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Discourse Community Powerpoint

Uploaded by

sapnaror360
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Discourse Communities

Defining a “Discourse
Community”
• A “cluster of ideas”
• A “group of people who share
certain language-using
practices”
• Writing and knowledge building
• Writing and community building
Knowledge and the Notion of
a “Discourse Community”
• The focus on community composition
studies shows that “language use in
a group is a form of social
behavior, that discourse is a means
of maintaining and extending the
group’s knowledge and of initiating
new members into the group, and that
discourse is epistemic or
constitutive of the group’s
knowledge” (Swales 468).
Swales’ Characteristics of
a “Discourse Community”

• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Let’s look at each
characteristic in
more detail.
1. Goals

“A discourse community has a


broadly agreed upon set of common
public goals.”
Goals of The Plastics?
2. Intercommunication
“A discourse community has
mechanisms of communication among
its members.”

The communication takes place


regularly, but the mechanisms can
vary according to the community
(meetings, correspondence,
newsletters, conversations, Facebook
posts, etc.).
Intercommunication
between The Plastics?
3. Participation
“A discourse community uses its
participatory mechanisms primarily
to provide information and feedback.
Thus, membership implies uptake of
the informational opportunities.”

Communication and participation


involves the exchange of knowledge.
4. Genres
“A discourse community utilizes and
hence possesses one or more genres in
the communicative furtherance of its
aims.”

Genres “articulate the operations of


the discourse community.”

Examples include chemistry reports,


personal narratives, hip hop music,
emails, etc.
Genres of The
Plastics?
5. Lexis
“A discourse community has
acquired some specific lexis.”

Lexis includes specialized


terminology, community-
specific abbreviations, and
community-specific acronyms.
The Lexis of The
Plastics?
“Fetch”
“Burn book”
“The Plastics”
“Fugly”
6. Expertise
“A discourse community has a
threshold level of members
with a suitable degree of
relevant content and
discoursal expertise […]
Survival of the community
depends on a reasonable ratio
between novices and experts.”
“Is it a discourse
community?”
The STL Cardinals
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
A sorority/fraternity
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
UMSL students
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Facebook users
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
The Harry Potter Fan
Club
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Republican voters
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
College Democrats at
UMSL
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Composition Scholars
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Our class
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Academia
• Goals
• Intercommunication
• Participation
• Genres
• Lexis
• Expertise
Discussion

Swales argues that membership


in a discourse community does
not necessarily involve
assimilation of world-view.
What does this mean? Do you
agree?

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