The article “The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales explains the meaning and concept of the discourse community, and it also provides us with the six terms that define its characteristics. For example, the first one says, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.”
When you’re a part of a discourse community, everyone involved is sharing a common goal/interest, and you’re communicating about those shared goals. Discourse communities also share values, assumptions and purposes.
“Reading and Writing Without Authority” by Ann M. Penrose and Cheryl Geisler has two characters named Janet and Roger. Janet seems unable to compete with Roger, who seems to be the expert in the study. Here we learn that when Janet was given the information, she was able to understand it and learn from it. Even though she understood the material, it was a challenge for her to insert herself into the “authority.”
On the other hand, Roger had more exposure to the material than Janet. But both Authors in the article, Geisler and Penrose, inform us, the readers, that the main issue was the engagements between the author and the material but also their knowledge and how they understand it.
I believe the first article by Swales speaks about the different discourse communities among us. Discourse communities weren’t based on individual knowledge. Whereas in the second article, the example with Janet and Roger was shown to be how an individual can gain an understatement from a material and insert themselves into authority.
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