DISCOURSE COMMUNITY MAP

Discourse Community Map

Jenae Maiten

University of Texas at El Paso

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY MAP

Jenae
Maiten

Black Student
UTEP Day-care Union
Center
Purpose: To Purpose: Unite a
Educate students Purpose: Watch race
after children
Value: learn Value: Get together
Value: educate
Genre: report essay
power point Genre: Genre: flyers
Construction paper
Audience Members: Audience Audience Members:
students Members: Parents Black students
Specialized kids Specialized
Vocabulary: APA, Specialized Vocabulary: united
MLA format Vocabulary: bib Membership
Membership Membership requirements: Be African
requirements: requirements: Have American
Graduated high school a child
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This paper is about the different community I am involved in; UTEP, Day-care center,

and Black Student Union. The mind map shows the three communities and the six

elements: purpose, value, genre, specialized vocabulary, audience member, and

membership requirements. Then I described each community and a compared them to

find their similarities and differences.

The first community Im involved in is UTEP. This is a discourse community because by

the idea of Swale, Jamie said, (2013) "A discourse community has a broadly agreed set

of common public goals" (slide 3). The purpose of UTEP is to educate students and get

them one step further to their goal of their dream career. Valuing learning and education

due to the fact that it's a learning environment. The types of genres used in this

community are reports, essays, and power point. The main audience members are

student or young adults ready to start their lives. There are many things that you can

only hear on a college campus for instance APA or MLA writing format. The greatest

thing about this community is that there one main requirement needed to get in, you

must have a high school diploma or GED.

The next community is a day-care center. This is a group of people that just want the

best for children by provide services of watching after a family's child for a certain

amount of time. Their purpose is to watch after children yet teach the child new abilities

and skills. People that work at day-cares are considered teachers so with that they

value educating. Determined by Swales (1990) Swales demonstrates that discourse

communities all use genres. (pg.467) Genres they use are construction paper and

multipurpose paper. Using these items for arts and crafts and the print important

documents on. The audience members are parents and their children. Their special
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY MAP

vocabulary are words like bib, crafts, and headcount. Membership requirement is to

have a child. Without a child you cant put a child in a day-care.

My last community is the Black Student Union, which is an organization here at UTEP.

An organization that comes together as one race to engage in conversation and

activities. Their main purpose is to unite the African American students on campus by

having meeting and events for everyone to gather at. They value this get together

because all they want is for the race to be as one especially since we are overpowered

by the Hispanic culture. Using flyers as a way of genre to get their point across and

make themselves more know. The audience members are more targeted towards

African American students which means that the membership requirement is to be

African American. Kyle says, (2012)Discourse communities have their own vocabulary

(pg.1) so specialized vocabulary for the Black Student Union is united.

Should discourse communities be determined by shared objects of study, by common

research methodology, by opportunity and frequency of communication, or by genre and

stylistic conventions?- Swales. These three communities are quite different yet the

same. Between UTEP and the day-care center, theyre both learning communities.

Places to learn something, from learning to walk to learning how to find the pulse on a

person. With the Black Student Union you can get together with another member and

work together on something that you may have in common since both are students at

the same university and could probably relate when it comes to assignments. These are

different because one community revolves around race and the other two revolve

around education. Yet education at two completely different stages in life. One is during

the beginning stages of life and the other is at the end and beginning of a new chapter.
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References

Malloy, J. (2013, October 14). John Swales "The Concept of a Discourse Community".

Retrieved September 28, 2017, from https://prezi.com/bch_nql3fyvi/john-swales-the-

concept-of-a-discourse-community/

Loftus, K. (1970, January 01). Kyles Blogs. Retrieved September 19, 2017, from

http://kylelof1510.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-concept-of-discourse-communities-by.html

JS
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY MAP