The Concept Of 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.

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.

Last, no one else can provide national level security. A monopoly on the expert work that is to be performed is true of all professions. Caslen states that the American people “expect us to stand in the gap between the evil that is out there and our Nation’s values and our citizens themselves…”. This overwhelming charge is true to the profession of arms and can only be expected of experts in our given field.

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).

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” written by Randall Jarrell is a poem that introduces three major ideas in only five lines. These ideas are birth, death, and war. Jarrell is able to accomplish a lot in this short poem by using diction and syntax such as metaphor and figurative language.

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.

Discourse communities are within the lives of everyone you meet and sometimes in the things that are read. Syllabi are read by multiple students throughout the years. Even these can provide a sense of a discourse community. More specifically, in a syllabus for an English 20 class, contains multiple parts to discourse communities. For this syllabus the discourse community is the class of English 20.

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought after power and control. It is human instinct to desire to be the undisputed champion, but when does it become a problem? Warfare has been practiced throughout civilization as a way to justify power. Though the orders come directly from one man, thousands of men and women pay the ultimate sacrifice. In Randall Jerrell’s “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, Jarrell is commenting on the brutality of warfare. Not only does Jarrell address the tragedies of war, he also blames politics, war leaders, and the soldier’s acknowledgement of his duties. (Hill 6) With only five lines of text, his poems allows the reader to understand what a soldier can go through. With the use of Jerrell’s poem, The Vietnam War, and Brian Turner’s “Ameriki Jundee”, the truth of combat will be revealed.

The cold bow in my hands a desperate and depressing reminder of the decision standing in front of me. I shouldn’t shoot. But the man has supplies. It’s been days since we ran out of canned food, using up the last of our water stores just this morning, making the decision to shoot seem tempting.

Recently in class we’ve broached the topic of discourse communities, in order to better understand how concepts of rhetoric appear and are used in our daily lives. As such, I’ll be writing about a community of my own as a form of analysis if you will, to better understand these concepts of communication. While my intent is to try and showcase examples of ethos pathos and logos, who knows what you may take away from it. Perhaps you find a new way of interacting with your own friends, or perhaps you’ll just find a way of looking at your own interactions from reading about my own.

1. Weapons serve as the tools that the soldiers must use > to do their job: killing beasts or men without getting > killed. As a artist may be fond of his paintbrush, the > soldiers greatly cherish their weapons. Often a weapon is > valued for its pedigree. The author often interrupts action > to delve into a weapon’s previous owners and its history.

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.

I believe this statement is actally accurate with it’s figurative meaning. Guns are merely objects under the control of their masters, who dare to lay their conquests under the barrel, literally. Futhermore, in today’s world we see our emotions playing a stronger role and being recongined in more defining ways, especially through mental disorders. People are the ones to make the hard decisions, to wage the war between the conscience and their emotions when it comes to pulling the trigger. In our society we see teenagers committing suicide. And often, they are pressured in to sitations where their emotions cannot take it anymore. In that case, the gun is not at fault.It is the persons own doing with the emotions overtaking their mind and affec6ting

What does this teach us? Very simply, it teaches us that even in a place where you would think your weapon is the most important thing you