Difference Between Discourse And Discourse

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

The conversations between vendors and customers included both kinesics (body language) and spoken language. For the most part, customers and vendors only interacted when needed such as asking where a certain item was located or when vendors would take orders from the customers for baked goods or deli meats. Often when customers would ask where a certain produce item is, the vendors would tell them where and point in the direction or the aisle of the item. The conversations between the vendors and producers were formal and polite consisting of “Excuse me,” “Sorry,” “Thank you,” and “You’re welcome.” Though the interaction between the vendors and the customers were friendly, the customers themselves tended to steer clear of each other unless they were together. Every group or individual kept to themselves producing a more silent rather than noisy environment. But, the interactions within the groups of consumers was a different story. Within these groups, between significant others, family members or friends, the conversations were elevated, yet informal. On one hand, since these groups were in the presence of others, they were concerned with keeping up appearances, hence, producing the elevated language observed. On the other hand, since they were comfortable with each other, they had not been too concerned speaking in formal tone. Within these

In his essay “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales, an educator and researcher, establish the definition of a discourse community. He argues that there is a difference between a speech community and a discourse community. According to John Swales, there are six defining characteristics for a group to be a discourse community. He then gives an example and discusses further issues regarding the concept of a discourse community. While the purpose of this essay is to acknowledge the readers about the characteristics of the discourse community with some explaination about each characteristics. He also establishes a formal tone to the readers. This work is significant because it provides some usefull information about discourse community so that the readers can know which discourse community they belongs to.

Gee’s entire assessment of discourses is the highlight of the essay. According to him, discourses cannot be imbibed or simply learnt in traditional classrooms, they cannot be taught to a person but rather they are what one learns through his experiences and social interactions. Since his experiences may encompass a great variety of social interactions and discussions with people from different spheres, these discourses are not very singular and may have conflicts among themselves. It is eventually the amalgamation of discourses that a person experiences that ultimately shape

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.

Over the past class periods in ENGL 1301, we went over the rhetorical skills used around us in our daily lives. By persuading the audience using Ethos, Pathos and Logos, writers can maneuver their audience in any way that they wish. More specifically, in order to be part of a community, that person must share the views to be considered a member. All throughout my four years of high school, I believe I was part of a discourse community. That discourse community was the basketball team. This paper will allow me to confirm that notion with my teacher as well as my fellow students with the credibility, the community knowledge, and the same values that the community and I shared. A discourse community in the words of Linguist John Swales, are "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." Our goal as a basketball team was to make it to the playoffs and win the state championship. Although people saw that goal as a little farfetched, we as group of teammates believed that that was

Swales’ second defining characteristic of a discourse group stresses the significance of communication; simply put, “A

John Swales (1990), professor of linguistics, defines a discourse community as an exclusive group of people brought together by a common goal. According to John Swales (1990), every discourse community has six characteristics that makes them a discourse community. Overall the group must have a shared goal, in which they communicate with each other through different genres and lexis they have developed; genres are different types of communication that the group employ and lexis is the specialized language utilized by that particular discourse community. They also tend to have a hierarchy within the group and require individual group members to truly participate to be counted as a part of the discourse community. (p. 471-73)

Wardle and Swales both have a vast amount of similarities while discussing discourse communities. Part of the Wardle article that stood out to me was the part where they mention newcomers to an organization and how they find a mode of belonging. For example, the “modes of belonging” are engagement, imagination and alignment. A key point in both articles that I feel is important is someone finding their identity in a community. The main difference that is between the articles is that Wardle talks more about a workplace and Swales talks more about a discourse community.

He can understand a range of complex structures in extended discourse and comprehend many distinctions in language tailored for different audiences.The student often shows strategic and organizational abilities and expectations in discourse. Mr. Chanberland can adap his vocabulary according to his audience. He can use the language to speculate at length about abstract topics such as how some change in history or the course of human events

Gee Throughout the journal, “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics” by James Paul Gee, he explains the concept of Discourse as “’saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination’ that are ‘ways of being in the world’” (Gee 274). I found Gee’s view of a Discourse to be too broad of a concept. By stating that everything is a Discourse, then there is no disconnect from everyday occurrences.

When Discourse is broken up, it has various different elements to it. Some of those are dominant Discourses, non dominant Discourses, mushfaking, and apprenticeship. “Dominant Discourses are secondary discourses the mastery of which, at a particular place and time, brings with it the acquisition of social “goods” (money, prestige,

The acclaimed book Crucial Conversations discusses the intricacies of communication and analyzes the potential reasons for dialog deterioration in a group setting. The authors emphasize the importance of making people feel safe to exchange ideas and the techniques to restore balance when safety is threatened. This book, although unique in its views, has its roots embedded in proven psychological theories by James-Lang and Cannon-Bard, which state that emotions cause physiological arousal that stimulates emotional brain activity but reduces the ability for cognitive reasoning (Passer & Smith, 2007, p. 384-386).

Discourses are the “social and cultural practices through which individuals and groups use language to establish their identities…they provide ways of being, thinking, acting and using language so that people can identify themselves in social and cultural networks” Discourses affect peoples views on all things, for example, two different

In addition to differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical structures among cultural groups, variations also exist in the rules for general discourse in oral communication, covering such specific acts as narratives and conversation. In communicating with one another, teachers and students naturally will follow the assumptions and rules governing discourse within their respective cultures. Discourse rules govern such aspects of communication as: opening or closing conversations; taking turns during conversations; interrupting; using silence as a communicative device; interjecting humor at appropriate times and using nonverbal behavior. Once again, an American student studying in the middle east, who would constantly interrupt the teacher in order to clarify the professor’s opinion, would be considered to be