RUNNING HEAD: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

The Discourse Community in the Classroom

Jose Gallardo

RWS 1301

University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

Community of Practice community is almost identical to Discourse community. According to

Lave and Wenger (2009) term they say it has “set of people who share a purpose and pursue that

purpose jointly in shared practices.” [pg. 145] The small difference that separates them is that

discourse community is it has less rules/ guides, and less to reach out to accomplish goals.

Another author Beaufort (1997) wrote that the discourse community is basically what Swales

wrote about discourse community, with the six main points needed to make a discourse

community. She even broke down those six points into two sections of 3. Influencing (writing)

and communicative (speaking) factors that a norm fluently communicate. The class of RWS

1301 fit the description of a discourse community by those authors. In this following a paper we

will go over how the RWS 1301 is a discourse community by the following guidelines that was

put.
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Intro

The definition of discourse community is a group of people who have a common goals

with a single special type of communication that nobody from the outside will understand

(Swales). A discourse community can be in many different form, but they need to have six

elements that Swales defined. The six characteristics that make up a discourse community are:

Common Public Goals, Intercommunication Mechanisms, Looped Communication, Dedicated

Genre, Specialized Vocabulary, and Self-Sustaining Hierarchy. People may not know that they

are in a discourse community by default and every social norm that you become a part of is a

distinguish discourse community. An example of this discourse community that we are part of

are the classrooms. The classrooms we go to in the university to learn and become smarter. This

paper will show how a classroom is a discourse community, and the RWS 1301 will be a true

example of it.

Literary Review

My classmates and I in the class of RWS 1301 have done a lot of research on defining

what is the true meaning of discourse community. To get on what is the true meaning of a

discourse community the class had to read on what is discourse community itself. Swales was the

author who made and wrote on what is the meaning of discourse community. The whole class

read the article by Swales on the discourse community and how he defined the meaning if the

discourse community. The article establish the criteria on what forms a discourse community,

and we continued to do research on authors thoughts about the Swales discourse community.

This article that I found from Beaufort A. talk about how Swales concept of the discourse

community and the way that it works. Another author Lave and Wenger wrote how their own
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words the meaning of the concept of the discourse community. Both articles had their own words

of what discourse community is, but overall it supported the idea of Swales discourse

community.

Methods

Our professor separated us into 6 groups to define one of the points that make a discourse

community: Common Public Goals, Intercommunication Mechanisms, Looped Communication,

Dedicated Genre, Specialized Vocabulary, and Self-Sustaining Hierarchy. Each group had to

research the meaning of each point and started to make a connection of each point to the RWS

class. Our professor guided us on the structure of our paper and analyzed our points met the

criteria that the class is a discourse community.

Discussion

Common Public Goals

Common Public Goals is the first element in making a discourse community, which has a

simple definition. According to Lave and Wenger (2009) a common public goals is when the

community is trying to accomplish the same goal, but through communication people have

different ways of getting to that goal. So in terms a particular group must have all its members

strive for the same goal, but they don’t need to have the same route to achieve/ accomplish that

goal. An example is this assignment, when the class is doing research on the discourse

community to prove that there is a discourse community in the class. We all have the same goal

to prove that the RWS is a discourse community and we also work hard in the class to achieve a

good grade {an A} to pass the class. We all have the same goal to achieve in the class, but we all

have our own methods of completing this task.

Intercommunication Mechanisms
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Then we have Intercommunication Mechanisms in the community for the second

characteristic in a discourse community. According to swales intercommunication mechanisms is

particular way of communicating to one another. An intercommunication is a way for people in

the community to transfer information [knowledge] to one another. An example of

intercommunication is anything that we in the classroom to communicate to one to another

(vocally, phone, computers, or written notes). We communicate through these platforms to

exchange information, like in class group we have to communicate in person with our mouths.

