We all are a part of discourse communities. Work is an example of a discourse community. School can be an example of a discourse community. Discourse community is basically “a group of people that is united by the way the members communicate and the things they communicate about.” So our class could be a specific example of a discourse community. Within our class we use specific language to complete class assignments and also communicate while working in our small groups.
A discourse community involves shared goals and use of specific language. I am a Behavior Technician/ Speech Therapist so basically me and a team of other therapists work together to help patients diagnosed with Autism develop more social skills. Within our work discourse we use specific terminology, specific documents to take notes about clients progression and communicate with each other about our clients. According to Swales, discourse community also involves things like lexis, genre, and rhetorical situations just to name a few. Swales also says there are six defining characteristics of discourse community. If your discourse community does not have all six of these, chances are it’s not a discourse community.
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 some specific lexis. And 6: A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
Although, John Swales uses words only people in his discourse community can understand, throughout his “The Concept of Discourse Community”, he explained discourse community very well. Proving that he knew exactly what he was talking about. Which I love.
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