Community Revealed

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

A discourse community is a social group of people that share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating through written texts and share common goals, such as academia. There is usually some type of discussion, which is called discursive practices. Usually, these discursive practices involve genres, which are types of texts that are recognizable to the readers and writers. In the essay, The Concept of Discourse Community, John Swales give you some things to look for and consider when trying to figure out what is happening in any situation where language and texts play a part: What are people doing here? Do they share goals? How do they communicate with one another? How do newcomers learn what to do here? (Swales 215) I

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

John Swales defines the term discourse communities as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals" (Swales). A discourse community is defined by the following six characteristics: The community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, the community has mechanisms of intercommunication among their members, the community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, the community utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, the community also owns genres and has some acquired lexis that are specific to the community in terms of jargon, and the community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise. In such communities, members often come as novices, and due to their high level of commitment to the community, they “leave by death or other less involuntary ways” (Swales, 27).

A discourse community is a group of people who share common interest, values and aim to reach the same goals. For example, this English 1301 course where we’ve been assigned to write a paper with the same goal and ideas in mind. A class where we all discuss our views and passions and relate them to English and composition. I am excited to share with you what I have learned so far and the skills that I have acquired in this stimulating English course that has managed to spark my interest in writing after many years of cranking out meaningless papers with no personality or style. In this paper, I explain to you, my classmates, the process I went through in joining my discourse community, showing you just how intense and difficult it is to meet

When I first started researching discourse communities I thought to myself. Why were there so many definitions of a discourse community and which one is right? To answer that question, discourse communities are “groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”(Borg 1). To put this into even simpler terms, every group that you have or ever will be apart of is a discourse community. The discourse communities that you are a part of shape the way you think, write and evaluate others. Every group that you are a part of influences you whether it be your friends, your family, or even your English class. For me, all of the discourse communities that I am apart of influence the way I think and write.

As people we tend to associate with others with a common interest working together to accomplish something great for others or for ourselves. Amongst us there are an infinite of numbers of a discourse communities, which is limitless to identify each one. John Swales, author of “The Concept of Discourse Community”, describes it as group of individuals that share a common goal and sub-goals as a whole. Or as James Porter definition of a discourse community: “is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated. These community represent certain ideology and views of the world that defines them apart from others. Swales states it must meet six specific criteria

In James Paul Gee’s text Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics, Gee discusses what “Discourses” are and how they “are ways of being in the world: they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social

A discourse community comprises of a group of people, especially within a sphere of intellectual or social activity, who share common goals, who support and understand each other using their own specific language or manner of interaction whether verbal or non-verbal (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2017). Two discourse communities I consider to be a part of and that have a distinct impact on my life include my family in India, and my education at Pace university. These communities are a world apart and yet they share a common goal – my well-being and my success.

When I began the quarter I had no previous any knowledge about "discourse", as the quarter progressed I have learned a lot about this idea of discourse. Although there are a lot of different ideas of what "discourse", I think they share some common things. You become a member of an institution or group, that share similarities and have a specific goals to accomplish that pertain to literacy. You have to be able to work as a group to make sure you accomplish these common goals. There are a couple of things that they have in common. First of all you have to have lexis, which is important in able to communicate and have these special language . This allows you to distinguish yourself from other communities, and allows you to communicate with the members of the group. If you don’t understand the lexis, than you will not be accepted by the group. Another important part is having one or more genres, which is important to make sure that the goals of the group get met. The last thing that I think is important is that you having boundaries or rules, that people know are not okay to do. For example, in an academic community everyone would agree that plagiarism is completely wrong and accepted. These are a couple of things that I found present throughout all the articles I read.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32.

We interact with each other globally by a set of signs and summing up these signs with meaningful purpose we call them discourse.

CSC, or better known as Charleston Shoe Company to the general public, is a local comfort brand that sells stylish shoes to women. CSC is a specific lexis that only members of Charleston Shoe Company would understand. This feature is defined by John Swales, who defines a discourse community in his book Genre Analysis. CSC recognizes that many women have problems with their feet, which can include bunions, high insteps, and plantars fasciitis. The Charleston shoes have elastic uppers so that the shoe can form to the foot, which makes them extremely comfortable while they remain in style. While the members of Charleston Shoe Company may seem like a regular group of people, in reality, it is a tight knit discourse community. According to John Swales, a discourse community has six identifying characteristics, all in which need to be present to decide if a community is a discourse community. The six characteristics include: Common goals, a system of intercommunication between members, participation that leads to information and feedback, one or more genres of communication, a specific lexis and a balance between levels of expertise (471-3). It was important that Swales created a definition of discourse community because all previous definitions were either too vague or were not clear in how to identify a discourse community (469). Now that it has been properly defined, one can see that discourse communities and rhetoric have a direct correlation.

The City of Atlanta is a beautiful and captivating city. With great weather and a thriving economy it’s easy to fall in love with Atlanta. Atlanta’s population sits at 418,801 people (Atlanta Local Information, 2013). The majority of the people in Atlanta are either high income urban single, high income with high expense urban single or college students getting a higher education (Atlanta Local Information, 2013). The average age of a person living in Atlanta is 34 years old with 21.1% of the people being single women while 24.4% are single men (Atlanta Local Information, 2013). With most people focusing on a career the percentage of homes with kids is

Language as a social process does not detract from the analytical and “correct” view of language as an object, it enhances the knowledge and allows for further understanding of how language is used and what meaning it creates. Language as a social process is influenced by a person’s history and context (). Cremin and Myhill (2011) discuss how language is influenced by the shared and individual histories and contexts of those using language, that a speaker or writer draws upon what they have previously read or heard, what is deemed appropriate and “good” in that setting and what is not. An example of this is Discourse. Discourse is a socially accepted association between the way a person uses language and their membership of a social group and/or network (Green, 2006). An example of Discourse is the language used by members of the same profession when communicating with each other, a group of surgeons will use language in a very different way to the way in which a group of architecture students will use language (Emmitt, 2010).