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).
After identifying and describing the six points of criteria for qualification, Swales writes that even if just one attribute is missing, it may still be enough to prevent the formation of a discourse community (469). Keeping this in mind, it is important to identify all six points when trying to prove the existence of a discourse community. Due to the presence of all six attributes, I am a part of a discourse community myself. During the summer months, I work as a lifeguard at Avalon Summer Sports Club, a local
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The use of words and phrases that outsiders may be confused by expedites conversation and everyday tasks, and is “driven by the requirements for efficient communication between experts” (Swales 473). The lexis of guards contains typical lifeguard phrases and terms for performing rescues and maintaining a safe environment. There are also terms and phrases for objects around the pool and tasks that must be completed. For example, there is a pool cleaner that is placed in the water at closing and left there to vacuum the bottom of the pool overnight. The vacuum is a called a dolphin pool cleaner and guards are often told to “clean the dolphin,” which often results in funny looks from those who overhear the
I am a part of many different discourse communities. I am a college student, a millennial, a nanny, a family member, a friend, and a full time employee. In each aspect of my life, I participate in discourse communities with those around me; with goals, genre, and lexis. Of my discourse community memberships, the one which fit Swales’ definition most accurately would be in my place of work (HisWay).
A discourse community is defined as groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals. John Swales is a professor in linguistics and received his Ph. D. from Cambridge University. John Swales’s Six Criteria is a perfect setup for a discourse community, and some of the steps are setting a common goal, mechanisms of intercommunication; provide information and feedback, genres, lexis, and threshold level of members. James Lee is a professor who taught linguistics at Stanford and Northwestern University. Gee’s idea of a discourse community is a secondary dominant or non-dominant which applies to their life outside of work. I thought police officers would make a great example of a discourse community because of the
Swales’ second defining characteristic of a discourse group stresses the significance of communication; simply put, “A
John Swales lists six characteristics as necessary for a group of individuals to be defined as a discourse community, thus by his definition the Church I analyzed would be considered a discourse community since if fulfills his criteria. An important component of the community is the bulletin the Church hands every week which contains many of the characteristics Swales describes. Furthermore, the community is relatively new thus they are still trying to find it’s identity meaning it’s easier for new members to transition and become a part of this community allowing intertextuality to be found throughout the Church. Therefore, by analyzing the bulletin and other aspects of this community one can determine that the Church is a discourse community
The heuristic that is used for this research guide to identify a discourse communities is the six characteristics that John Swales identifies in “The
The discourse communities that the audience is in would be the academic and professional. The intended audience is a little broader than the discourse communities,
A discourse community a circle of people who share similar goals , interest, and ways of intercommunication among one another. According to John Swales there are six factors that make up up a discourse community. Common goals, methods of intercommunication, feedback and correction, roles , jargon,novice,and expertise are required to have a successful discourse community. I choose to discuss a discourse community I was apart of two years ago at Applebees .Being apart of a community that prides themselves on customer satisfaction and great fresh affordable food.
A discourse community is a group of people who share common interest, values and aim to reach the same goals. For example, this English 1301 course where we’ve been assigned to write a paper with the same goal and ideas in mind. A class where we all discuss our views and passions and relate them to English and composition. I am excited to share with you what I have learned so far and the skills that I have acquired in this stimulating English course that has managed to spark my interest in writing after many years of cranking out meaningless papers with no personality or style. In this paper, I explain to you, my classmates, the process I went through in joining my discourse community, showing you just how intense and difficult it is to meet
James T Porter describes a discourse community as a group who “Shares assumptions and what objects are appropriate for examination and discussion”, in other words; a group of people who are in some way or form connected. So, take engineers for example where every member pays the same price for entry, an engineering degree. This would mean that from day one every member is indoctrinated with the same way of thinking and share a common knowledge at the core of their education. The shared goals of the community are to design, develop and create new feats of engineering in their respective fields. In order for engineers to accomplish their goals, they need to work together and communicate. But, how exactly does an engineer communicate if they are
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
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.
A discourse community is a social collective that shares ideas, goals, values, and themes. Discourse communities existed in all facets of life, and are important to each individual’s social life. We all belong to varies discourse communities. The people you hang out with, the social networks you belong to, and even your favorite sports teams are discourse communities. Today we will look at a specific one; we will look at the discourse community of Mixed Martial Arts.
Communities may be a home away from home for some members with their own terminology and varying degrees of formality. These groups are usually joined by people for different reasons, some ranging from socializing to the acquisition of a single dream the group shares. Some groups even have members who are either expert in their communities focus or are members who are eager and ready to learn. For some of these communities, this form of communication and other factors is what defines them as a discourse community. However, there are communities that share some trait of discourse communities yet they themselves are not. Due to these strict rules about what can and cannot be a discourse community can be hard to discern. Like, for instance, the
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.
As part of daily life, we communicate and connect ourselves with certain communities. School, jobs, families, sports, extracurricular activities, and many other communities are just a few we come into contact with. Although these may seem to appear the same, there are specific types of communities such as a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field (Webcourses, N.d, Website) that has a share a common set of goals and attempt to achieve these goals (Swales, 1990). According to researcher and educator, John Swales, there are six characteristics that define whether or not a community is considered a discourse community. Following the criteria Swales states is necessary to be a discourse community, I did an in depth research on the American Sign Language community. Through my study, I was able to meet all six characteristics.