Construction Of The Public Sphere

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

Members of "societies" and "historical cultures" participate in vast and not altogether coherent superstructures which invite them to channel doubts through prevailing discourse practices. In the democratic tradition, we can categorize these channels as the personal, the technical and the public spheres. "Sphere" denotes branches of activity–the grounds upon which arguments are built and the authorities to which arguers appeal. (p.2)

According to MacIntyre (2007), the basic features of civic humanism are derived from the rise of the large-scale state and decline of the polis. This process has had immense consequences for the conceptual relation between morals and politics. The setting of the moral life is altered to become assessments of men often ruled from far off, living isolated lives in politically powerless communities. (MacIntyre, 2007. 96). It becomes imperative to encourage fellow citizens using words for them to perform actions that are

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

In their essays, both authors Sidney Callahan and Deborah Tannen discuss strategies for a possible improvement in society’s ways of arguing. In “Fight Fierce but Fair: Practice at Home,” (1994), Callahan claims “if you learn to fight well and fairly at home, you can contribute to the civic struggle necessary to keep a pluralistic society moving.” With a set of guidelines and rules composed through personal experience, Callahan successfully uses this technique to give readers an immediate call to action and a solid, convincing essay. In “The Triumph of the Yell,” (1994), Tannen claims that “more and more these days, journalists, politicians, and academics treat public discourse as an argument – not in the sense of

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

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.

Postman bases his argument on the belief that public discourse in America, when governed by the epistemology of the printing press, was "generally coherent, serious, and rational" (16) because

According to Swales a discourse community is created with six defining characteristics that are “made up of individuals who share a broadly agreed upon set of common public goals; further, it has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses it participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, [that] has or uses one or more genres that help group achieve its shared goal, has acquired some specific lexis and has a reasonable ratio of novices and experts” (Swales, 795). To explain Swales’ concept, I have chosen to apply his six characteristics, necessary and sufficient for identifying groups as a discourse community, to analyze my united states history one class, taught by Mrs. Medley, along with some feedback I retrieved from both a fellow student and my professor.

As Habermas puts it “the relationship of the individual to the state has increasingly become one of client or consumer services, rather than citizen” (Roberts & Crossley, 5). Due to the limited agency (citizens’ roles) within this sphere, we can conclude that the ongoing competition and negotiation for a role in the public sphere ends with strictly dominant views. In such a monarchy, ordinary citizens such as lower classes and women have limited input when debating politics among other things. The ideal of a place where all opinions are counted, so to speak, fails to provide a sense of individual identity. This is due to the fact that it is pre-destined by the state itself and then turned back to the people- telling them what they will think about particular issues; shown especially through the controlling lens of the media.

“It is a shift in the practice of democracy from hostility to civility, from advocacy to engagement, from confrontation to conversation, from debate to dialogue, and from separation to community.” (p. 4)

Martha Nussbaum does an eloquent cross-disciplinary job at painting a narrative that advocates the idea that there exist two tasks for the political cultivation of emotion in a liberal society that aspires to justice and equality for all. They are 1.) To create and maintain a strong commitment to public projects that requires effort and sacrifice from the people, which are thematic of socioeconomic inclusion and 2.) Is to prevent the emergence/or reemergence of forces that serve to denigrate and subordinate others. In this essay I shall outline the question that motivates the talking points of Political Emotion, which includes defining critical terms and examining the parameterization of her inquiry and what she expects of the reader, and lastly

What justifies political legitimacy in a society? By comparing the two readings assigned one can discuss the differences in political theories expressed by both John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In, Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes, and in, The Second Treatise of Government, by John Locke different theories of political legitimacy and definitions of the state of nature are described. The following paragraphs analyze multiple different points that are imperative to understanding these political theories.

Rethinking The Public Sphere is a response to Habermas' 1973 essay, later published in English as The Public Sphere in 1989. Habermas states his concept of the public sphere as both historical, and normative. It is historical both in the sense of era and region- 20th century Western Europe. He dismantles the distinctions between the public and private domain.

The privatization and fragmentation of space in post-industrial urban America is a widespread social problem. As society becomes even more globalized as a result of technological advances, the rampant spread of a privatized public realm is ever-increasing. Public space is needed as a center in which to bring people together to share a common place. It is within public spaces that public life unfolds and without public spaces such as parks, streets, and buildings, the mixing of classes will become increasingly uncommon. Society is made up of two sectors: the private and public, and it is essential that both remain separate entities. However, through the use of fear tactics especially the threat of