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Example Of Discourse Community

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INTRODUCTION: Finding people who share common interests and enjoy the same activities as yourself can often be difficult to find, but is necessary to have. Especially during college, a time where you are receiving your independence, but unsure of what that truly means, feeling lonely is valid and expected. However, college can offer many resources to aid you in these emotions, by having plenty of discourse communities you can join, or even offering you the opportunity to create your own. As quoted by Herzberg in The Concept of Discourse Community, “the idea of a “discourse community” is not well defined yet” (469). Despite the vague concept John Swales offers, he further goes on to elaborate on what six characteristics discourse communities can be identified through. A discourse community which one of my roommates participates in is the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA). The VSA is a cultural club for students at University of California, Davis, who identify as Vietnamese, and want to come together with others a part of the same background. The VSA is a perfect model of a discourse community, as it passes the checkpoints Swales provides to identify one.

METHODS: To fully understand how the Vietnamese Student Association operates and functions as a discourse community, I interviewed a member of the club, Alyssa. Alyssa is a first-year biology major who just joined VSA a mere month and a half ago. Despite her short time participating in the club, she was still very

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