. “Hold it”, the second phrase is when the order at the window is not ready yet or something for that order is in the process of cooking. We tend to tell them to pull around and park in a reserved spot that is only for drive thru. “HBO”, is yelled by the person presenting the order at the second window in drive thru. HBO means when an order is ready before the customer makes it to the second window. “WOW” is when a customer brings back an order that is either messed up, or wrong. Last but not least, “Working” is used by the people on the grill. When the people in the front call out something their waiting on to the grill people they tend to say “working”, which means it is in
In the article “The Concept of Discourse Community” John Swales touches a few very important main ideas about what discourse community really is. I found it to be refreshing that he is able to express his feelings how he does in this article. Swales talks about discourse community and how our world today really isn 't that good at being apart of them. He discusses the six qualities or characteristics of being apart of a discourse community. You have to be active in communicating and wanting to be apart of that community and if you 're not that type of person than maybe it 's not your thing.
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.
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
When looking at a particular discourse community, one can come across a number of genres that are appropriately applied to articles geared toward the discourse community. Looking at the discourse community of the stock market, the two genres that appear the most often are news articles and analysis articles. Both of these genres can be written with an intended audience of either people within the discourse community, or people on the outside of the discourse community. The key point of differentiation, is the language that is used throughout the writing. It can be written using terminology that only people within the discourse community understand, or in a way such that everyone will understand exactly what is meant by the author. In comparing these two genres and two types of audiences, we can better understand exactly how the stock market discourse community is portrayed not only among its insiders, but to everyone else as well.
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.
If a player was directly to the left or right of another player on the field and wanted a pass, he would shout “square” and whomever had the ball would know there was somebody ninety degrees to his left or right who was open and looking for a pass. Instead of simply yelling “left” or “right”, “square” is used so only people in that discourse community know what is being asked. In soccer, the key to winning is being able to foresee the opposition’s next move. Thus, if a player just called out “left” or “right”, the next move of that team is known. Another example of terminology used in a soccer team is when a person asks for a “through ball”. This means a player is asking the person in possession to pass the ball not directly to him, but in front of him so the player has the ability to run into space and then receive the ball, instead of having to dribble through a defender to reach the same space. Lexis carries over from games into practices and meetings and begins to take its rightful place in the vocabulary of the player. Once the lexis is known, it makes communication easier and faster for the team and can positively alter the outcome of games by simply eliminating little mistakes which could turn into costly
The gaming discourse community is a most interesting group of people. Its members come from all ages and walks of life who are drawn to this community for many reasons. Typically, these the members of this discourse community fall in the age range of early teens to late thirties. They come from unique backgrounds, experiences, and nationalities. This diversity brings a life and culture to this community that is unlike any other.
Pause for a second and think about a play or musical that you have seen. Consider the plot, whether you liked it or not and if the experience was positive or negative. Think about the characters, the costumes, and the emotions that were emitted. The discourse community of theatre is unique in the way that it is so complex and there are many different parts that ultimately come together to create a dynamic whole. The term discourse community is rather broad, but John Swales in his article “The Concept of Discourse Community” gives six characteristics that define it. Swales lists them saying,
Football is a discourse community I am involved in where the members have similar goals and expectations. As in, what Swales describes a discourse community as groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community” (Swales 466-479) Swales argues for a fresh conceptualization of discourse community, especially as a distinct entity from the similar sociolinguistic concept of speech community, and building upon the foundations of that argument defines discourse community in his own. In the Conceptualization of Discourse Community he talks about the six defining characteristics of a discourse community. The discourse community I am part of is playing and coaching football.
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
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
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
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.
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