It took me a while to start writing this blog. Besides having my laptop fall off my bed and almost breaking. I had to reread a couple paragraphs on Swales lecture and look over the professors' power points to get a clear understanding before starting it.
Anyway back on topic. A discourse community from my understanding is a selective group of people who have adopted their own language which they use to communicate with other members and to better achieve their common goals. The matter in which language is used is dependent on the culture that adopts it.
John Swales, in his article "The Concept of Discourse Community", characterizes a discourse community as having six unique traits:
1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
Knowing this, a group that could qualify as a discourse community would be the YMCA which I work for. First, in the case of common goals, behind every staff members name badge in San Diego the following is written "The YMCA of San Diego County is dedicated to improving the quality of human life and to helping all people realize their fullest potential as children of God through development of the spirit, mind and body". Even though not everyone knows this by heart, we still however, fulfill this goal each and every day. Second, using mechanisms of intercommunication among our members would be staff meetings which we have regularly and the manual. Third, using the internet is one way we provide information and in terms of feedback having a child leave with them saying that they had a great day at the Y is the best feedback we can get knowing that we did a good job. Forth, in terms of genres, the YMCA uses many from signing songs in order to crave grabbing kids attention to the tone of your voice when speaking to a certain type of member. Fifth, can referred to names of processes we use to manage certain types of people. For example, if we're meeting someone new we use the following process that's called W.E.S.T.I. ; warm smile, eye contact, shake their hand, tell them how you feel, and introduce them to someone else. And finally for the people that fall within the this discourse communities. Our threshold of member is without end from the staff members, to people have memberships, and to kids that visited once but still remember being at the Y. The YMCA was founded more than a hundred years ago and its still moving strong because there is always a Y in every family.
The YMCA, in general, qualifies as a discourse community from what Swales defines one as.
Okay then I'm done. Hope I did good job on this. All in all, see you all in class.
I had such a difficult time understanding the definition of a discourse community. I feel like having 6 different characteristics to fulfill makes it such a broad definition. I had to read Swales' excerpt twice through. I think you did a good job covering all the characteristics for the YMCA. I never thought that would be considered a discourse community, but reading all your examples on each of the characteristics explained it better. I wish there was one definition to explain exactly what a discourse community is. The only things I could come up with is what it isn't. You helped me see another possible discourse community. I admire the work you do with YMCA.
ReplyDelete-Erin de Leon
Hey David!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. It took me forever to get started on this blog and it took me even longer to go over the power points and readings to remember exactly what a discourse community is. I wish Swales didn’t use such a broad definition for it. I also wish he hadn’t used so much fancy language just to get a small point across. Anyways, I think you did a really good job one explaining what a discourse community is through your example. You explained each characteristic and talked about each way the YMCA illustrated it. Its cool because I used college students as my discourse community and the internet is also a way they provide feedback and information, so its interesting how a lot of these ways can overlap with each other.
- Jam Laygo