Characteristic 1: A discourse community is a broad set of shared goals. These goals are public, and in some cases these goals can be high level or abstract. For example, when I was in JROTC, we had a group session every now and then and talk about goals that we want to achieve and how we want to make our school a better community for all students.

Characteristic 2: A discourse community has appropriate times for communication on when to use speech or writing. And that it has a system of intercommunication between its members. For example, when I was a lifeguard, I had other lifeguards that I had to communicate with about which other pool we would have to go to to receive our checks from our boss.