Alan Wardle's Discourse Community Analysis

Discourse communities are all around us—we all belong to a discourse community. A discourse community is a body of persons who share common and unique modes of communication or discourse (“Discourse Community”). In order for a community to identify as a discourse community, the community must possess six defining qualities that categorize it as a discourse community. As defined by John Swales, a researcher and professor of linguistics, discourse communities “have a broadly set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, an acquired lexis, and a threshold level of members with a

To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time, a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre—type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. In the following paper, I will discuss three discourse communities and a genre that they typically use: people who read Nutritional Facts religiously, college students, and industrial organizational psychologists.

Gee also writes that discourses can influence each other. In well of communities secondary discourses can influence primary discourses, but in poor and uneducated communiites primary discourses can influence secondary discourses. Like the lady who went to the job interview who used a different dialect that was not suitable for an interview.

In order to be accepted into a discourse community, a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. In this paper I will prove that I entered the discourse community of my high school soccer team by acquiring knowledge, establishing my credibility, and learning the game I love. In other words, I will be using the ethos, logos, and pathos appeals. I love to play soccer and watch the professionals who play on TV. I have played since I was ten years old and always played in a city league team. The requirements of being part of the team were simple but at the same time very hard. I was recently part of my high school soccer team, the Crowley Eagles. People might

After identifying and describing the six points of criteria for qualification, Swales writes that even if just one attribute is missing, it may still be enough to prevent the formation of a discourse community (469). Keeping this in mind, it is important to identify all six points when trying to prove the existence of a discourse community. Due to the presence of all six attributes, I am a part of a discourse community myself. During the summer months, I work as a lifeguard at Avalon Summer Sports Club, a local

Just like everyone starved for a safe community, the Discourse Community serves a place to build trust, respect, and communication skill. According to Merriam Webster dictionary, the word discourse means to express oneself especially in oral communication. Discourse community should be a place where one can live comfortably as it own self and not concealing its’ negative side. It should be a place where everybody treated each others like a family and where one can express its true feeling. Bethel Worship group is a community that I joined three years ago and still an active member there. Bethel Worship group is one of the department that Bethel Baptist Church If a person wanted to join a certain group, then “a person must learn the typical ways people in that community communicate and argue” (P30). This paper will prove that I successfully joined the Discourse Community through my logical appeal, emotional bonding, and my credibility.

A discourse community is said to be resistant to internal criticism and self-scrutiny because all ideas that severely contrast the values and beliefs within the community are defined as being on the outside, as demonstrated in the texts. “The Discourse itself defines what counts as acceptable criticism” (Gee 162). All of the articles use similar rhetorical strategies by describing a problem in shared thinking; the common conception that the

This discourse community consists of people who believe in God and follow the principles of the bible. Despite what people outside of this community may think, it is not full of people who think they are better than anyone else. The people who make up this community are far from perfect, but are striving to improve themselves through learning the bible, with one belief holding them all together. I am a part of this discourse community. It is tied to my primary discourse, because I have been in the Church since I was little, and have grown up in its values. To be apart of this community, you simply have to believe in God, believe in what Jesus did for all of us, and have a desire to learn to live your life right through learning the bible.There

The heuristic that is used for this research guide to identify a discourse communities is the six characteristics that John Swales identifies in “The

As an incoming freshman at the University of Texas at Arlington I can say I have been in several organizations that have challenged my social skills. However, they were nothing compared to the discourse community I was a member of. It will be proven time and time again that I indeed was not only a member but also a valuable asset to this community. Let us ponder for a moment on what a discourse community actually is. It consists of many components involving but not limited to ethos, pathos, and logos. All three of which I possess and have mastered in my arts. You must realize what the set boundaries are for it to be included as such. Must sports be included even though it is more physical than conversely active? What about Student Government? Yes, we had conversations and planned events at meetings but our relationship with each other was only to a certain extent. Although my participation in sports and student government contributed to my When I think of a discourse community, automatically I associate it with the experience in my high school band. Our close knit community very well made me the person I am today.

Life is like a massive highway that have infinite routes anyone can choose take to reach some type of designated goal. Those various routes lead to distinct exits, where one can discover a group or groups that share similarities dealing with viewpoints, beliefs, or understanding towards a particular goal. These groups can be identified as discourse communities. According to, “The Concept of Discourse Community,” in the textbook, Writing About Writing, John Swales stressed that in order to be classified as a discourse community the group has to have all six defining characteristics. Swales emphasized, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilities and hence processes one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, acquires specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise” (Swales, 221-222). Keeping this key detail in mind, there is numerous type of discourse out there.

A discourse community is defined as a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. We all belong to multiple discourse communities.To earn a position of a discourse community one must possess accurate knowledge, establish reliability of members to be accepted and learn to persuade other members of the community. The discourse community that I identify with personally and the profession I plan to pursue is the world of film production. However, there are many jobs that need to be done on a film set leading to there being multiple discourse communities within the film industry, what I want to focus on specifically is the DP, otherwise known as the “director of photography”. According to “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by educator and researcher John Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics.

A discourse community is a group of people or communicators who share the same common goals or interests and use different forms of communication to achieve these goals. Some of these forms of communication may range from reading, writing, the use of technology such as blogging and emailing, and even visual art such as painting and drawing. As an English major focusing on the aspect of creative writing, the discourse community I so happened to be associated with is of the English subject. The discourse community of the English literature is made up of many people, genres of literature, and even terms. The discourse community of English literature can be traced back to as early as the year C.658 with the development of Anglo-Saxon literature. Some influential eras of English literature include : Romanticism, Victorian literature, Medieval Theater, Poetry, and the Elizabethan Period. Of course with every discourse community there are a vast number of people who help to make it up. In the discourse community of English some of these people include author and playwright William Shakespeare, author Mark Twain, author and poet Jane Austen , and a slew of famous African-American authors some including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and poet Maya Angelou.

A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. John Swales defines a discourse community as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." The community I choose to identify with is special education. Special education teachers, or aids, really dedicate themselves and their time to others who need special assistance or treatment. The California Department of Education supports high quality educational programs for California’s big student population. According to the ideas from the federal government, the variety of the education working environment is one of the fastest growing areas of the American economy. The importance in understanding this career includes emotional, and physical growth of each student. Working with students who have disabilities can be very rewarding, but it is sometimes emotionally demanding and physically draining. Before stepping into the job of becoming a special education teacher, it is important to understand the patience that is needed in order to work with special children.

R. Scollon, S. Scollon and Jones (2012) make a distinction between two forms of discourse systems: voluntary and involuntary discourse systems (p. 178). Voluntary ones are built around goals that participants share and are, for instance, corporate discourse systems. In contrast, involuntary ones are built around characteristics that participants share and are, for example, gender discourse systems (Scollon et al., 2012, p. 178). As an example, the corporate discourse system is practiced in corporations and institutions and, according to Jackson (2014), this discourse system has become “increasingly multicultural and multilingual” (p. 273). She illustrates that this diversity, which includes the increased use of English as a global language,