Discourse Community: A Narrative Analysis

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 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).

A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. According to the criteria conveyed in “The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales, Christianity can be considered as a discourse community because of its common goals, medium of communication, participatory mechanisms, specific genres, and its threshold level of members.

The first discourse community I belong to is Facebook. Facebook is a social media website in which I can communicate with relatives and friends. The first step to become a member of Facebook, one must create an account by entering his or her basic information such as name, date of birth, gender, and email address. After the account is created, one must verify his or her account by clicking on verification link in the email account provided during the sign up process. Then, one can start to add people on his or her friend’s list either through searching or syncing their phone contacts. Once this step is done, he or she can post pictures, statuses, share links, and comments on his or her walls or their friend’s wall page. Other things you can do on Facebook is, tagging friends on pictures,

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).

Discourse Community Project A discourse community is a community that shares the same "discourses" or values or goals as their community. An example of this would be a sports team or organization. Players of these specific teams all work together to achieve a common goal; to win. These players have a coach that is a powerful leader and that individual makes them strive to be the best players they can be. Moreover, it is important for each player to have trust in each other and to form bonds.

Discourse communities are groups of people who share similar values, goals, and ways of communication. Although it is more of a broad definition, to me discourse communities can be more simplified. My definition: sharing the same experiences, individual passion, and journey as your destined group.

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.

I am a part of many different discourse communities. I am a college student, a millennial, a nanny, a family member, a friend, and a full time employee. In each aspect of my life, I participate in discourse communities with those around me; with goals, genre, and lexis. Of my discourse community memberships, the one which fit Swales’ definition most accurately would be in my place of work (HisWay).

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.

The idea of organization and interaction among people comes from a long time ago. It has been seeing so many organizations, groups and associations being created around world with the purpose of bringing together people, who share similar ideas, perspectives and interests. Not different from other places around the world, in University of Oklahoma- Norman Campus, there is a religious group called Nations United – life group, composing mainly by international students.. People might think that the unique goal of this group is encouraging them to grow deeper in their relationship with God, but there are so others goals such as meeting new people and places, encouraging and building relationships between it's members, and having fun. The members need to interact and be informed about meetings and events so genre of writing such as social medias and website are used to provide these information. This paper

We now know what would be the necessary threshold levels for members who wish to join in such a community, but now we must realize the rest of the questions that need to be answered when talking about the discourse communities. But, what is a discourse community? Well, by definition, a discourse community is a group of individuals whom share similar ideals to one another, and are able to communicate with one another so that they all may be able to achieve a goal. However, as any other term within the English dictionary, there is something more than what was stated to be the definition. And John Malcolm Swales, a linguist best known for his work on genre analysis, would agree with that train of thought. He had stated that when it comes to a

Discourse communities often have their own languages within one another, that help them communicate with the members. When trying to reach a certain type of a discourse community you use the same type of communication that they are using at the time or it will cause confusion. If you are not apart of the community, you must be careful because you might confuse the audience you are trying to reach. You might even forget the purpose of your message to that community. I will be talking about my soccer team’s community because it shows how we communicate with one another within our community and also with other teams in our district.

“Ethnography or field research is a sociological method that explores how people live and make sense of their lives with one another in particular places. The focus might be on understanding (the human race) and the meaning they produce through everyday interactions, or places, and the organizational logics that guide our activities” (columbia.edu).