Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

Ashlee Marrufo

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO

RWS 1301
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Abstract

Discourse community is a group of people who share a common set of goals (Swales, 2011.

pg.471). Most of us are part of a discourse community whether we are aware of participating in

it or not. This paper will analysis if our classroom RWS is a discourse community and how we

can identify what characteristics we take part in and what common goals we share.

Introduction

This paper claims RWS is a discourse community and how we all take part in it without

knowing that we do it. With a number of sources that a research team came across will provide

evidence that RWS is in fact a discourse community. It will also explain what a discourse

community is and its six characteristics. Discourse community is divided into six characteristics

that will identify a group of individuals as a discourse community (pg.471).

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Literature Review

We analyzed the article “The concepts of Discourse Communities” by John Swales. In this

article John Swales defines the idea of discourse community and compares discourse to speech

communities throughout the article. But they are slightly different from one another simply

because discourse communities happen without one doing it. While speech communities are

more as it is passed on to. In other terms discourse community is happens when individuals’

share goals.

According to Swales (2011) discourse community is a group of people who have common

goals of expanding knowledge within the group through the six characteristics (pg.471). These

six characteristics are essential for a discourse community. All these characteristics have to share

common goals. Some of these characteristics are being used in the classroom RWS because we

all share similar goals. The first characteristic is identified by a broadly agreed set of common

public goals according to Swales (pg.471). An example of this using our class RWS would be

that everyone in this class wants to pass with good grades and to succeed. As well as to gain

knowledge to use in their other classes. These are some goals that we all have in common with

each other.

The second characteristic is intercommunication mechanism according to Swales, is a way

of interpreting and responding to similar purposes and being able to communicate in any form. It

is working towards the same goal through communication with others (pg.472). An example

would be when the class was divided into groups and we all created a wiki page to info others of

our topic.

Third characteristic is looped intercommunication and according to Swales it’s when you are

provided with information and give feedback to that person (pg. 472). For instance, we use this
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when communicating with our peers, professors, and others; we are able to have an

understanding of one another.

The next characteristic is dedicated genres and Swales definition is that they are texts

recognizable to readers and writer and meet needs of the rhetorical situations in which they

function (pg. 467). We use this when it comes to essays, articles, and journals whether it’s in

class or at home. That gives information based upon the subject from the authors viewpoint.

Another characteristic is our vocabulary, but specialized vocabulary which is according to

Swales is vocabulary that outsiders of a discourse community would not be able to understand

along with abbreviations and acronyms specialized to the discourse community (pg. 473). An

example of this would be how we use ethnics, logos, and logic to convince someone.

The last characteristic is self-sustaining hierarchy according to John Swales that the

community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content (pg.473).

An example would be us students we all start new going to school, we start as novice.

Method

To determine if RWS was part of a discourse community and understand what discourse

community means. I watch closely to what we were doing in this class that made us a community

and surprisingly I did. In our class RWS we were separated into groups were we all had to work

together to complete the assignments on time. Throughout this process we were all participating

in a discourse community without even knowing it. We had to exchange phone numbers and

emails to be able to communicate amongst each other. We also had to do our part of the

assignment in order for someone in our group to receive that information to finish theirs. All

because we all wanted to get the assignment done and receive a good grade for it. So, everything
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adds up that RWS is a discourse community. We used communication to help achieve the goals

or purposes of the group.

Discussion

Discourse community is all around us whether we are aware of it, can be in school, home,

and work. It’s just the way we communicate among one another. Being part of a discourse

community can help us understand what we all want to achieve by working together. How are we

going to achieve it and who does what? Overall every day we all take part of a discourse

community and possible keep taking part in it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’m set that RWS is a discourse community with everything we’ve been

doing and how. With understanding what discourse community is and its six characteristics it has

proven that we take part in a discourse community. Even outside of school we participate in a

discourse community without knowing that we do.

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References

Discourse. (2008). In W. A. Darity Jr. (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social sciences

(2nd ed. ed., pp. 387-388). Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved from http://0-

link.galegroup.com.lib.utep.edu/apps/doc/CX3045300607/GVRL?u=txshracd2603&sid=GVRL

&xid=bd075976

Discourse analysis. (2006). In K. Versteegh (Ed.), Encyclopedia of arabic language and

linguistics (pp. 647-653). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Retrieved from http://0-

link.galegroup.com.lib.utep.edu/apps/doc/CX1968800124/GVRL?u=txshracd2603&sid=GVRL

&xid=6da62360

John Swales. (1990). ''The concept of discourse community.” “Genre Analysis: English in

Academic and Research Settings,