Discourse Communities
Discourse communities are as exactly as they sound– of course, the many of us in the class, by now, I suppose, are relatively common with the term. However, this is somewhat more intricate to the naked eye, if you will. I should note that I do not wish to prolong the length of this blog by redefining Discourse(s), at least to Gee’s accord, but instead, we shall focus on what constitutes a discourse community. (If you are new to the topic, check out my previous blog.) In John Swales’s “The Concept of Discourse Community,” Swales emphasizes what it means for a group of individuals to be a discourse community, that is, in detail, describing the many criteria that they have to meet. I will briefly identify those requirements and elaborate on the specifics later in this post. Also, Swales explains his anecdote of joining a Discourse community, as well as noting how his community met each requirement.
Swales Anecdote and Analyzing How to Identify a Discourse Community
In the text, Swales describes his journey of joining his Discourse community, the Hong Kong Study Circle (HKSC). Swales does a great job identifying each part of his story and how it connects to the six criteria needed for a group to be considered a community. To help elaborate and keep this concise on these criteria, I will keep them in bullet points and connect them to the story:
(1) A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. This is the same set goal that every individual in the specific community wishes to achieve. You cannot be a discourse community if the teams’ goals are not aligned. For Swales, when joining the HKSC, he was cognizant that his goals had to align with those of the experts. As stated, “The primary aims of the HKSC are to foster interest in and knowledge of Hong Kong stamps, including various printings and their postal uses.” This was their common goal.
(2)A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. Intercommunication within a Discourse is imperative. I believe this can also connect with the first point. Individuals in the group can communicate with one another, discussing their objective(s) or issues they feel are arising. This can be through speech or writing. Of course, this does not mean that only speech or writing is appropriate to this form of intercommunication, as it can be any way that is effective to the community, i.e., “newsletter” or “telecommunication.” In this story, Swales and his peers’ form of intercommunciation was a bi-weekly journal, newsletter, and scheduled meetings.
(3) A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. Again, relatively similar to points one and two, this is where members of the Discourse community can provide inputs on situations to experts of the Discourse, or vice versa. In this case, Swales does not directly state anything regarding feedback. We can accurately presume through their meetings and form of intercommunication that they are allowing the need for feedback constantly to improve the group. Again, it can be from the members or head experts.
(4)A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. “Genre,” as we established in our classroom lecture, is not related to the categorical definition but much more than that. Genre is the standardized communication used by the group. This does not and will not change, as it is entirely specific for meeting a need and follows structure. From our lecture, this can be a report card or sports stat sheet (in that respective Discourse, of course). For the HKSC, their community developed specific conventions for describing items of Hong Kong postal history, both in collections and auction catalogues.
(5) A discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. This is the specific vocabulary used in a certain Discourse; it can also be used to exclude non-discourse members in their communities. Swales describes a funny story of how he failed to join the Discourse when he wrote a journal for review by the board. When writing this journal, Swales wanted to incorporate his linguistic background in the journal, so he used his linguistic lexis, which did not impress the experts of the HKSC. They thought he was being snotty. They were looking for a chemical analyst on the topic, so they would prefer a lexis of a scientist, specifically a chemist. It is beneficial to understand how the people in a Discourse you wish to join communicate– You would not join an English book club and talk to your peers about mathematical terms or equations.
(6) a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. A Discourse community should have many excerpts– if one were to leave, the Discourse community would still function because of the expertise of another member. In Swales’s text, we are aware that members of the HKSC demonstrate a certain level of expertise or competence in their field of interest.
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