For the most part, I think the points that John Swales states in his article are true. I won’t lie though it took a bit of time for me to fully comprehend his claims but nonetheless, I agree with the idea that there should be an accurate meaning to what the word ‘Discourse’ is in which everyone can agree to. Adding on to this, I believe in this case there should be no multiple meanings in the word ‘Discourse’ (capital d). When I say this, I don’t mean there shouldn’t be different variations of ‘Discourse’ but rather different interpretations of the word. Like I feel it would just be better if all the specialized linguists in the world would find some common ground on this topic, this way we can all agree on a permanent definition.
There’s another topic that needs to be discussed which would be understanding the characteristics of a Discourse community. Swales explains this by setting six different ways of how to identify a Discourse community. These identifiers would be a broadly agreed set of common goals, how members within that community communicate one another, using that communication to provide information/feedback, possess one or more genre to assess a situation (which by the way has a polar opposite meaning when it’s in the bubble of linguistics as opposed to how it’s generally used), if the community has a specific lexis, and if there are experts who can guide other individuals in the community. Essentially, these identifiers work as some sort of checklists for those who want to observe a certain community or a popular hobby. It can be something serious like a political community or something fun such as a community of action figure collectors, as long as they meet every criterion listed above.
I encourage everyone to read this person’s blog post as they define the meaning of discourse communities much simpler, and I feel our ideas are connected: https://eng2020.chrisfriend.us/blog/discourse-communities/concept-of/rivasmak/the-idea-of-a-discourse-community/
Leave a Reply