Michel Foucault's Conception Of Discourse

Gee’s entire assessment of discourses is the highlight of the essay. According to him, discourses cannot be imbibed or simply learnt in traditional classrooms, they cannot be taught to a person but rather they are what one learns through his experiences and social interactions. Since his experiences may encompass a great variety of social interactions and discussions with people from different spheres, these discourses are not very singular and may have conflicts among themselves. It is eventually the amalgamation of discourses that a person experiences that ultimately shape

Swales’ second defining characteristic of a discourse group stresses the significance of communication; simply put, “A

Everyone has discourses, but not everyone knows what a discourse is. In the article, Gee explains what discourses are, and how they are obtained. So what are they? Discourses are basically things that you are knowledgeable in that make you, you. For example, some of my discourses include being a Lacrosse player, being an American man, and being an Engineering student. While some are easily obtainable, some discourses are simply impossible to obtain, but they are forever changing as you discover new things about yourself.

Gee also writes that discourses can influence each other. In well of communities secondary discourses can influence primary discourses, but in poor and uneducated communiites primary discourses can influence secondary discourses. Like the lady who went to the job interview who used a different dialect that was not suitable for an interview.

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

Over the past class periods in ENGL 1301, we went over the rhetorical skills used around us in our daily lives. By persuading the audience using Ethos, Pathos and Logos, writers can maneuver their audience in any way that they wish. More specifically, in order to be part of a community, that person must share the views to be considered a member. All throughout my four years of high school, I believe I was part of a discourse community. That discourse community was the basketball team. This paper will allow me to confirm that notion with my teacher as well as my fellow students with the credibility, the community knowledge, and the same values that the community and I shared. A discourse community in the words of Linguist John Swales, are "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." Our goal as a basketball team was to make it to the playoffs and win the state championship. Although people saw that goal as a little farfetched, we as group of teammates believed that that was

William Jennings Bryan once says, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.” Our future is depended on what we choose to be and how to get to it. We must stand up and get involve or communicate with the field before giving an ultimate decision. In this assignment, I will investigate the discourse community that I hope to join professionally and understand the broad view of the types of work along with its opportunities.

“A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members”.(Wardle & Downs, 2014, p: 221)

The concept of discourse is the key to understanding a social constructionist approach to childhood. A discourse is an independent set of interrelated ideas held by a particular ideology or worldview. The social constructionist approach tries to describe the different ways in which knowledge of children and childhoods are constructed.

Growing up I didn’t socialize with people so it was hard for me to join a discourse community. But we I was around the age of fifteen I joined the basketball team, and ever since then it became my discourse community. In this paper, I’m going to explain how the team was a discourse community to me. And what roles we did to become a discourse community. Many people say basketball is all about winning games. But its more than that, I’ve learned many concepts in the game of basketball I’m going demonstrate what made my basketball team a discourse community.

The most tearful and saddest day is the September 11, 2011. If I was in that day during that event, kids like myself going to school and only put themselves glued to a television screen or all the news of the radio to hear horror story as two air planes rammed themselves into the World Trade Center. For those who were students, it was a vision that they cannot comprehend as people were screaming and begging for help on the ground while those who was in those building at that time of the attack jumped off to get a quick death. And for children at those moments, when they went home, they could not see their parents, their brothers and sisters. After few days passed by, they realize that their family was passed away. They lost their family within few moments and they became orphans; they did not understand how this event would end up being a wakeup call for everyone in the world; and this day will mark the moment of events in United Stated history where regulations on security in airports. Not only airports, many other public locations will change the way of thinking with this society nowadays. And few years later passed by, those children who have become adults now think the world in a different scope compared to what it was years ago, and along with those changes created a new generation that brings out the different outlooks and opinions on how the world should react when facing

This newfound paranoia within the US is best epitomised by the fact that exactly a week after “September the 11th my class was sent home from school because a child said “im going to kill you” as the school ‘ in light of recent events took the accusation very seriously’. Yet what was the most significant aspect of the 9-11 attacks for American foreign policy can be seen to be the birth of the National security state. the introduction of the “patriot act” which focus was “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001” (USA PATRIOT ACT) ACT OF 2001) and the creation of Homeland security has arguably added a sinister edge to US foreign policy. The US now can be described as an international “Police state” ( bamford 2009). This creation of Homeland security and the NSA can be seen directly resultant of reports that as Bamford points to information that he believes that the NSA knew prior to the attack and points out the lack of cooperation between the NSA and the FBI that, perhaps, led to the failure of our government to stop the plot” ( Christiansen

The terror attacks on September 11, 2001, introduced a new form of enemy and in response, the government invoked the residual ideology of militarism to combat this enemy instead of turning to an emergent ideology, or a new, creative way of facing this new enemy. The Bush administration declared the war on terrorism and in solidarity with those affected by the terror attacks, the public supported the government’s actions (Foner). However, the enemy of this war was loosely defined as those who “hate freedom” and the board definition included all “terrorist groups around the world” that poses a threat to the Western world and the freedom it represents (Foner). The first act of war under the war on terrorism was when the Taliban, the terrorist group responsible for the tragedy on September 11, refused to give up its leader Osama bin Laden and the United States responded with air strikes (Foner). To the public, this military action against Afghanistan and the Taliban seemed justified because the Taliban was the group responsible for the terror attacks. However, with the enemy so ambiguously defined and without a clear agenda, the government was able to take free rein of the direction of the war and possible self-interest came into play. The government identified the “axis of evil” as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and claimed that these three countries harbored weapons of mass destruction, or nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and planned to use these weapons on the United States; this claim was not supported by evidence (Foner). As the United States went to war with Iraq under this unjustified accusation, dissent rose around the world and many suspected that the true intention was to fight for control over the world’s second-largest oil reserves in Iraq (Foner). These antiwar protests around the world set the context for Pearl Jam’s 2004 cover of “Masters of War” on David

Discourses are the “social and cultural practices through which individuals and groups use language to establish their identities…they provide ways of being, thinking, acting and using language so that people can identify themselves in social and cultural networks” Discourses affect peoples views on all things, for example, two different

The resulting pragma-functional approach to Critical Discourse Studies analyses discourse as a social practice that contains argumentation, since it aims to have a positive or negative impact on its recipients’ views and behaviour. Due to its perlocutionary character, argumentation is interpreted psychologically