Running Head: CHEMISTRY WORKSHOP DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

Margarita Campos

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Professor Laura Castruita

Running Head: CHEMISTRY WORKSHOP DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

College of Engineering at UTEP Discourse Community

The main purpose of this paper is to state the definition of a Discourse Community, with

ideas of several texts, but at the same time explaining this concept using an example of a

Discourse community. On John Swales text, to define the concept of discourse community, he

started by talking about speech communities and how they differ from each other. The contrast

between these two concepts is that a speech community would just talk about the rules of

speaking, for example this type of community is built through birth, is the way or style people

communicate but at the same time having the knowledge of what is correct when speaking its

primary goal is just for socializing, while a discourse community would use persuasive language.

Swales affirms that Discourse communities have six main characteristics such as, they have

common public goals, they must have communication in a community among its members, they

have to provide information and feedback between members, they have some specific

language, etc.

Discourse communities acquired its name because of the different theories and ideas

about communication styles, according to Killingsworth, M. (1992):

The relationship of author to audience as participants in a communication system of

interconnected and interrelated individuals. Each participant is both a sender and a

receiver of information, and each is already implicated at the time of communication in a

complex of social formations. In the field of composition and rhetoric, such systems have

been described as Discourse Communities. The term is useful in the theory and

analysis of writing because it embraces the rhetorical concern with social interchange

(discourse) and with situation of context (community).

Running Head: CHEMISTRY WORKSHOP DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

In this case, the example chosen as a discourse community would be a local chemistry

workshop at UTEP, it is a small group of students that meets once a week in order to learn and

improve their knowledge in a specific subject, which is chemistry, this can be defined as a

discourse community because of the common set of goals they have, which are to enhance skills

on the subject and prepare the student to succeed in class, there is a lot of discussion between the

members of this group while problem solving and participation, and helping each other with

information and feedback. There are several key things that can affect members of a discourse

community such as lexis, genres and technologies. Since there is a specific language in each

discourse community, a clear example would be that if you merge a chemistry students group,

with a liberal arts students group, they might not comprehend each other at all, just because of

the fact that, comparing, these are two totally different fields of study.

Communication is centered on rhetoric, it is the way people talk that shapes or even

classifies on different communication systems that lead us to the correct techniques to talk and

write. It is not only about the words used when writing or giving a speech, it is about your

purpose of it and of being part of the discourse community, how are you providing for this group

of people. Beaufort, A. (1997) stated:

Discourse analysis goes beyond audience analysis because what is most significant about

members of a discourse community is not their personal preferences, prejudices, and so

on, but rather the expectations they share by virtue of belonging to that particular

community. These expectations are embodied in the discourse conventions which are in

turn conditioned by the communitys work.

Running Head: CHEMISTRY WORKSHOP DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

The main idea of a discourse community is that it is a group with specific goals in

common and who share particular styles and language, and you can identify these groups by

analyzing their linguistic behavior.

Running Head: CHEMISTRY WORKSHOP DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

References

Porter, J. (1986). Intertextuality and the Discourse Community. Rhetoric Review, 5(1), 34-47.

Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/466015

Killingsworth, M. (1992). Discourse Communities. Local and Global. Rhetoric Review, 11(1),

110-122. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/465883

Beaufort, A. (1997). Operationalizing the Concept of Discourse Community: A Case Study of

One Institutional Site of Composing. Research in the Teaching of English, 31(4), 486-

529. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/40171282