Joining A Discourse Community

Accomplishing goals through intercommunication among members of a community is one characteristic that makes up a discourse community. A discourse community has six characteristics such as having a broadly agreed set of goals, a participatory mechanism to provide information or feedback, acquiring a specific level of language, and members with a suitable degree of relevant content. The community that is a community discourse is India. India occupies the greater part of South Asia and consists of twenty-nine states. India is most known for festivals, food, and jewelry. The constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language. So, communication among the people is not easy with twenty-two languages in one country. India consists of diverse ethnic races and groups who strictly follow specific customs. The cultural diversity of the country is what makes up the discourse customs within the 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.

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.

The discourse community I have chosen is within my sorority, Delta Delta Delta (Tri Delta). There are many stereotypes associated with Tri Delta, and that is the most irritating thing about being in a sorority. Anyone from my high school would insist that I am not a sorority girl if someone were to ask them. When I started my fall semester, I was not expecting to rush because once again again, I am not the “sorority type”. Greek life at Boise State is unlike any other campus. Some may think that being in a sorority is all about social standing, parties, and being better than the people around you. In reality, it is the exact opposite. For the rest of this paper, I am going to prove to you why Tri Delta is a discourse community.

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

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.

Understand the ways that reader and writer wrote in and beyond the university. On way is writing essays about certain discourse communities like the “Persuasive” essay, where I had to write about a discourse community I was part of and how it used writing. It was a challenging essay on the part where I had to explain and give examples since my discourse community was my criminal justice study group. It was hard to describe how writing took place and make it persuasive showing why writing is important to my discourse community.Second is reading different articles that were connected to different discourse communities from each other. And writing a response to the article was great because it makes me think little and look deeper instead of

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.

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.

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

For the past week, I've combed through the pages of Reddit and delved deep into the community of one of the internet's most popular website. It is not unusual for me to waste away hours on Reddit on any given week, but this time it was different. Having read "The Concept of Discourse Community" by John Swales, a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, I spent my time on the website paying close attention to the nuances of this online community. While doing this, I took some notes, which I will now use to test whether Reddit, as an online community, meets the criteria for a discourse community. Before I get into that, I will go over what exactly is Reddit or a discourse community.

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.