This is the most reasonable approach because it’s a faster way to exchange information with each

other, unless we are away from each other like our houses. At that point we have to rely on our

phones and computers to communicate through long distance. We text each other through our

phones or even talk to each other through a social media ( Facebook, snapchat, etc.) and on the

computer through email. The various ways we have to communicate to one another we can

properly receive information to do our assignments that we have to turn in.

Looped Intercommunication

The next characteristic that make up a discourse community is a looped

intercommunication. The looped intercommunication according to Swales is when you receive

and give feedback of information, feedback can be provided to yourself. An example of looped

intercommunication is when the class gets their essay checked by the professor on his office

hours. Our professor reads our essay and gives feedback on how you could make revisions on

your essay to make it better. Another example that we use in the class is the discussion board

when we write on thoughts of the assignment to the class. Our classmates will write back to you

a response to your thought of the assignment. Looped communication is a great way to advise

each other on thoughts to improve each other work for a better grade. It also allows us to open up
RUNNING HEAD: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 6

our minds to change a way we think, because our peers can have a better way than we do to our

own.

Dedicated Genre

The fourth characteristic: Dedicated Genre is a simple one. According to Swales

dedicated genre is using words to be organized. What makes RWS different than any other

course is that our work has to have a certain guideline, that guideline is like our genre. The

guidelines that we use in the rhetoric is that all of our work has to in APA format. This format is a

way we set up our papers to look in a certain way that only the people in the rhetoric writing will

only understand. Other classes have their own genre like MLA, but in rhetoric writing we only

stick to that one genre to be organized. Dedicated genre is way for us to have our work organized

to make our work a lot easier.

Specialized Vocabulary

Specialized Vocabulary is the fifth characteristic. It is described by Swales as, vocabulary

that people in the discourse community use that may not be understood by the people that are

outside the discourse community. The people are inside the characteristic by use special words,

abbreviation, and even come up with is own signs. An perfect example of this is when at the end

of a APA paper you would see a APA style references. Majority of the people won’t get what the

letters and words in the reference mean, but if you are in the rhetoric writing you would most

likely know what they mean. If you did understand what the references was pointing out it was

an article, book, newspaper, etc. that has been use in our work. If you wanted to read the

reference you would just go to library and search it on the database. Special vocabulary words

that we use in the discourse community makes it easier for one another to understand what we

are trying to say in a quickly manner.

Self-Sustaining Hierarchy

The final characteristic is Self-Sustaining Hierarchy. Self-sustain hierarchy according to

swales is people teaching you the information to not be apart from the group. The perfect

metaphor of this is like a karate kid having a sensei to teach him the proper martial arts. Well as a

student I’m the karate kid and my professor is the sensei, my professor is guiding me into the

rules of the rhetoric writing. Basically its having someone experience in the field teaching

somebody that is barely getting into the field. As the more experience you have in the field the

more familiar you become and the higher you climb in the stats. So I’m a beginner but later on

with a few practice and work I would become a Teaching Assistant, then a professor of the field.

If a system doesn’t have a teacher to guide the people that are coming in it would cause a loss of

the method, rules, and people would not gain knowledge.

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that the RWS class fits under the category of a discourse

community. I believe this because it meets the six characteristic that make up a discourse

community. The RWS is a place where people have the same Common Public Goals which is

learning and understanding rhetoric writing. It also contains Intercommunication Mechanisms,

Looped Communication, Dedicated Genre, and Specialized Vocabulary when we do our work in

the class we communicate each other and turn in work that contain certain guideline. Our work

that we turn in contain feedback from others and vocabulary that people who never took RWS

would never understand. Lastly Self-Sustaining Hierarchy where the knowledge of how the work

is supposed to be done is passed down, from the professor to the students. When you put all of

these characteristics together the RWS class is following the guidelines that make up of what is a

discourse community.
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References

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://www.jstor.org/stable/40171282

Tracy, K. (2009). Community. In S. W. Littlejohn & K. A. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of

Communication Theory (Vol. 1, pp. 143-147). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference. Retrieved

from http://0-

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Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. Genre analysis: English in academic

and research settings, 21-32.