The Concept of Discourse Community

1.     1. “A discourse community had a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (WAW 471).  What I interpret this characteristic to mean is that a discourse community must involve those with common goals and not just people who deal with the same things. In his article John Swales uses the example of the Vatican to make his point.  An example that I would use to explain this uses people who go to the mall.  There are many people who go to malls all the time but it is the workers at the mall who have the common goal of bringing in profit.

2.      2.“A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members” (WAW 471).  Members of a discourse community all interact either directly or indirectly. For example, I worked as a lifeguard at one of three pools in Dublin, Ohio.  I did not meet or work with many lifeguards at the other two pools, but we dealt with the same patrons, we got our checks from the same business, and we all had the same training by the same bosses.  I did not deal with them directly but we had an intercommunication through other shared aspects of the job.

3.     3. “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” (WAW 472).  A discourse community has mechanisms of feedback and information that the members of the community participate in. For example, I am a subscribing member of the American College of Sports Medicine.  I get their newsletter every time they send it out but I have yet to look at one yet.  This says that I get the same information and feedback, but I do not participate, and therefore I am not a member of that discourse community.

4.     4.  “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims” (WAW 472).  Discourse communities have specific genres, or understood expectations of the community.  This is a characteristic that I have a hard time thinking of an example for because I don’t know who to relate it to my own experiences.

5.      5.“In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis” (WAW 473).  Discourse communities have certain ways of communicating, and different abbreviations/terms that are used that is specific to the community.  For example, I am an exercise physiology major, and within my major almost all the communication involves medical terminology and technical terms that would seem foreign to an outside of the major.

6.     6. “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (WAW 473).  A discourse community is made up of expert members and new, novice members, and that is what keeps the community going.  For example, my sophomore year of high school I played volleyball and the team was essentially all graduating seniors and then a few of us newcomers.  After that year ended and the seniors went on to college, we became the expert members who took on younger players and brought them up to the level that we had been brought up to.  That is what kept the varsity team going.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing About Writing (2011). 471-473. Text.