The document discusses discourse communities and analyzes how the book "Writing About Writing" introduces readers to the discourse community of those who study writing. It provides examples of how the class functioned as a discourse community through discussion boards, peer reviews, and learning terms used by writing experts. The document also examines characteristics of discourse communities, such as shared goals and expertise, using examples from the class, student organizations, and creative fields. It concludes that the book helped the author better understand discourse communities and how to integrate into new communities in the future.
The document discusses discourse communities and analyzes how the book "Writing About Writing" introduces readers to the discourse community of those who study writing. It provides examples of how the class functioned as a discourse community through discussion boards, peer reviews, and learning terms used by writing experts. The document also examines characteristics of discourse communities, such as shared goals and expertise, using examples from the class, student organizations, and creative fields. It concludes that the book helped the author better understand discourse communities and how to integrate into new communities in the future.
The document discusses discourse communities and analyzes how the book "Writing About Writing" introduces readers to the discourse community of those who study writing. It provides examples of how the class functioned as a discourse community through discussion boards, peer reviews, and learning terms used by writing experts. The document also examines characteristics of discourse communities, such as shared goals and expertise, using examples from the class, student organizations, and creative fields. It concludes that the book helped the author better understand discourse communities and how to integrate into new communities in the future.
The document discusses discourse communities and analyzes how the book "Writing About Writing" introduces readers to the discourse community of those who study writing. It provides examples of how the class functioned as a discourse community through discussion boards, peer reviews, and learning terms used by writing experts. The document also examines characteristics of discourse communities, such as shared goals and expertise, using examples from the class, student organizations, and creative fields. It concludes that the book helped the author better understand discourse communities and how to integrate into new communities in the future.
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Grayson 1
Chaiwat Grayson ENC 1101 November 10, 2014 [email protected] Discourse Community The authors in the book Writing About Writing all talk about the same consistent thing; writing. Their enjoyment of writing and the fact that they took their time to create articles in order to improve others writing puts them in a discourse community together. By James E. Porters definition, a discourse community is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated (Porter 91). Throughout the year, this English class has gave us the pleasure to read multiple excerpts from different authors and all of them have made me realize what it takes to be in the discourse community of people who study writing. I will be analysing how effective this book has introduced the reader to people who study writing. This book compiles writings from Swales, Gee and Mirabelli who are leading researchers and writers on the topic of writing and describing discourse communities.
According to John Swales, Professor of linguistics and co-director of the
Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English at the University of Michigan, he speaks about six characteristics of discourse communities and how important they are that they are included. He identifies them by mentioning that a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales 471). By reading this it made me realize that I already am a part of the discourse community because our English class is centrifugal and I joined by choice to better my writing. The goals for everybody in this community is to constantly learn about ways to improve our writing and with me being in this English class, that is exactly what Im doing. Not only did
Grayson 2 we study works of people in this discourse but also we mush faked our way through an assignment where we studied our own writing.
This applies to me when I am working in a digital creative agency and how we
already know the values and goals in the work place. We always understand the full scope of a project, the needs for different clients and their products. The broad set of goals in marketing, production and solutions combine to make sense of the overall digital strategy.
By doing this, we all have a way of intercommunication. James Paul Gee,
professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University, states in his work Literary Discourse Linguistics that being able to learn your way into a discourse is very challenging. (Gee 89). In the ENC1101 course we help each other in understanding a discourse community. We did this by commenting on discussion boards and posting our reflections and responding to others. We used a website called Webcourses as a mechanism of intercommunication to stimulate feedback from reading works of specialists in discourse and writing. This was a great tool for communicating our thoughts and understanding other peoples opinions. We also did Peer Reviews to provide information on essays, I was able to send and receive information through text, email and Facebook to stay in contact with my classmates who I paired off with. To further understand this course we used a Think Aloud Protocol (Perl, 617) assignment with other classmates to understand our writing and to analyse our findings. Since this was the first attempt at understanding the process James Paul Gee would have said that we were mush faking our way through the studies allowing us to build upon the understanding of this discourse.
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For the students in the class it isnt just each other and the professor, its also the people and the authors who we read about who taught us the keys to being in the discourse community. Authors get their writings published into articles, which then get published into textbooks for students, and they help us become humans who study writing.
Tony Mirabelli, philosophy professor at the University of California Berkley
mentions in his reading Learning To Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers that we must have control of the language, thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network (Mirabelli 93). This is noticeable when we talk about genres and specific lexis when interacting with each other in a discourse. Terms like mushfaking, intertextuality, lexis and other jargon were not apparent to me if it was not for the fact that members who study writing all understood these terms. People who are in this discourse study writing and practice terms like these in their everyday interactions.
In order to be a member of a graphic design club we have to acquire certain
behaviours, talks and beliefs that are congruent with the people we are surrounded by. I however have not got used to this and sometimes have to mush-fake it to represent myself as part of that discourse community.
The last characteristic of an existing discourse community is as stated by
Swales, A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable
Grayson 4 degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales, 222). This is present in Writing about Writing when viewing different credentials of the writers such as James Paul Gee who has received his B.A. in philosophy from University of California at Santa Barbara, and both his M.A and Ph.D. in linguistics from Stanford University. Distinguishing a members expertise in the discourse well in the textbook giving the authors credibility. This applies with clubs at UCF and how they have certain labels for people with different expertise such as President, Vice President, Treasure, Recorder, Warden, Historian and Public Relations Chair to acknowledge specialization.
In a discourse community, members often come into the community as
novices and leave by death or other less involuntary ways according to Swales (Swales 222). This textbook has provided a key into entering the discourse community by providing us with knowledge about writing and has to some extent increase my level of threshold where I must soon leave this discourse once leaving this class. This is true with the Asian Student Association ASA here at UCF. We have a set number of positions with titles and once you gain a position you cannot apply for that position again leaving in an involuntary way. New members fluctuate into the discourse community as novices and hopefully pass that threshold of membership to leave as experts in the knowledge of Asian culture.
Grayson 5 As a nineteen-year-old learning about discourse communities, I would never had understood what a discourse was if it wasnt for the fact that Writing about Writing. This book had taught me a humongous amount of tools to add into my kit. I am learning my passion of graphic design and videography and the knowledge gained from discourse has given me food for thought about when it comes down to working in a digital creative agency and being integrated into the digital field of art. Once I graduate I will understand the importance and how to comprehend specific lexis of a community and the ability to adjust my behaviours, attitudes and gestures to a desired community. Once I enter into the design world I will mush fake my path everyday with lots of creativity and dedication until I finally become accepted into the community of the digital art.
Grayson 6 Works Cited: Gee, James P. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction. Journal of Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17. Print. Perl, Sondra. "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers." Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Eds. Wardle and Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 317-336. Print. Mirabelli, Tony. Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers. What They Dont Learn in School. Ed. Jabari Mahiri. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. 143-62 Print.
Rose, Mike. "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers Block." 1980. Writing About Writing. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Leasa Burton, 2014. 52731. Print. Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." 1990. Writing About Writing. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Wardle and Downs, 2014. 215-27. Print. Webcourses@UCF. Web.
A Guide To Reading and Writing Japanese - Fourth Edition, JLPT All Levels (2,136 Japanese Kanji Characters) (8601421990417) - Florence Sakade, Janet Ikeda - Books PDF
A Guide To Reading and Writing Japanese - Fourth Edition, JLPT All Levels (2,136 Japanese Kanji Characters) (8601421990417) - Florence Sakade, Janet Ikeda - Books PDF
