Looking at discourse communities, they’re a lot of things that go in to understand it. After reading John Swales “Concept of Discourse Community”, I have gained a better understanding based on what it is. It’s given me a new opinion on what exactly what it is. The discussion we had in class too has also helped me realize what a discourse community is.
After looking over the idea of what exactly makes a discourse community, I was wondering if I’ve ever experienced that. At first I didn’t understand. But , looking back at the six characteristics, I can say that my time in the NHS (The National Honor Society) in high school is a good example of a discourse community. When I had originally joined, we were given the task of planning out events for the school. Not only did we have to plan events, we had to figure out what we wanted to do for the year book and graduation. We had to make the call for the theme, and how to prepare for it.
The members of the NHS were constantly communicating through email, group chat, or virtual meetings. We planned the meetings in advanced and if someone were to be missing from it, we had emailed or messaged them to remind them of it or what the idea was going to be if they couldn’t be there. Any kind of idea that was thrown into the discussion too was given plenty of feedback. For example, if we were planning to host an event for Halloween, we would ask questions about who would be participating or how certain attractions were to get done. Other than this, we would set limits of what could and couldn’t be done.
While working with other people, we’ve made sure to check up on everyone. No one is left out in any email or meeting, and if they were to be missing, we made sure that the information was relayed to them. It’s thanks to the guidance to those who have been in the society longer to help. We had teachers too that lead us on what to do too. Without that guidance, I believed that the NHS would’ve been completely loss.
To me I think that the NHS fit the criteria for a discourse community. There are so many ways that it fit into it that I couldn’t help but think about it when discussing it and reading the article.
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