In “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales gives his definition, explanation, and argument of what a discourse community is, what criteria the community must meet in order to be considered one, and the difference between discourse and speech communities. According to Swales, there are six requirements to be a discourse community; having common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication, using said mechanisms to provide feedback, possessing one or more genres, acquiring specific lexis, and having members with relevant expertise. Discourse communities can also be speech communities, given the proper requirement of location, distance and social similarities. If a certain community possesses all six criteria to be a discourse community, but its members are distant geographically or otherwise, they are not considered a speech community.
Discourse communities are typically more private organizations that train new members and have certain qualities and rules that each member must know. I would like to provide a fictional example of a discourse community, and how it passes all six requirements. The Volunteer Fire Department, or VFD in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events has a common goal of putting out figurative and literal fires across the land. Members use specific speeches and writing to intercommunicate, and primarily to provide feedback regarding any secret mysteries they may be solving. VFD’s poetic genre is exclusive to them, since they use it for their shared expertise and problem-solving. VFD also has lexical terminology that they use for codes, symbols, locations, and to hide themselves. Finally, no matter what occupation VFD members may be, they all share the same level of literate knowledge that help them understand each other and collaborate together in order to reach their shared goal – at least the noble side of the organization.
A Fictional Discourse Community
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