What is a discourse community?

A discourse community is a group that have goals or

purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals, as linguist John Swales defines it.
Today, there are many people that don't clearly understand what is and/or what communities are
considered a discourse community. I've chosen two examples of a discourse community in order
to provide description and information of the characteristics that make these two a discourse
community. My two communities are a dance performing group and an advanced choir group:
Amici Chorea and A' Choir. What I will be researching in these groups are the goals and
characteristics of these discourse communities along with examples and descriptions of why are
they considered discourse communities. In both groups, Amici Chorea and A' Choir, I will be
observing the point of view from the instructor to dancers/singers. By doing this, it provides you
with the idea of the same point of view from the two different communities.
Before going into the explanation of my discourse communities, I would like to introduce
two of the sources that provided me with the interested and knowledge of the concept of
discourse community; Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis:
English in Academic and Research Settings and Mirabelli, Tony. "Learning to Serve: The
Language of Food Service Workers." What They Don't Learn in School. The article that gave me
the knowledge of the concept of discourse community is "The Concept of Discourse
Community" by John Swales. In this article, Swales explains the idea of discourse community
and explains the difference of speech community and a discourse community. Swales main
message in this article is to define discourse community since there has been misconceptions of
the real definition. He does this by demonstrating six characteristics of a discourse community;
the members of a discourse community have a common goal, they have different ways of
communicating, a member presents feedback and information in their own way to others, the
communities incorporate several different genres, when talking about a genre, the community
own some specific lexis, and that a community has members with certain skills. In addition,
Swales uses specific definitions such as lexis, which is specialized language or specialized
vocabulary, genre, which is a specific category, rhetorical situation, which is the context and
audience, and speech community, which is a group of individuals that speak a common dialect or
language. This article definitely gives us a better understanding of what a discourse community
really is. However, the article that gave me the interest of discourse community is "Learning to
Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers" by Tony Mirabelli. In this article,

Mirabelli constructs an observation of waiters and waitresses that use language and literacy in
order to accomplish their goals in work. He conducted his observations through a private owned
restaurant. Mirabelli interviews two waiters in the restaurant; John, who has worked as a waiter
for ten years in that particular restaurant, and Harvey, who is an experienced, yet new waiter at
that restaurant. Mirabelli describes the menu as a genre and the use of language that waiters use
in order to communicate with their customers, by not only taking their orders, but interacting
with them so they could achieve their objective. He also uses specific examples that can be
identified as a lexis and a discourse community in the restaurant. At the end of this article,
Mirabelli finishes his article by explaining the low status of waiters and waitresses, yet that their
work is truly complex and contains an imaginative form of nature that is stimulating and
innovating by their use of language and literacy. I thought this article was pretty interesting in
how they described the food industry, a restaurant to be more specific, as a discourse community.
After reading this article, it interested me to do a research in two discourse communities, such as
the dance and choir communities.
My first community that I'll be talking about is the Amici Chorea performing group. I
actually did some observations on this community and interviewed the instructor from this
group. The instructor from this group, Emma Butler, graduated from UTEP in 2014 with a
Bachelors in Fine Arts. At this moment, she's working on getting her teaching certification and
soon after that, she is thinking about getting her masters in dance as well. She's been the Amici
Chorea's instructor for two years already and she got involved with this group because she "
love[s] dancing and [she] like[s] teaching the students from [Burges High School], and also
because [she] want[s] to gain teaching experience." Butler (2015).
This specific community uses dance terms like specific movement or counts or anything
related to dance to communicate with each other when they are rehearsing. Like for example,
when they say "pirouette" it means to do a turn in "pass", which means one leg bend forming a
number four shape. Another example could be to do a movement in "parallel" or "turned out."
This means, if its parallel, it means that your knees, hips, and shoulders should be aligned with
each other, facing forward, and turned out is when your knees, and hips are rotated outward and
they are still aligned with your shoulders. But what I noticed that the instructor said repeatedly
was to "keep character", work on "performance projection", and "count and sense". According to

