University of Memphis / ENGL 1010

Discourse Community Analysis

Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to help you more fully understand how discourse communities use
language to function and accomplish their purposes and goals.
Description
Your goal is to compose an interesting description and insightful analysis of the language practices (spoken
and written) of a discourse community of your own choosing.
Getting Started
Identify a discourse community that interests or intrigues you. You may be a member of that discourse
community; you might be an outsider. For our purposes, a discourse community could be any group of
people who identify themselves as a group. Some possibilities include a church group, a fraternity or
sorority, a club or team, a social organization, an academic or professional organization, etc.
If you are uncertain whether a group is indeed a discourse community, apply Swale’s six characteristics of
a discourse community (220-22) to see if you can find answers to the following questions:
√ Why does the group exist? What does the group do? What are its shared goals?
√ How do group members communicate with one another (e.g., meetings, phone calls, e-mail, text
messages, newsletters, reports, evaluation forms, blogs, online bulletin boards, etc.)?
√ What are the purposes of the group’s communications (share information, reinforce values,
make money, improve performance, offer support, declare identity, etc.)?
√ Which of the above communications can be considered genres (i.e., textual responses to
recurring situations that all group members recognize and understand)?
√ What kinds of specialized language (lexis) do group members use in their conversations and in
their written genres?
√ Who are the “old timers” in the group with expertise? Who are the newcomers with less
expertise? How do newcomers learn the appropriate language, genres, and knowledge of
the group?
Collecting Information
Once you have identified a discourse community to study, you will need to engage in the following
research activities:
• Observe and take detailed notes of members of the discourse community while they are engaged
in a shared group activity. (What are they doing? What kinds of things do they say? What
do they write? How do you who is “in” and who is “out”?)
• Collect anything people in that community read or write (i.e., their genres)––“official”
publications, newsletters, blogs, forms, IMs, texts, etc.
• Interview at least one member of the discourse community. (How long have you been involved
with this group? Why are you involved? What do the terms X. Y, and Z mean? How do
you communicate with the group? How did you learn to write things to the group?)

Analyzing Information
As you gather and review information about the discourse community, what catches your interest most?
What stands out to you about that community? What surprises you? Listed below are some additional
questions that can help you dig more deeply for your analysis of the group:
• Are there conflicts within the discourse community? If so, about what? How do their genres
address those conflicts?
 • Which genres help the discourse community work toward their goals most effectively?
• Do some participants in the community have difficulty speaking or writing within it? Why?
• Who has authority in the discourse community? How was that authority established? How
authority demonstrated in written and oral language?
Planning and Drafting
Because your goal is to compose an interesting, insightful analysis of a discourse community, you will use
the material you have gathered from your observations and interview(s). An analysis is your interpretation
of all the information you collect. Strive to make sense of everything you learn about the discourse
community and convey that to the reader.
Adopt the impartial, analytical stance of a researcher conducting a study. Writing in third-person is
appropriate (unless, perhaps, you are a member of the discourse community). Render others’ words fairly.
Your comments and explanations should provide your readers with important background information and
connections to the course readings where appropriate.
As you draft your analysis, there are many ways you can arrange your material. The suggestions below are
not a template, but they may help you consider the types of information you should include:
• Begin by explaining what a discourse community is by quoting and paraphrasing some of the
readings in our textbook (e.g., Swales, McCarthy)
• Identify the discourse community you studied by explaining what makes it discourse community
(referring to Swales’s criteria would be useful) and what makes it worth studying
• Describe how you studied the discourse community
• Discuss in detail what you discovered about the discourse community (use examples and quotes
from your notes, interview, and texts you collected) and analyze what makes it significant
to understanding that group
• Include a works cited page (for interviews, genres, etc.)

What Makes It Effective?

An effective analysis is vivid: rich with details, examples, descriptions, and insights.
A reader should finish reading your analysis and have a clear sense of the discourse community you
studied. If asked, a reader could find answers in your analysis to the following questions (in no particular
order):
What makes this a discourse community? What makes it unique? Interesting?
What matters to members of the community? What do they do? What do they value?
How is membership in the community established? Maintained?
How do members use spoken and written language to accomplish their goals?

An effective portrait will demonstrate that you have done sufficient research; organized the material to
present key ideas; and edited and proofread to eliminate grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
Final drafts should be at least 1750 words. Be sure to include an interesting title.

DUE DATES
Draft for class writers’ workshop:

Final Draft: