Swales’ views: Swales defines a discourse community as a group of people who share common goals, have various communicative conventions to achieve those goals, and develop a specific lexis that is recognizable to only that community. Specifically in his book, Swales outlines six key characteristics that compose the core of discourse communities.

Gee’s views: Gee takes a definitive, black and white stance on what a Discourse community is and how it functions. He believes that a Discourse community is joined by the individual from birth, and that the members achieve fluency through “apprenticeships”. Gee asserts that unless one is not native to the Discourse community, he or she cannot achieve membership status. It is also worth noting that “membership” to Gee is either fully complete or non-existent (in his words, membership is “all or nothing”). Additionally, Gee believes that if one attempts to be part of a secondary dominant Discourse community, that that secondary Discourse will be hindered by the individual’s primary Discourse community. What sets Gee apart from Swales, however, is that Gee discriminates between discourse communities: he has primary Discourse, secondary Discourse, etc. Swales, on the other hand, does not offer this same discrimination, but just identifies the qualities of one, single discourse community (also notice the lower case “d” as opposed to Gee’s upper case “D”).

What is useful about Swales and Gee in your paper?

In my paper, the most useful perspective on discourse communities that will support my argument comes from Swales. In my opinion, what is useful about Swales is the accessibility of his ideas: unlike Gee, he creates a list of what characteristics compose discourse communities. In my paper, for organization purposes, I will structure my thesis around those characteristics. Also, my chosen article does not need an analysis primary and secondary Discourse communities, and thus does not require Gee’s theory.