Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Roberto Zamora

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

March 6, 2019
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Abstract

Is this class a discourse community as defined by Swales?

Discourse Community Ethnography

A discourse community according to Porter (1986) is a broader conception of inter text or

those that looks beyond the inter text to the frame work regulating textual production (p. 38).

Porter defines discourse community a group of individuals bound by a common interest who

communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated. And those

individuals may belong to a certain profession, public, or personal discourse communities. In

Swales (1990) goes more in deep with the characteristics of a community discourse. He explains

that they are six characteristics that a community discourse must have a good communication

with their peers in order to work as a whole (p.220). With both Swales, and Porter stating that a

community discourse is very important for a group to have, and that there’s characteristics that

must be shown for it to be a community discourse. In our RWS 1301 classroom we meet the

standards for a community discourse, because we as a class have a common goal, and meet the

six characteristics that Swale describes for a community discourse, and with this the class grows

as a unity.

Literature Review

Discourse Communities are a very important part of the rhetorical criteria, According to

Swales (1990). Important factors of this is a sociorhetorical discourse community, for this to be

in used it must have discourse community, the primary determinants of linguistic behavior are

functional, since a discourse community consists of a group of people who link up in order to

pursue objectives that are prior to those of socialization and solidarity, even if these latter should

consequently occur (p. 220) It specifies that certain characteristics are needed to better support

the discourse community. For example, they must have common public goals,

intercommunication, information and feedback, genres, vocab, and hierarchy of experts. Many of

the things Swale has talked about authors can agree with his writing. Swale provides that nor is a
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centrality to the family, work, money, education, and so on (p. 226). Discourse communities are

very important as it can be seen in the Characteristics.

Discourse communities are widely used, but they are not always deemed as necessary.

Porter (1996) states that a poststructuralist rhetoric examines how audience (in the form of

community expectations and standards) influences the textual production and in the development

of the writer (p. 40). This is a different type of discourse community in which the author

addresses a specific audience. This new idea that Porter portraits is more revolved about the

author’s freedom. Porter (1986) states that we are constrained insofar as we must inevitably

borrow the traces, codes, and signs in which we inherit, and the discourse community imposes

(p. 41). The author within the poststructuralist writing does not as much freedom. Porter

concludes that freshmen rhetoric announces as the writer's proper goals, personal insights,

originality, and in personal voice which come “within” (p. 41). The importance of the

poststructuralist is very important because it shows the authors originality, and creativity in

his/her writing.

As we see in our modern days many people have chosen to be members of one or many

communities, groups, with whom they share social, political professional, or recreational interest

(p. 325). People are drawn to different aspects as ways of been part of a discourse community.

John talks about the different discourse communities like social/cultural, professional, and

academic. John (2017) also adds that members of communities will oppose a community leader,

or try to change the rules of the game, and by extension the content and argument from shared

genres (p.332). There’s always going to be a conflict in different discourse communities. Once

that happens the discourse community can be altered in either a good way or bad way. How John

finishes of is by concluding that most professional academics know the rules of dialogue, like

knowing what topics are trending or “hot”, how to discuss these topics in ways appropriate for
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the readers of their genres, and the usage of date, narratives, and nonlinear in order to support

their arguments (p.337). By knowing this now a person can know how not to come in

unnecessary provocation. It also proves that the elements amongst discourse communities are

similar, yet they differ based upon the discourse.

Methods

For this research project an interview was conducted. Survey was not used. In the

discourse. The class also used observation to collect artifacts. The research used primary and

secondary sources. The research was primarily done in the confines of the university library

which is a perfect way to get a good source.

Discussion

Discourse Communities are a very important part of the rhetorical criteria, According to

Swales (1990). Important factors of this is a sociorhetorical discourse community, for this to be

in used it must have discourse community, the primary determinants of linguistic behavior are

functional, since a discourse community consists of a group of people who link up in order to

pursue objectives that are prior to those of socialization and solidarity, even if these latter should

consequently occur (p. 220) It specifies that certain characteristics are needed to better support

the discourse community. For example, they must have common public goals,

intercommunication, information and feedback, genres, vocab, and hierarchy of experts. Many of

the things Swale has talked about authors can agree with his writing. Swale provides that nor is a

centrality to the family, work, money, education, and so on (p. 226). Discourse communities are

very important as it can be seen in the Characteristics.

