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Running head: Discourse Community Ethnography

Discourse Community Ethnography

Jacob M Ochoa

University of Texas at El Paso

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Discourse Community Ethnography
In his article The Concept of Discourse Community, John Swales (1990) defined

discourse communities as groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to

achieve these goals (p. 215). Swales also mentioned that every discourse community has six

different characteristics that help define it as a discourse community and help differentiate them

from speech communities. There are numerous different types of discourse communities all

throughout the world, fictional or real life. This is especially true with the hit T.V show Game

of Thrones, and the discourse community of The Citadel.

Swales (1990) defined characteristic one as being A discourse community has a broadly

agreed set of common public goals (p.220). This is seen in The Citadel because all the

maesters and people trying to become maesters have the same goal in mind. Before going any

further, it would be wise to know just exactly what a maester is. With, Maesters are an order of

scholars, healers, and learned men in the Seven Kingdoms (Maesters). Goal number one for the

maesters is to learn as much knowledge as they possibly can, in numerous subjects such as

medicine and history so that they can spread all that knowledge throughout the Seven Kingdoms.

This is done to hopefully avoid situations that happened in the past or to have a solution for

situations/enemies they may face in the future. Goal number two for the maesters is to assist the

lords they are assigned to in whichever way the lords wants/pleases. Most maesters are assigned

to certain lords/kings all throughout the Seven Kingdoms and their main job is to assist these

lords in numerous ways such as giving advice, teaching the kids, or other simple tasks that the

lord may give them. This is not the only characteristic that The Citadel possess regarding

discourse communities.

Characteristic number two was defined by Swales (1990) as A discourse community has

mechanisms of intercommunication among its members (p. 221). The Citadel has this in the
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forms of books, scrolls, letters, and ravens. These things are found in The Citadel as maesters

are forced to send ravens with letters all throughout the Seven Kingdoms to other maesters and

lords because they are too spread out. Also, books are used by the maesters to gain as much

knowledge as possible and are usually recommend by older, wiser maesters to the younger

maesters or to the citizens looking to get more information on certain topics/subjects. The last

form of intercommunication seen in the show is in the form of letters. Every group in the Seven

Kingdoms has a certain seal that they must use when they send each other letters. This is done

so that the other maesters and lords can distinguish who sent the letter as well as figure out how

important the message/letter is. This is another characteristic that The Citadel exhibits in

relation to discourse communities.

The third characteristic is A discourse community use its participatory mechanisms

primarily to provide information and feedback (Swales, 1990, p.221). This characteristic

simply means that the members give their opinion on certain situations as well as give others as

much information as possible. A maesters main job is to give their input in all types of situations

because they are supposed to be the smartest people in the Seven Kingdoms, which means they

are supposed to have the answer to mostly every situation. This usually involves them helping

the lords they are assigned to in ways such as giving advice for the kids, giving advice on

personal decisions, or doing other simple chores like sending out ravens/letters and helping out

around the castle. Also, there are higher up maesters such as The Grand Maester who is like the

highest up maester and there are Archmaesters who also have a higher say and input, compared

to the younger maesters or ordinary citizens, on certain situations and certain subjects. Discourse

communities have higher up people whose main focus is to try and help the younger members

learn and develop.

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Discourse Community Ethnography
Characteristic four was identified by Swales (1990) as A discourse community utilizes and

hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims (p.221-222).

The library is the main place where all the maesters go to gain more knowledge and learn more

about the Seven Kingdoms and all the groups, families and people who are important throughout.

They also use the library to learn about the history of the Seven and the creatures/enemies that lie

all throughout the world so that they can tell everyone the weaknesses and best way to defeat

them. The maesters must use all the knowledge they gain from these books to do certain tasks

such as medical operations, building structures and even using these books to back up what they

are trying to convey to the lords. The library also has books that hold lots of information that can

be used to help defeat supernatural enemies such as white walkers, giants and more. Other than

the library, ravens are used to send information or alert/warn the other lords and maesters of

something that is happening around the Seven Kingdoms. This is how The Citadel

communicates with everyone including its own members.

Swales (1990) said that characteristic five was In addition to owning genres, a discourse

community has acquired some specific lexis (p.222). Lexis can be defined as the vocabulary of

a language, as distinct from its grammar or it can also be defined as, the total stock of words and

idiomatic combinations of them in a language. It is hard to think of a specific set of words that

maesters use towards one another because everybody talks the same in the show and they really

dont have a special set of words that they use in every conversation. However, the best possible

example I could think of is that, the maesters tend to try and talk in a sophisticated manner and

they try to sound wiser when talking to ordinary people. They also tend to bring up the past a

lot when trying to convince someone to do something. Also, another way of lexis would be the

chains they have to wear to distinguish themselves because without them, people would not
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know that they were maesters and then in part would not believe or listen to them. While this is

another characteristic of discourse community that The Citadel has, it is not the final one that it

falls under.

The final characteristic that discourse communities have, according to Swales, is A

discourse community has a threshold of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and

discoursal expertise (Swales, 1990, p.222). This basically means that people can join at their

own will. Nobody is forcing these ordinary citizens to go and try to become maesters, instead

they are making their own decision and are willingly going off and attempting/studying to

become maesters. Also, this characteristic means that members can also leave the community

whether it be by choice or by unfortunate circumstances such as death. Well of course, the show

does indeed have a lot of killing and the maesters dont get any special treatment as numerous

maesters are killed off by other characters in the show. The maesters are also human so they

cant avoid the effects that old age has on normal people, which also means that some of them

just die of old age. While this may seem like a very negative thing, it also has some positives

because the older maesters dying allows for the younger, newer maesters to climb the ranks, get

prestige and kind of takeover/replace them. With this characteristic, also being found in The

Citadel, it allows The Citadel to ultimately fall under the category of being a discourse

community.

The fact that all characteristics are found/seen shows that The Citadel from the T.V

show, Game of Thrones is indeed, a discourse community. Discourse communities can be

found all around, whether it be in real life or fictional worlds, and they all have the same

characteristics, just different ways of showing them. Ultimately a group of people who have

similar goals in mind and who share similar characteristics, can be defined as a community and
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while some communities are not liked by some people, they are a close-knit group who enjoy

each others presence and could care less about what other people say about them.
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Reference Page

Benioff D. & Weiss D.B. (2011). Game of Thrones [ Television series].

Europe & United States: HBO.

Maesters. (n.d.). Retrieved September 22, 2017, from

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Maesters

S w a l e s , J o h n . T h e C o n c e p t o f D i s c o u r s e C o m m u n i t y . G e n r e A n a l y s i s :

English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge

UP,1990. 215-228. Print.