Faculty Meeting: Discourse Community Analysis

Paul Ryan once said, “Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together.” We do not often realize how important it is for everybody to work together to achieve a goal. A community is a group of individual people gathered together to form a whole, like a school, local church, government entity, non-profit organization, sport team, etc. This whole can make reference to a discourse community.

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.

Preschool teachers have not been given the credit they deserve, with lots of people over looking their importance. Being a preschool teacher is more than just watching a couple of kids for a couple of hours. This field requires a lot preparation and behind the scene work that put into the job, so it really is not as easy as it may seem. Preschool could possibly shape the rest of their academic lives. At this level of school the children learn their basic building blocks for learning that they will use forever. That leaves parents with big expectations for the teacher. And for the teacher, they will have to set goals, have a plan to reach those goals, and for the most part

Stevens Institute of Technology is a technically oriented university with a diverse set of majors not limited to just engineering. From engineering students to history majors, Stevens makes sure to highlight the importance of understanding technology in today’s world. Computer science is one of the more prominent majors outside of the field of engineering and the Stevens freshmen in computer science have created a discourse community for all those taking entry level computer science courses. According to American Linguist John Swales, a discourse community is defined by a group of people with a means of entry maintained by following set goals and rules, as well as, communicating using genres and lexis unique to the community. It’s unsurprising

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.

There are a number of things that I still need to do to revise my draft of the Discourse Community paper. First, I must check whether I have answered all the research questions required. I also must make sure I have completed all the activities that are also mandatory for this paper. For instance, I have to figure out where I will include the thirty-minute interview of the International Relations professor that I am going to conduct on Friday. Including the interview will allow me to properly answer the following questions that concern how research is conducted, what is the writing style like, and elaborate others. The more proof or evidence I have, the better my argument will me.

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.

Promptly from the very beginning, feeling of formal writing strikes in mind while reading the paper and it is maintained throughout the whole writing. Coherence, clarity and attention grabber particularly at the onset of first paragraph through definition of discourse community, in the fifth paragraph via counterargument and many examples of real life experiences makes the paper interesting and always engaging to read. These are the strengths of this paper.

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.

One of the broadest disciplines in academia is Sociology since there are numerous branches that can be studied. The wide range of topics in this field are mainly organized through written work which allows those in this discourse community to stay connected. In the book titled Discourse Communities: The Rhetoric of Disciplines, Gary D. Schmidt and William J. Vande Kopple, explain that discourse communities are a group of people who share ways in how they present claims, organize, analyze and communicate in their discipline. This is significant to note because each discipline consists of different audiences that can comprehend jargon and methodology differently depending on their discourse community. In most academic disciplines the difference

According to Swales a discourse community is created with six defining characteristics that are “made up of individuals who share a broadly agreed upon set of common public goals; further, it has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses it participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, [that] has or uses one or more genres that help group achieve its shared goal, has acquired some specific lexis and has a reasonable ratio of novices and experts” (Swales, 795). To explain Swales’ concept, I have chosen to apply his six characteristics, necessary and sufficient for identifying groups as a discourse community, to analyze my united states history one class, taught by Mrs. Medley, along with some feedback I retrieved from both a fellow student and my professor.

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 are all around us, which can include a sports team, academics, and many others. However today I am focusing on a discourse community that relates to my major, criminal justice. In order for me to understand swales six characteristics I interviewed a homicide detective relating to criminal justice. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. A discourse community is defined by six characteristics. The six defining characteristics of a discourse community require a set of common goals, there must also be mechanisms of communications within the community as well as feedback among members. Genre, the fourth characteristic, describing the various methods of output. The last two are terminology, and expertise. In order to really understand that criminal justice is a discourse community, I had to do research, and interview an expert in the field. 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 which is a type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. My interviewee, Carol Mims, is a child homicide detective. She is an alumni here at