Discourse Theory

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.

Male prisoners also continue to make up the majority of the prison population. However, women prisoner rates have been on the rise and have exceeded that of male growth rates since 1995. In fact, due to the increase of the women prison population, various issues have arisen which require women to be treated differently from men. Such issues correctional facility’s face because of this increase include program delivery, housing conditions, medical care, staffing, and security (American Corrections, 2016). These problems are in part due to the different social and economic differences women are faced with in prison and while preparing for their release back to society.

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.

The system unable to adapt for such a small number in comparison to men, incarcerated women are expected to fit into an institution developed by men for men, resulting in worse conditions, less familial contact due to fewer facilities, and more rules as if the women were children, all direct reflections institutionalized sexism and HM both in and out of the corrections arena. Additionally, due to the Madonna-like factor, women who are convicted have a farther fall from grace within society and do not have the luxury of the “good old boy” connections for defense and protection. While gender roles and expectations are assigned by society, believing women should be equal to men demands the acknowledgement that women can offend like men (Pearson, 1998) and therefore should be incarcerated not ‘like men’ but in an equalized manner. Perhaps, rather than revamping institutions developed to house and rehabilitate women, we first investigate the standards currently in play for the policing, convicting and sentencing of men as the foundation of creating a nonsexist criminal justice

As an incoming freshman at the University of Texas at Arlington I can say I have been in several organizations that have challenged my social skills. However, they were nothing compared to the discourse community I was a member of. It will be proven time and time again that I indeed was not only a member but also a valuable asset to this community. Let us ponder for a moment on what a discourse community actually is. It consists of many components involving but not limited to ethos, pathos, and logos. All three of which I possess and have mastered in my arts. You must realize what the set boundaries are for it to be included as such. Must sports be included even though it is more physical than conversely active? What about Student Government? Yes, we had conversations and planned events at meetings but our relationship with each other was only to a certain extent. Although my participation in sports and student government contributed to my When I think of a discourse community, automatically I associate it with the experience in my high school band. Our close knit community very well made me the person I am today.

There have been many changes in the treatment of offenders by the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales, particularly the treatment of female offenders. The handling of women within the criminal justice system has been closely tied to their social characteristics, and to what might be described as their ‘social construction’. On the other hand, women who compromise more than half of the world’s population, account for only 15% of criminal activity and as a consequence, relatively little attention has been given to them. This essay will explore how this has changed from a historical point of view to modern times, with exploration from cross-culture comparisons and an overview of the treatments of females in prisons.

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.

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.

In many countries, the female prison population has increased dramatically over the last years. This has generated widespread awareness in our society, leading people to question why the percentage multiplied exponentially. In the past, female offenders have not only been compared to their male counterparts, but to society’s view of the role of women; this role categorized them as housewives and mothers. But how did these housewives and mothers go from the home to the prisons? In most countries, women represent a minority of the prison population: normally between 2% and 8%. There are now more than 600,000 women behind bars and more than one million on probation and parole, (Bastick and Townhead 2008) most of these women are sentenced to prison for non-violent crimes. Many of these women in prison struggle with substance abuse, mental illness, and histories of physical and sexual abuse. According to the researchers Bastick and Townhead, all over the world women in prison suffer from intersecting

In his article "The Concept of Discourse Community," John Swales reports that a certain group of people can be described as a discourse community if that group could share some characteristics. In order to figure out whether or not those characteristics apply to a certain group of people, a methodology, which is a closer study of the behaviors and activities of the group, must be conducted throughout observations and interviews with some of the members. This paper conveys a study of a group of workers in Dayton Towers Luxury Apartments, and then relates, if possible, the results to the standards of discourse community that Swales describes in his article, followed by some explanations of what was learned from this experience.

A discourse community is a group of people or communicators who share the same common goals or interests and use different forms of communication to achieve these goals. Some of these forms of communication may range from reading, writing, the use of technology such as blogging and emailing, and even visual art such as painting and drawing. As an English major focusing on the aspect of creative writing, the discourse community I so happened to be associated with is of the English subject. The discourse community of the English literature is made up of many people, genres of literature, and even terms. The discourse community of English literature can be traced back to as early as the year C.658 with the development of Anglo-Saxon literature. Some influential eras of English literature include : Romanticism, Victorian literature, Medieval Theater, Poetry, and the Elizabethan Period. Of course with every discourse community there are a vast number of people who help to make it up. In the discourse community of English some of these people include author and playwright William Shakespeare, author Mark Twain, author and poet Jane Austen , and a slew of famous African-American authors some including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and poet Maya Angelou.

A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. John Swales defines a discourse community as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." The community I choose to identify with is special education. Special education teachers, or aids, really dedicate themselves and their time to others who need special assistance or treatment. The California Department of Education supports high quality educational programs for California’s big student population. According to the ideas from the federal government, the variety of the education working environment is one of the fastest growing areas of the American economy. The importance in understanding this career includes emotional, and physical growth of each student. Working with students who have disabilities can be very rewarding, but it is sometimes emotionally demanding and physically draining. Before stepping into the job of becoming a special education teacher, it is important to understand the patience that is needed in order to work with special children.

The reason is that females were considered to be good candidates for rehabilitation. The suggestion is that female offenders were viewed as less dangerous than male offenders. Overtime, gender has led to women being protected and punished. The earlier notion of women-centeredness of women’s prisons no longer exists. There is more emphasis on a criminal being a criminal. At the same time, males still suffer harsher penalties compared to females within the criminal justice system.

For centuries the general public have perceived that the deep horrors of the prison system only existed within the majority of incarcerated male inmates. However now due to recent investigations researchers are finding that this is not the case. For a lengthened period of time the female prison system have been given low attention in comparison to male inmates

The first research entitled “The representation of gender roles in the media - An analysis of gender discourse in Sex and the City movies ” was constructed by Therese Ottosson and Xin Cheng in 2012.