Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Koral Gardea

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS1301

Dr. Vierra

September 27, 2018

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Abstract
This paper has no abstract.
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Discourse Community Ethnography

Swales recognized the existence of specialized communities or groups within society. He

defines this as a discourse community, which encounters six major characteristics that are

necessary to identify them. However, these discourse communities, which differ to speech

communities, had never been defined. Until it is understood how his definition works, there will

be no difference between the communities, which would make the RWS 1301 class no different

from a Friday night bridge club. In his article, he determines a discourse community as a group

who have goals (somehow making the world a better place), using communication. Applying

Swales’ characteristics to the RWS 1301 proves that it is a discourse community.

Literature Review

According to Swales (1990), a discourse community is a group of people who use

communication to express their agreed goals and purposes (p. 220). Swales states that a

discourse community has six criteria that can help defining them. He encounters some issues

through the article which are that some people mistake the idea and think it can only be

scholarly, which is wrong as he proves with an example of his own Hong Kong hobby group. He

also mentions the difference of a discourse and speech communities; many of the differences are

that speech communities are inherited by birth or adoption, while discourse recruit its member.

The main difference as he says is the medium. Literacy eliminates locality, member are more

likely to interact with other member in different places making it more likely to receive

feedback, responding to writing rather than talking about the past (p.219-220)

There are many different concepts that can be related to the definition of discourse

communities. To understand how individuals, engage in communities and work together to do a

certain objective, Kain and Wardle (2002) use activity theory. This facilitates the way
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communities are seen and understand (p. 397). According to this authors, every community has

its own unique characteristics (which are some-what similar to John Swales’ characteristics to

discourse communities). Researches who want to understand how members of a community

manage their activities and what tools they use to achieve their goals for completing them use

activity theory. Activity theory has an issue; in most cases, people cannot tell what the rules for

the things they do, or how they do what they do because they are only aware of it subconsciously

(p. 403). Researchers might have trouble completing activity theory triangles by themselves, or

even if they study closely and interview participants, we risk not having enough or correct

information.

Even though many discourse communities have an established common goal, and many

times this are achieved through actual scholarly ways, there is a specific issue. According to

Porter (2017), a discourse community may have a well-established ethos, or it may have

competing factions and indefinite boundaries (p. 249). This means, that every time a manuscript

is written, it must meet the characteristics of its discourse community contributing knowledge to

the specific field. As he mentions through the reading, almost any text has plagiarism, without

noticing, our mind saves information read in the individuals life, therefore everything we know

we have taken it from another place, we present as a new idea because we think it is; but we are

just writing it in another form with different words (p. 550). Therefore, to be a discourse

community, they must follow the same rule ‘share a common public world’ but most of times

they are not contributing nothing, since everything said was already known and wrote by another

person.

The last author encountered, gives a critic on what he belief is missing from the definition

of discourse communities regarding John Swales. According to Erik Borg (2003), discourse
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communities are ways we use language to obtain a certain goal, but there are still questions to be

answered since it is still not well defined (p. 399). He argues that ‘the concept of discourse

communities developed from the concepts of speech community and interpretive community and

sits somewhat uneasily between them.’ (p.1) He continues by stating ways the definition of

discourse communities that have not been well developed. Thing as how important is speech or if

its own purpose is the main characteristic of a discourse community. He claims that this idea

needs development.

Methods

For this research paper, we used surveys, interviews and observations. The literacy review

section mostly covers the interviews made. We investigated four different authors who opinions

on the topic were different. They presented their own definitions and set of rules of different

concepts who are very similar to John Swales definition of discourse communities. In Many

cases the even go back to mention his presence in their text. Survey and observations are all

thought the whole ethnography. Starting with the way the class talked about the topic for weeks,

to writing and making notes on what would be important to have in the text. The three methods

used were vital for the existence of the paper.

Discussion

The first characteristic the RWS1301 class exhibits is common pubic goals. These

common goals are destined to do a significant improvement the community. According to John

Swales, the outcome of this goals might be a formally inscribed paper or something more tactic

(p. 220). As a university, writing class in one of the main goal is to educate the students involved
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in the class. If a student is educated, he will pass the class, which will lead to a bachelor’s

degree. A bachelor’s degree makes the community a better place because the people who were

once in the discourse community of RWS are now creating an impact in the country they live.

John Swales second characteristic is intercommunication. The RWS1301 class

demonstrates this by communicating to one another and the professor outside the classroom by

applying technology. Most of our assignments and discussion are due over the internet. This way

it is easy for students to contact any person any time. For example, the class uses Blackboard as a

way of keeping in touch with what assignments students need to upload. Also, email any

questions they might have about what they need to do. The new way of communicating is One

Drive, this allows the people involved in any assignment they have to see how the other person is

typing or modifying the document from wherever they are at the time.

The RWS1301 displays the third characteristic of info and feedback through participatory

mechanisms. The significance of this is that the discourse communities are involved with what

other participants have to say and are willing to answer and make questions about the subject

they being exposed to. This element is shown in many ways. In every class, there are open

discussions among classmates, sharing ideas, asking questions, answering to classmates, team

work, and our professor giving the class are various examples of this. This makes every lecture

very participative and the attention others give is very noticeable.

The RWS1301 have genres that accomplish this component of a discourse. Genres are

artifacts used in the community. They are created by a human being, something tactile and

physical used specifically for a purpose in the discourse. This, as the next characteristic, are only

used in the classroom. Genres used in RWS are physical things like the mandatory composition

notebook the professor specifically asked for on the first day of class. Other artifacts are the e-
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portfolio we created as an assignment of the Writing about Writing textbook required to have a

successful grade.

The RWS1301 also have what John Swales state as specialized vocabulary. This a

vocabulary that is not used anywhere else, or it would not make sense to use it because other

people would not understand the terms. This language specifically for a community involved.

Some examples of specialized vocabulary seen in the RWS1301 class are terms, for example

APA style, AESL, or even the word memorandum. Taking this last example, many people do not

know what it is or for what is used, therefore it would be unnecessary talking about the term with

someone outside the writing class.

Lastly is that every discourse community has a hierarchy. This characteristic declares that

a discourse community has people who have been involved for many time and novices (who are

people who recently got involved and are learning about the goals and elements of their

community. Eventually learners are destined to take the place of the teachers, in the classroom

this is shown as the goal, which is a bachelor’s degree in the top of the hierarchy, and then

professors are superior to the students, who would be located at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Students involved in the class are studying many types of different careers, but eventually one of

this students will become a professor in our class section, writing. Replacing by this a professor

who will retire or die.

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Conclusion

RWS1301 completely represent a discourse community according to the definition and

characteristics John Swales states in his article ‘The Concept of Discourse Community.’ In this

article, he states six characteristics that are necessary for being a discourse community. In the

discussion section, I provided the evidence and the examples needed to prove that statement.

Even though authors as Porter, Borg, Kain and Wardle attempt to give a different approach to

discourse communities there is no denial RWS 1301 successfully accomplish what it needs.

Researching about Discourse communities was a challenge. A discovery made is that

there are many misconceptions and definitions of what it is. Texts about similar definitions made

by different authors used in this ethnography could have influenced the way discourse

communities were interpreted and described through the essays made.

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References

Swales, J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. English in Academic and Research
Settings. Cambridge UP, Boston.
Donna K. (2002).Elizabeth W. Activity theory: An Introduction for the Writing classroom. East
Carolina University of Dayton
Porter, J. (2017). Intertextuality and the Discourse community. Writing about Writing. 542-552
Borg, E. (2003). Discourse community. ELT journal, 57(4), 398-400