Discourse Analysis Paper

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.

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

To create a piece of fabric, small textile fibers are crisscrossed, stitched, and sewn together. If unraveled, the individual fibers remain, but as a whole, they function collectively to make a larger and more significant piece. This is known as weaving, and it is argued by some literary researchers that this process of weaving can be figuratively applied to procedures of writing by way of intertextuality―the composition theory that claims all texts refer to other texts. From this assertion, James E. Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” argues originality is nearly impossible to achieve, as no thought originates without influence from other sources; however, after examining the essays “All Writing is Autobiography” by Donald

In ENGL 1301, these past two weeks have given me a better understanding of ethos, logos and pathos appeals. Being in a discourse community has made me put these appeals into perspective. Understanding that being in that community made me a stronger woman. This will give me a chance to show you, my professor and classmates that softball is indeed a sport. I will prove why I attended this discourse community in softball at a young age to now by explaining the mental state of understanding the rules, the physical mechanisms, and the emotional connection it has on my authority, team and myself.

In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” Professor John Swales defines what a discourse community is, following with a list of six different points that a group must align with in order to qualify as a discourse community. These parameters are as follows: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” “mechanisms of intercommunication among its members,” the use of “participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback”, use or possession of “one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims”, “some specific lexis”, and “a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (471-473).

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.

When one has authority in a discourse community they need to know how to use it appropriately. In Wardle’s reading she gives an example of this about a guy named Alan joining a discourse community within his workplace. As we know, Alan was a computer support specialist in the humanities department, who was young and just out of college. Alan left his first job because he thought that he was not granted any responsibility (291). He then found another job within the university working on computers. Right off the start Alan was making decisions as being the only computer specialist within the start of his new position. As Wardle states, Alan did not have to necessarily prove his knowledge like most people who start a job (292). The first mistake

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?

The rhetorical analysis I composed was written on an article called,“The confessions of a liberal gun owner,”by Justin Cronin. This type of writing opened me up to a new style of composing that I am not familiar with. I really enjoyed being able to show my view of whether I thought that this article was effective. Critisizing the writer for doing certain things was very interesting and made me feel more independent and powerful. I did not like that I could not use my personal opinion but could use what I thought as the audience of the paper. This confused me at first but I eventually understood the reasoning behind it. Telling my personal opinon would dismay readers and disregard my credibility. By stating facts it made my paper sound more

As members of modern society, individuals have come together to form a unique community. In a quote by Rollo May, he states, “Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy, and mutual valuing.” A discourse community consists of a group of people involving in and as well as communication about particular topics. Each group may vary in different categories but they all share the same goals. The importance of sharing the same goals and values is great because it leads to the true concept of a discourse community.

The Symposium in simple words is a drinking party consisting of dinner then discussion. For tonight’s party, they will decide the topic will be on the god of love. The whole group mainly focuses on the love relationship between two men. Each speaking about what they think about love. Focusing more on Pausanias speech he talks differently about his view of the lover/boyfriend relationship. To help his argument Alcibiades in some ways prove his points. Pausanias contradicts Phaedrus’s view of the lover/boyfriend relationship by looking at the meaning of love, a connection between old and young, and the outcome.

Recently in class we’ve broached the topic of discourse communities, in order to better understand how concepts of rhetoric appear and are used in our daily lives. As such, I’ll be writing about a community of my own as a form of analysis if you will, to better understand these concepts of communication. While my intent is to try and showcase examples of ethos pathos and logos, who knows what you may take away from it. Perhaps you find a new way of interacting with your own friends, or perhaps you’ll just find a way of looking at your own interactions from reading about my own.

I listened to an older recording of a radio airing show. Rebecca, the host of the radio broadcasting show, arranged for Dr. Stephen Covey to share his theories and philosophies on a subject valued to him and many others. He communicated on the topic of having a family mission statement. He has published several books that also encourage the equivalent manner and viewpoint as his broadcast, one specifically is the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. Dr. Covey offers advice for helping to become better parents and raise more loving and closer families. He aims to convince his listeners that effective families need a family mission statement. He suggests how a family mission statement leads families to not

Let’s play a game. Are you familiar with the game “Hide and Go Seek?” The object of the game is to not be found by the seeker, or if you are the seeker, to find all persons playing. Even if you’ve played this game a million times, before we started playing together, I would have to explain my version of the rules. In your version, the seeker may count for 1 minute, then begin looking, but the way I play, the seeker must slowly count aloud to 20 then begin the game. When you play, is it the first or the last person found who becomes the seeker next? When you are found, are you allowed to run or are you automatically out? Are there bases, or safe spots, where you can’t be tagged? I personally have never seen

Fairclough (1995) clarifies that discourse is not only written and spoken language, but it also visual part that has meaning (p.54).