Butler (2015) "Keeping character means maintaining the personality of the person or thing you
are trying to portrait. Performance projection means being able to get something across to the
audience and portraying energy. Count means to count the music; the beats and being together in
the movements. And sense means being aware of your body and the ones around you as an
ensemble", Butler (2015) said. When they are rehearsing the instructor always carries around a
notebook where she writes notes or comments of whatever they need to improve on or just notes
to herself about the dance or spacing or just whatever she needs to note. Dancers sometimes
have to "write" down specific reminders for upcoming performances as well, but they usually do
this on their phones. The members of this community usually uses text messages to communicate
with each other to get information on rehearsals or anything that needs to be reminded. Or
sometimes we all create a group message through Facebook to communicate as well. Ms. Butler
says that she is "respectful with everyone and [she tries] to never talk down to them, but [she is]
also friendly so they feel comfortable. [She tries] to keep the teacher report with them, because
there are times that, because students know that [she's] young, they see [her] as a peer rather than
a teacher, so [she tries] to talk to them more casual," Butler (2015). All of the components of this
discourse community work together to make them successful in achieving their goals. In this
community they all know how to treat each other, they know the "magic words" used in this
community to have successful communication with each other, they are always together, and
they have common goals, which is to share the art of dance with other people and tell a story
with their bodies.
My second community that I will be talking about is the advanced choir, A' Choir. As I
did in the dance community, I interviewed the instructor from the A' Choir community. The
instructor from this group, Laura Sambrano, graduated from UTEP in 2009 with a Bachelors in
Music Theatre and Music Education and she's been teaching since then. She's has been teaching
from elementary to high school students and right now she's working on getting her masters in
music theatre. She's being the A' Choir instructor for two years already and she is involved in this
group because "[she] loves [her] job and [she] wanted to try something new with high school
students, as well as to help them reach wherever they want to be." Sambrano (2015).
This specific community mostly uses music/choir terms, lexis, like specific music notes
or anything related to choir when they communicate. As it is mentioned in Mirabelli (2004),

multiliteracies are all the different types of communication. The notes on sheets of music
are a multiliteracy that this group must know to communicate. Like for
example, when they're singing a note that is flat, that means that they're singing half a step down
the scale. Or when they're singing sharp, that means that they're singing half a step up the scale.
Also, when the instructor asks "what key signature are we in", she means, "what are the flats
and/or sharps that we're going to be singing". But what I notice that Ms. Sam, as the members of
this group call her, said repeatedly while rehearsing was "alignment", "think about the third eye"
and "breath low". What she meant with alignment is that "when students are singing, they need
to be standing with their feet slightly apart, to where they are aligned with their hips and hands
on their sides, so that when we breath, all the air goes through their body and they'll have a better
sound when they sing. When [she] tells them to thinking about the third eye, [she] means to think
about their sound going forward instead of backwards, in other words, to think more light rather
than heavy. When [she] tell[s] them to breath low, it means that they have to use their diaphragm
in order to breath low and to have a long-lasting endurance while singing," Sambrano (2015)
said.
When they are rehearsing, the instructor always tells them to have pencil with them.
According to Sambrano (2015), "great musicians always carry around a pencil." During
rehearsals, students need to be making little notes on the side. Like for example they have to
write down cues of when and where to come in to sing, the scale key that they'll be singing in,
when and where to breath, special notes or comments on how to pronounce a vowel, consonants,
or words while singing; or just notes in general. This is a what they mostly write in this
community. However, the members of this community usually uses text messages to
communicate with each other. Ms. Sam, on the other hand, uses email as a way to communicate
all the upcoming events or rehearsals they will be having, along with recordings of the songs she
wants them to practice at home. Ms. Sam talks to them more casual, because, alike Ms. Butler,
she wants to keep the student teacher report with them, because then students will think that they
can treat and/or talk to her like one of their friends. But she is always nice and friendly and tries
to make everyone feel comfortable. In general, all of the components of this discourse
community work together to make them successful in achieving their goals.
Everyone who is in this community knows that they always have to have a pencil with them.
They all know that every time they sing they have to watch the instructor for cues and they

understand the lexis they use in this specific group. They all know how to treat each other, they
are always together, and they have common goals, which is to sing their hearts out and make
people have a great time with great voices.
In conclusion, it is clearly that in order to have a discourse community you need to have a
group of people who share goals, basic values, and assumptions and they have their own ways of
communicating about those goals. As my knowledge grew, along with my interest, about
discourse community, thanks to the articles of John Swales and Tony Mirabelli, I decided to do a
research in two different discourse communities. One is a dance performing group and the other
is the advanced choir. These two groups are kind of the same in some ways, which is what made
these two a discourse community. They both share common goals within their own community
as well as they have a specific lexis, or specific language to communicate with each other within
each group. In the dance community they use dance terms in order to communicate with each
other and in the choir community they use choir/music terms to communicate. As we can see
they both have ways of communicating but each in a way that only members of the community
would understand. Also, they both have their own genres of communicating. Overall, all
communities that are considered discourse communities have common goals and have their own
ways of communicating. Having a better understanding of the concept of discourse community
and having done all of the research in these communities made me want to join other discourse
communities, because, in my opinion, I believe that understanding the different characteristics of
different discourse communities and knowing the different ways each community communicates
to reach their goals is very interesting.