Running Head: ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY WOMEN DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

Association for Computing Machinery Women Discourse Community

Kuenley Pem Dem

The University of Texas at El Paso

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Professor Laura Castruita

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Association for Computing Machinery Women

Introduction

People with great communication, social and leadership skills can be found in a discourse
A discourse
community. Discourse community is a group of people who share similar goals and go about

communicating and acting on achieving/fulfilling these goals (Swales, 1990). It was never a

regret for me choosing ACM-W which stands for Association of Computing Machinery Women

for this assignment since, this association obeys the six characteristics of discourse community

according to John Swales (1990) which include common goals, ways of communicating, reasons

to communicate, utilizing one or more genres, a specific lexis and hierarchy.

ACM-W is the worlds largest educational and scientific computing society. The mission is to

encourage members and succeed academically, socially and professionally. This association

recruits and retains as many women as possible in the computing field and ensure each woman

makes a difference in the community. Countries like Hongkong, India, Turkey, Pakistan, US and

many more give importance to this association. We have an organization of ACM-W in the

University of Texas at El Paso.

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Literature Review

John Swales (1990) explains the concept of a discourse community in his article Concept of

Discourse Community. In explaining or producing his definition of a discourse community he

emphasizes on six characteristics that make up a discourse community. Swales describes them as

follows: Firstly, a discourse community sets goals to achieve certain values, expectations, morals

and beliefs. For instance, the Police at UTEP ensure a safe and a welcoming environment for

students, staff and people living around. Secondly, within a discourse community there are

mechanisms and in a sense a language or vocabulary specific to them. A Discourse community

has a means of communication among the members through social network (face book posts,

emails), meetings, phone calls and so on.

Thirdly, in discourse community members give each other feedback or information through

these communication systems. A discourse community has a set of genre or field of knowledge

which they focus wisely, makes it the fourth characteristic. Having a specific lexis is the fifth

characteristic of a discourse community. They will have their own vocabulary/ terminology. For

example, Biologists have a different lexis from Marine Biologist and Cyclists have a specific lexis

that refers to riding techniques, bicycle parts, and equipment.

Finally, in a discourse community, all the members are ranked with different positions

according to their knowledge and experience in that community. If a community doesnt fulfil

the six characteristic, it is considered as Speech community which is centripetal and the entrance

is by birth, accident and adoption. Whereas, a discourse community is centrifugal and members

enter by recruitment, qualification or persuasion

James Porters article Intertextuality and the Discourse Community) explains about how our

writing must be original and borrowing ideas without acknowledgement is defined as

plagiarizing (1986). The principle of that article is intertextuality which is the idea that there can
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be no text that does not draw on some ideas from other texts. All texts should contain traces of

other texts. The two types of intertextuality that Porter mentioned are iterability and

presupposition. Iterability means all texts contain traces of other texts that help the readers

understand and in the sense make up the meaning. Presupposition means the assumptions thats a

text makes about its readers and the context.

Methods

The computer science faculty at UTEP organized an organization for ACM-W mainly for the

women students. So, in order to analyze and fully understand whether ACM-W is a discourse

community, I attended a meeting on the 31st if January at the chemistry and computer science

building in UTEP. The coordinator, Maria C. Barraza gave a wonderful lecture where everyone

was fascinated and persuaded. She mainly talked about the gender issues around the world and

how the small contribution of improving women in computer science will help make a difference

in the world. She quoted the main reason to have this organization is to engage women students

in exciting computing activities and to give opportunities for leadership growth along your

collegiate journey. The meeting was so informative that I got to observe carefully about this

organization and thus, decided that it will definitely be the best one that Ill write on. I even

talked with the mentoring committee member Luis C. Gutrerrez about the response from students

after they take the mentoring class and it was great to hear such good feedbacks from the

students.
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Discussion

ACM-W is a nation-wide organization where they recruit and retain as many women as

possible in the computing field. In UTEP, this organization engage women students in

computing activities and connect students with women leaders. According to John Swales, there

are six characteristics that make up a discourse community where Ill be relating it with the

community I chose.

A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales,1990).

The goal of ACM-W is to recruit and retain as many women students as possible and help them

succeed academically, socially and professionally. This association encourage students to

promote the field of computing to young girls who can make a difference in the community now

or n future. They support women in computer science with a special focus on retention of the

female students.

A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members

(Swales,1990). The members in ACM-W communicate mostly with each other during mentor

programs where experienced students assist and help other students in developing skills. Other

ways to communicate are by conducting meeting, phone calls, social media especially face book

posts and their official website. All updates and announcements will be given on the face book

page and our official website (Marisa Steans, Coordinator, 2017)

A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information

and feedback The mentoring program involves the exchange of knowledge and information is

discussed through the official website and face book posts. The school email ID of every

member will be known by all the members where anyone can contact each other if they have any
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queries. Theres a link given on the official website where you can give feedbacks about how

our mentoring classes were helpful (Luis, mentoring committee member, 2017).

A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the

communicative furtherance of its aims ACM-W employ more traditional genres in the

communication of their aims like emails, official website and face book posts. Apart from that

the mentoring program conducted six days a week. Where the experienced students assist and

help other students in developing skills and for those who need educational advice and career

guidance. Mentoring program is the most important for the members of ACM-W because their

aim is to learn in the field of computing science and in that program, everything will be taught

and get hands on to it.

In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has required some specific lexis Lexis

are words or terminologies that are often unique to that particular community which is required

for the members to communicate. ACM-W organization consists of 60 members in UTEP. They

have specific lexis where during their mentoring program, the members learn all the short-cut

keys which make them easier to work on computers. So, while the expertise says Control + key

C, the students know that it is to copy. They even teach the easiest ways to make a video or

edit a picture so that anyone could make so quick and share on their website and let other

members see. Thats how can communicate and let the coordinators know what they have learnt.

A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant

content and discourse expertise There are two coordinators of ACM-W namely Maria and

Marisa. They conduct all the meetings, make schedules for the mentoring program and ensure

each members are developing their skills. The advisor Martine Ceberio will be available

whenever a member needs educational advice and career guidance. Mentoring Committee
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member, Luis will be looking around during mentoring program and assists students if they are

confused or lost in between the classes. The women students who join the organization are

counted as a member. There are seniors, juniors. Sophomore and freshmen students in this

semester and the ratio of students experienced to the newly joined students shall be equal for the

organization to move on.

I can finally declare that Association for Computing Machinery for women is a discourse

community since this association meets all the six criteria of John Swales.
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Reference

Porter, J. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs,

Writing about writing (p. 400). Boston, New York: Bedford St. Martins.

Swales J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs, Writing

about writing (p. 215-229). Boston, New York: Bedford St. Martins.