Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY CASE 1

Discourse Communities

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Mayra A. Delgado
ARE WE A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 2

Abstract

According to John Swales a discourse community consists of a group of people whom all

share common public goals. RWS Members of the discourse community transmit a set of norms

to one another. Also, share many common assumptions, use genres in order to communicate their

points in a better way. All to achieve all of the common public goals for the community. (Pg.

161) Genres and languages of members in specific discourse community vary in many different

types. People who are not a part of the discourse community do not understand. Simply because

the other people outside of the group do not comprehend their linguistic conversations among

themselves. (Pg. 160)

INTRODUCTION

As stated by author John Swales a discourse community falls under six criteria, which all

connect to a certain group describing their ways of dissemination. The community I observed

was RWS 1301, where communication is fundamental because their goal is to increase education

in all students. On the specific topic of writing rhetoric. John Swales six criteria all apply in

forming the basis of the discourse community.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to John Swales a discourse community consists of a group of people whom all

share common public goal. Swales had six criteria which Also, share many common

assumptions, use genres to communicate their points in a better way. All to achieve all of the

common public goals for the community. (Pg. 161) Genres and languages of members in specific

discourse community vary in many different types. People who are not a part of the discourse

community do not understand. Simply because the other people outside of the group do not

comprehend their linguistic conversations among themselves. (Pg. 160)

ARE WE A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 3

There are six criteria that a community is structured by as described by John Swales in

his article "The concept of a discourse community" article. These criteria all break down sharing

to mechanisms and genres, a common goal vocabulary, and experience. Mechanisms and genres

are said to be programs such as, memos, emails, documents, and websites are all the main factors

of communication among the group community. John swales explain in detail what occurs in a

community socially. My research and observational descriptions were all organized by these

orders. Experience also plays a type of balance that stabilizes a social group. "However, survival

of the community depends on a reasonable ratio between novices and experts" (Swales, 1990,

p.222)

It is a fact that not communication between groups is the same as other social groups.

One community is completely different from another each unique in many ways. The

possibilities of having a community that is completely the same is very minimal. The reason

behind this fact is that each community can share either the same goals or genre from swales six

criteria. In most cases the types of genres used in community to communicate their message is

electronic mail. For example, in a college classroom organization is crucial and commonly used.

According to swales discourse communities examine concepts for the development of

intuition to relationships between modern world texts, text roles, and texting environments.

Second look at discourse community is speech communities the way that these works are the

speech people use. A third way to comprehend the discourse communities' speech is by not

thinking that only certain people in the same community who speak the same language are the

only ones who can be a part of that certain community. Due to shared linguistic speech,

regulative rules, and cultural concepts but looking beyond language and adopting those three
ARE WE A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 4

criteria is what John Swales believed to be the speech characteristics of a discourse community.

(Pg. 211)

METHODS

My primary research was communication in the discourse community RWS 1301. Where

communication among groups is needed to succeed on projects and to make it a better learning

environment for all attending the course. I observed all the different types of mechanisms and

genres that were used in this specify social groups. I watched as all the groups took different

approaches to the assignment and how they decided to communicate some were very well

communicated. But some groups it was obvious that the communication was poorly prepared.

The different type of mechanisms and genres that were used was e-mail and text

messaging. Within the community, they used e-mail to keep in contact with their peers. Which is

important because private information is passed through and it is in high importance that it is not

published or sent out to outsiders to copy and use as their own. RWS 1301 is a big discourse

community, but by taking a closer look I realized that there are smaller discourse communities

with in that big on. A certain number of student working together to achieve the same goal to get

a good grade on the group assignments. James E. Porter, a respected scholar in rhetoric and

composition, argues that all texts are intertextual (i.e., relying on previous texts for their

meaning). He draws on a large body of intertextual theory as he makes this claim. And he

“distinguishes between two types of intertextuality: iterability and presupposition” (35) which is

used daily in a classroom environment.

DISCUSSION
ARE WE A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 5

Methods of communication, I analyzed clearly how they matched the six criteria by John

Swales. Surly the data that encountered is much like communities. The reason why this project

so amusing is because it gives people a chance to view what type community they are in at every

moment. The goals of RWS 1301 were for the students to develop of speech skills writing skills

and conversational skills using rhetoric. Each of the students who attend are there to accomplish

the short term goal to later succeed in the long term goal of becoming great assets to the

community. Also, it is a lot of pressure to balance out the hard work of being a college student.

CONCLUSION

The six criteria that connect to make what is a discourse community, so if that is the case

then is any environment could be considered a discourse community. This is a fact RWS has a

type of communication and a goal. So, then the main idea is that if a community has the six

criteria whether there aware of it or not. A discourse community is defined anywhere with the

mechanisms and genres. Maybe the goals are different each to their own but, it does connect for

the main goal in the end of the day. RWS 1301 is a Discourse Community.

CITATIONS

• Interlanguage Pragmatics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2018, from

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&sig=MqTfJ1wvu-_wGUPce-

sMEt4fxts#v=onepage&q=%22discourse%20community%22&f=false

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

Downs
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