Common goals
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The RWS class exhibited common public goals. According to one of Swales,

characteristics of discourse community is sharing a common goal (Swales, 1990, p. 220). In our

RWS class we all seem to have goal to reach. It can be either finishing the class with an A or

gaining knowledge from the professor and his teaching to use it later in classes, but a better

example would be to learn how to write properly at a college level. A good way we enhanced

this was by writing essays, working in groups, and writing reflections. According to Swales

(1990), a common goal, is setting a common objective to strive to (p. 220) examples Swales

provides for us are people in the Parliament, or Senate that they all have one goal (p.220). The

examples provided by Swales show that RWS 1301 works towards the same goal, in which

Swales talked about.

Mechanisms

Mechanism in RWs 1301 exist in our class. It can vary depending of the community. This

is one of Swales (1990) community course teachings. It says that it can either be about meetings,

telecommunications, correspondence, newsletters, conversations and so forth in our community

(p. 221). A great example would be with conversations. In class our professor always encourages

us to talks among each other, and to go to office hours for help. In Swales article he gives an

example a Café and how crucial it is for the workers to talks among themselves to work efficient

(p. 221). As this class continues, we keep pushing our boundaries on what type of mechanism we

may use in our writing, and that increases our knowledge.

Intercommunication

In our RWS 1301 class the practice of Intercommunication amongst us students exist.

Swales (1990) states that the communication within a discourse community will ultimately vary

depending on the nature of the tasks at hand (p. 221). Our Class when answering a question, or

topic presented to us. We all have the similar or the same skills in writing and reading. This goes
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to prove that in our RWS 1301 class the practice of Intercommunication amongst us students

does exist, and makes our class have one of the characteristics of a discourse community. . The

RWS 1301 community also uses Blackboard to communicate by emails and to converse with

others in the community on the task at hand. This allows for students, and the professor to

interchange ideas, and fulfill the necessary intercommunication amongst the class.

Genres

In our RWS class we do have some genre. As a class we discuss different things and

According to Swales (1990). They interact (in speech and writing); they originate, receive and

respond to the same kind of messages for the same purposes. They have an approximately

similar range of genre skills to involve appropriacy of topics, the form, function and positioning

of discourse elements (p.221). In RWS 1301 we use genre to know what our topic is going to be

based out of. For example, our Rhetorical Analysis we had to know what our topic genre was so

we could know how to approach the writing.

Specialized Language

The use of specialized vocabulary is used within the RWS 1301 community. According

to Swales (1990) states that communities have their own specialized language that only members

in the community can recognize (p.222) A specialized community in vocabulary is important

each member of the community to understand one another in which makes communication a lot

easier. Swales (1990) later states that if an outsider can decode the language, then the community

can no longer be considered a discourse community (p. 222). In the RWS 1301 we see that we

have our own language that outsiders cannot recognize, but not in a different language but a

different way of using the language to further our writing.

Hierarchy
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In our RWs 1301 class we see that we have a Hierarchy, or ranking system. According to

Swales (1990), there’s always a new member that can replace a more experienced member by

death or in involuntary ways (p. 222). A great example of this is in our classroom its self. As the

students we are learning from an expert which would be the professor. As a student we should

try to reach his level of mastery in the English language to better improve our selves to one day

be as proficient in English as our professor was. For one to progress there must be a Hierarchy to

learn from. We can see this apply in our RWS 1301 we have a perfect Hierarchy to follow.

Conclusion

Once overviewing the RWS 1301 class it’s clear to see that this class meets the standards

of a discourse community. It flows with the material that Porter, and Swales described by their

examples. It’s important that as a class we have a greater understanding in communication in

orders to be successful as a whole. A goal cannot be achieved if it’s not that we use

communication and use the characteristics provided by the authors. As demonstrated a discourse

community cannot work without its characteristics, and criteria to make this course possible.
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References

Johns. (2017). Discourse Communities, Discourse Communities and Communities of

Practice.

Porter. J. (1986). Intertextuality and the Discourse Community. Rhetoric Review, 5(1),

34-47

Swales, JS. (1990). “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in

Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP