What is a discourse community? To be completely honest, I have never actually heard of a discourse community before I read this article, so this is quite new to me. According to John Swales, a respected written communication analyst, a discourse community is described as a group of people that have the same goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals. In addition, “A discourse operates within conventions defined by communities, be they academic disciplines or social groups” (Swales, 119).
This is not be confused with a speech community, “a community sharing knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech” (Swales 121). In determining whether or not a group is a discourse community, there are several certain rules, rather a list of criteria, in which the certain community must comply with in order to be established as a discourse community. After reading what a discourse community actually is, I realized that I am apart of many discourse communities, whether it is involving friends, family, school, or my religion.Discourse communities are not just given to random groups. The community must acquire six different characteristics to be considered a discourse community.
Swales describe the six characteristics in his article and they are as follows: 1. “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. ” 2. “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. ” 3.
“A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. ” 4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. ” 5. “In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired a specific lexis. ” 6.
“A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (471-473). These characteristics are not unrealistic; they are things that a community could easily follow. I would not join a discourse community if it did not have characteristics like this because it would be one messed up cluster.My idea of a discourse community has rules, has leaders, has certain criteria for new members, and has annual meetings to discuss important matters. I want my discourse community to have a purpose, not just people who get together and talk about random ideas. I am the kind of person who likes to be a leader, so I would definitely try to pursue a leadership position to help make the community better.
I would not be one of those members who just followed everyone else; I would make sure I stood out so people could picture me as someone to come to for help at any time.
