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Janae Reyes
Mrs. Litle
ENG121
16 October 2017
Its never crossed our minds that when people in the same group or community
communicate and achieve goals the same way for a reason. Swales would call this a discourse
community and speech community. That is something I would have to agree on is that a
discourse community is involved in society with anything we do or are in. In the article Swales
says that a discourse community is, To signify a cluster of ideas: that language use in group is a
form of social behavior, that discourse is a mean of maintaining and extending the groups
knowledge and initiating new members into the group, and that discourse is epistemic or
constitutive of the groups knowledge. (Swales pg. 217). Meaning that a group or cluster of
people are trying to achieve the same goal and have new and old members to accomplish it.
Another concept Swales uses in this article is a speech community. Which is when a person
doesnt understand a way of communication that can or cant communicate to achieve the same
goals as a group its because they arent a part of their community. This concept is known as a
speech community, Swales defines this in the article A community sharing knowledge of rules
for the conduct and interpretation of a speech. (Swales pg. 219). Included in the article Swales
talks about the conceptualization of discourse community and examples of discourse community.
In the article there are six conceptualizations then first on is common goals, second ways
to communicate with each other, ways to get feedback, the way communicate the genres, specific
lexis, ratio of members to old and new. He also gives an example of the discourse community
hes in and how it works. He is part of a community that collects Hong Kong stamps and
communicates through newsletters and their community is all the world. He refers to this as an
hobby group and as an umbrella organization. (Swales pg. 222). This is something that
people do for fun not like work but as a hobby. Swales mentions that there are six but some of
them are repetitive of each other like the conceptualizations two, four, and five. They are all the
same ways of communication just in different ways with each other, outside people and their
communicate and achieve goals together. I agree with the article that discourse community and
speech community are big part in society and a lot of us are involved in one. Even if some people
dont know it everyone is at least in one discourse community. For example, Im on the womens
soccer team and we are discourse community because we are all trying to make it to pass
regionals and go on to bigger and better things. In terms of the fabric of society, speech
communities are centripetal (they tend to absorb people into that general fabric), whereas
discourse communities are centrifugal (they tend to separate people into occupational or
specialty- interest groups). (Swales pg. 220). Which we use both discourse and speech
community. We use speech community because we say things that other people wont
understand, words like drop or PK they would assume that it would be the meaning the
dictionary gives it but really it has multiple meanings. Like if you have the ball that means to
drop the ball behind you but if we are defending then it means to sprint back and get behind the
ball. PK means a penalty kick and thats mean there was a foul in a box and one person is
kicking it into the against the goalie. Its a very complicated term to understand.
Other discourse community are like your very close group of friends and how
your guys communicate together and they meet all six characteristics of a discourse community.
Common goals are to help each other grow up and learn how to grow up. The way a person talks
to their family verse friends is a speech community, also they let each other know what they do
wrong and help them fix it like feedback. The way things are presented and spoke is
communicating genres and the things are communicate through letters or specific words that
would be only understood with people in the group. And finally, the ratio of old to new members
is equal because most groups have the two friends that started it then they bring in other
members. So that why I agree that discourse community is a big part of society and we use it all
the time to get things done. We use it in anything considered a hobby or group that is trying to
achieve a goal.
Works Cited
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic