1. Use your own words to describe six characteristics of a discourse community according to Swales. Can you find examples of each from your own experience?
Swales claims the following:
• That a discourse community has a “set of common public goals” — the goals are not privatized in order to prevent the advancement of self-interests, which may jeopardize the well-being of the commun. An example of this is the Kremlin.
• A discourse community has ways for its members to interact, including (but not limited to) newsletters, forums, meetings, conversations, etc.
• A discourse community uses its methods of interaction to produce and disseminate information and feedback. An example of this is academia, where students hand in work and get feedback from teachers, who attempt to better the students’ skills in that class (which is the common, public goal).
• A discourse community uses various types of communicative conventions to further the goals of the community. An example of this is a religious sermon, where a member of a religion advances the goal of the collective through said sermon, which is one of many communicative conventions.
• A discourse community utilizes specific jargon that may be unrecognizable to members of other discourse communities. An example of this is my old high school, where we called the periods of the day “bands”.
• A discourse community has members that are experienced in order to train its less experienced members and bring them into the community. An example of this is the military, where senior personnel train newly acquired personnel in military doctrine.
2. Swales discusses his own attempt to join the Hong Kong Study Circle. What went wrong? Which of the six characteristics did he have trouble with?
The primary characteristic that Swales had trouble with was the large geographic, ethnic, and social disparity between discourse community members. This caused Swales to initially have trouble communicating with a lot of people in the Hong Kong Study Circle because he had to learn the lexis with no prior knowledge or experience using it. As a result, Swales found it difficult to communicate effectively with members to pursue the community’s common goal, which was to “foster interest in and knowledge of the stamps of Hong Kong and of their uses.”
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- Write a short narrative in which you imagine the problems a newcomer has in learning the ropes in any new discourse community you can imagine, from World of Warcraft to medical school to a sorority.
Joe was a great athlete, who trained all day and night. In order to distract himself for the few moments of free time he had, Joe tried to fit into the fantasy world of “World of Warcraft”. Unfortunately, Joe had a very hard time fitting in to this discourse community for a few reasons. Firstly, Joe had a tough time understanding the jargon used in the game. Terms such as “noob”, “gnomish”, and “guild raid”, to name a few, are all foreign to Joe, who had no prior experience with other gamers and thus could not communicate with them effectively to accomplish a common goal. This lack of understanding on Joe’s part, which is primarily due to his focus on athletics rather than gaming, alienated him from the gaming community in World of Warcraft. Secondly, Joe neglected to participate in some of the inter-communicative mechanisms of World of Warcraft, which would have helped educate him on how to play the game and accomplish the in-game objectives. This further slowed Joe’s understanding of the game and made him appear an outsider to the World of Warcraft community. Finally, Joe did not have access to someone who could teach him to play World of Warcraft. He could not find any of his friends from school who was an expert at playing World of Warcraft, nor could he find anyone in the game who was willing to mentor him. Joe therefore remained an unhappy novice in the game and could not fit in with other gamers in World of Warcraft community.
2. Write a one-page letter to an incoming student in which you explain what discourse communities are and how knowing about them will be helpful to the student in college.
Dear incoming rat,
A discourse community, according to John Swales, is a group that has multiple public objectives, and uses various communicative conventions to achieve those objectives (Swales 220-221). Understanding discourse communities will be helpful to you in college because it will allow you to more effectively accomplish the goals set out by teachers in academia, and will also allow you to develop tighter bonds with your peers and upperclassmen; therefore, it is imperative that you read Swales’ scholarly disquisition on discourse communities.