Academic Discourse

A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. According to the criteria conveyed in “The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales, Christianity can be considered as a discourse community because of its common goals, medium of communication, participatory mechanisms, specific genres, and its threshold level of members.

According to Porter, “A ‘discourse community’ is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated. A discourse community shares assumptions about what objects are appropriate for examination and discussion, what constitutes ‘evidence’ and ‘validity’ and what formal conventions are followed (38-39).” These five texts collectively constitute a community of discourse through their application of common language norms, characteristics, patterns and rhetorical strategies. All of the authors are writing about corresponding ideas and discussing their identical goals; the prevalence of gender inequality in the legal profession and the unjust consequences derived from it. Similarly, all five sources intentions are to oppose the standard viewpoint that gender inequality has diminished and provide evidence to support this claim. Their ideas of remedying gender inequality in the legal profession overlap as well as contradict one another.

A question that comes to mind when analyzing these writings is, “what kind of discourse does each writing piece fall into?” Discourse can be separated into three categories. Which are judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. Bartholomae uses epideictic discourse as well as deliberative discourse throughout his writing. He says, “He has to invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language” (45). Davis shares a similar concept as Bartholomae, by stating, “They wanted me to make their sense of the literature, to understand the texts as they understood them…I also had to learn a particular way of reading and writing” (80). Both men have the same idea with current academia, but they are on opposite sides. Bartholomae believes that while writing in unfamiliar ways, students learn to become expert writers with practice. Davis explains the same scenario but believes that change isn’t necessarily needed, and certain changes made by students could be devastating in their lives. When analyzing the discourse made by these two authors, it is apparent that both Bartholomae and Davis are speaking from an epideictic and deliberative standpoint. They speak on a current issue that students are having and discuss ways to attack this problem in the future with examples.

1. What is the discourse community you are studying? The discourse community that I chose was bearded dragons and other animals of similar characteristics. a. What academic majors, departments, and disciplines is it related to?

Collectively as a society most people support the improvement of mankind; we support the advancement of medicine, technology, education, etc. But at what point do we stop moving forward, or is it human nature to constantly improve and push the limits? It seems like us humans can achieve anything we sent our minds to-after all in a span of a few decades we went from simple flying machines to taking our first steps on the moon. In a smaller span of time, humans might take the next big leap for mankind.

According to John Swales (1990), there are six characteristics that are adequate and important for recognizing a discourse community. Firstly, a discourse community has standard public objectives that they strive to achieve. Members of a discourse community all share the same common goals they are anticipating to attain, and they do not have individuals with separate goals. For instance, the Salvation Army public goals are “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” They offer spiritual, physical, and emotional service to the public, as well as the opportunity to donate. Secondly, a discourse community has various techniques of communication for members to correspond with each other. For

All great minds think alike, a common cliche we have all heard at some point or another, but is this true? Well yes, some minds do think alike and, when they organize, we may call them a discourse community. A discourse community is a specific collective that compares and converses. It is a thought-provoking group that promotes common ideas and benefits its members. Any true discourse community can be identified by six necessary characteristics, as described by Swales. First, “a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.” Second, “a discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.” Third, “a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.” Fourth, “a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.” Fifth, “a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.” And finally, “a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.”

One of the broadest disciplines in academia is Sociology since there are numerous branches that can be studied. The wide range of topics in this field are mainly organized through written work which allows those in this discourse community to stay connected. In the book titled Discourse Communities: The Rhetoric of Disciplines, Gary D. Schmidt and William J. Vande Kopple, explain that discourse communities are a group of people who share ways in how they present claims, organize, analyze and communicate in their discipline. This is significant to note because each discipline consists of different audiences that can comprehend jargon and methodology differently depending on their discourse community. In most academic disciplines the difference

​A discourse community is a group of individuals who share objectives, customs, and experiences. Arguably, an individual may have several discourse communities. For example, the said person could belong to a running community, food’s enthusiast community, a family, and a student community, which is also a discourse community. In some cases, these discourse communities may overlap as they share commonalities. More specifically, is the English class as the discourse community where students share perceptions of the course workload and how these perceptions influence their grades.

English professor, Verlyn Klinkenborg, published an essay, “The Decline and Fall of the English Major” on June 22, 2013, about the reduction of the English major in colleges. The author declares, “Writing well isn’t merely a utilitarian skill. It is about developing a rational grace and energy in your conversation with the world around you.” Klinkenborg has taught nonfiction writing to various students at Harvard, Yale, Bard, Pomona, Sarah Lawrence and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. The author has found that her students are able to assemble jargon, use proper syntax, and utilize thematic and ideological notions.

Over the last several weeks we have completed many assigned readings, watched several movies in class and had many class discussions. I have enjoyed all the assignments so far and I feel that I have learned a lot from the time I wrote my first journal. In particular, The Color of Fear and Tatum’s description of white identity development models in Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? have really caused me to stop and reflect and have had an impact on me.

My research as a student has started to prepare me to participate in my academic discourse community. I plan to use the information I have gained from my research to become a thoughtful and academically engaged member of my academic discourse community. I plan to learn the ways of thinking, communicating, and evaluating the ideas and concepts that are important to my community so I can successfully interact within it. As I take classes within my major, I expect the readings and writings of the criminal justice field to not only better prepare me for a career in law enforcement, but also assist me in my role as a member of the academic discourse community. I expect there will be quite a bit of practical reading and writing, but I also expect

= I was half joking [Max: At least] whenever I say that. (2.4) I was.

Langer (2002) central focus is plainly stated in the introduction, which is “how the use of journals impacted the learning process of adult non-traditional students and how this impact compared to that of traditional students”.

As miniscule as it may seem, writing plays a significant role in your development as a scholar and your professional growth. It allows you to unravel yourself more adequately within the academic ambit whether in a verbal discussion or a nonverbal assignment, an essential skill in the college life; in addition, writing helps individuals expand their vocabulary and enhance the skills taught to them in high school. As a high school student, you are accustomed to create outlines , write essays, and construct research papers following the same basic structure and format: a five-sentence introduction that contains an appealing hook for the audience, background information that helps the reader identify the root of the problem being studied, its scope. There are major differences from high school writing and college academic writing,