Engineering Discourse Community

A discourse community comprises of a group of people sharing a common and distinct mode of communication or discourse, especially within a particular domain of intellectual or social activity (Oxforddictionaries, 2017). Some of the discourse communities I consider to be a part of, include an Indian joint family, my peer group, high school education in India, the Apple community and education at Pace university.

A discourse community is a social collective that shares ideas, goals, values, and themes. Discourse communities existed in all facets of life, and are important to each individual’s social life. We all belong to varies discourse communities. The people you hang out with, the social networks you belong to, and even your favorite sports teams are discourse communities. Today we will look at a specific one; we will look at the discourse community of Mixed Martial Arts.

To open this essay I have to start with saying that I will not be analyzing a manuscript, but a journal article instead, which the reason for will be explained later. Now, to define a journal article in a simple and modern definition, we can say it is a professionally published article that deals with a specialized subject. More specifically, in this case our genre is an engineering journal article. Contents within will range from current research results, charts and graphs of data, even current standings and analysis on subjects. A journal article is ultimately intended for engineers who have a research interest in a field, with at least some prior knowledge. The level of which its usefulness arises to is based on background knowledge on the topic. The engineer discourse community who will pick up this genre will most likely be familiar, to a degree, with the content, or at least have prior knowledge of engineering concepts. Those engineers who want to help or further their own research will turn to these articles; they can then base where to begin once having been briefed by its content. These engineering journal articles allow for the progression of engineering, making them the most important genre encountered in the field.

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.

A discourse community is a group of people that share a set of common goals and use communication to achieve these goals. My discourse community is the Bartlett High School Band. The band has a set of goals that we set up at the beginning of the year during leadership. I have been a part of this discourse community for three years. I was a part of a similar discourse community for one year, which was the Bolton High School Band. The Bartlett Band is a discourse community that has multiple methods of communication, a set of common goals, and a lexis.

An example of a discourse community I choose to talk about in this paper is the JPS Nail Salon located near Elvis Presley Boulevard. I recently became a part of this particular discourse community group by volunteering to help out on the weekends. I thought it would be interesting to dig a little deeper as to how discourse community works out as a whole.

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.

As part of daily life, we communicate and connect ourselves with certain communities. School, jobs, families, sports, extracurricular activities, and many other communities are just a few we come into contact with. Although these may seem to appear the same, there are specific types of communities such as a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field (Webcourses, N.d, Website) that has a share a common set of goals and attempt to achieve these goals (Swales, 1990). According to researcher and educator, John Swales, there are six characteristics that define whether or not a community is considered a discourse community. Following the criteria Swales states is necessary to be a discourse community, I did an in depth research on the American Sign Language community. Through my study, I was able to meet all six characteristics.

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.

For the purposes of this paper, I will be using the criteria that were outlined by John Swales for what classifies as a Discourse Community. Swales said that for a community of individuals to be considered a Discourse Community if must meet six basic requirements. These requirements are that "there are common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genres, a highly specialized terminology and a high general level of expertise" (Swales 224). We will explore these requirements further as we look into whether Reddit fits them or

Since the dawn of time that humans have reigned around the world, they have formed groups or communities that share common goals or interest. John Swales (1990), a respectable professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, developed a list of characteristics to determine communities or, as he calls it, a discourse community. He identifies these characteristics as all the discourse communities has agreed upon common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, provide information and feedback, possess one or more genres of communication, distinguish vocabulary or lexis, and requirement for memberships (Swales, 1990, p. 1-5). The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), falls into the category as a discourse community. Founded in 1994, IGDA is a non-profit professional association that collaborates with projects that encompasses members from all fields of game development. They bring together developers to improve their lives and prepare the next generation of developers. The IGDA is a professional discourse community that defines all of Swales characteristic to be considered as a discourse community.

On February 14, 2016, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an essay by Julio M. Ottino and Gary Saul Morson entitled “Building a Bridge Between Engineering and the Humanities.” Ottino and Morson discuss the importance of the fields of engineering and the humanities. The purpose of the essay is to show how engineering and the humanities are linked together and are needed simultaneously. Even though, Morson and Ottino adopt a weak informal tone in the middle of their argument; the authors end their argument strong by successfully using ethos and logos to appeal to their audience, college and university faculty and administrators.

Over the course of the semester, I have been involved in several activities requiring different forms of communication. The method of communication I used was dependent on the audience I was addressing. For example, when speaking to my EGB100 tutorial class or my project group, I used some technical language for an engineering context, as the audience understood the topic area and would not be confused by the technical terms. However, when speaking to friends who do not study or understand engineering, I used simpler terms to briefly describe my point. The EGB100 reading Engineering your future: An Australasian guide, provides an insight into this, and stresses the importance of variation in communication methods. As an engineer, I will be

John Swales (1990) claims that “there are six qualities that makes up the core of a discourse community” (Swales, 1990, p. 220). First, “a discourse community has standard public objectives that they strive to achieve” (Swales, 1990, p. 220). Members of a discourse community all share the same common goals they are anticipating to attain, and they do not have individuals with separate goals.

Much of civilisations pivotal developments which have allowed the world to flourish are due to the work of engineers. They provide solutions to society’s needs.