Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Branden Montero

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

September 26, 2018

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 2

Abstract

There is no abstract for this paper.

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 3

Discourse Community Ethnography

Using Swales’ characteristics, this class is a discourse community. In the readings by

Swales’s, there is a range of six different characteristics that the classroom fits into. The first one

being common public goals, the second intercommunication, the third info and feedback, the

fourth genres, the fifth specialized vocabulary, and the last one is hierarchy. During the research

there was many scholars who wrote on discourse communities and specific ways how they work

with Swales’ characteristics. Our classroom also relates to these topics that go together with

Swales. Using Swales’s characteristics, this class is a discourse community.

Literature review

Swales explains how a discourse community should be by using six different

characteristics. According to Swales (1990), it is not appropriate to identify a discourse

community as a speech community. According to Swales a speech community is centripetal,

which means that it tends to absorb people or bring them together. However, a discourse

community is centrifugal, which means that it tends to separate people into interest groups.

Speech communities also inherits their members by birth. While a discourse community tends to

recruit their member, by: persuading, training them. This is how it is inappropriate to identify a

discourse community as a speech community as they are overall polar opposites.

Kain and Wardle use an activity to help students understand the difference in the writing

process. In the section “Activity Theory” by Kain & Wardle (2003), the authors make a claim

how an activity theory can help us to understand how people in a community carry out activities

(p. 398). According to both Kain and Wardle a university or college is a perfect example of how

an activity theory works. In a university, it uses the same tools that an activity theory would in

order to understand how a community works. By using an activity theory, it helps to solve the
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 4

problem about how a community works and how the tools are able to work efficiently so that the

community is able to thrive without any conflict.

In a discourse community we write based on the discourse community that we decide to

be in. According to Porter (2017), intertextuality suggests that our goal should be to help

students learn to write for the discourse community they choose to join (p. 551). Porter uses an

example from Williams on how writers are not aware of the distinctive intertextuality of the

community. This means that writers are not aware of how selective intertextuality can be in that

community can be in that community. Part of the goals that Porter has set for the discourse

community is that he is trying to produce “social writers” who are fully involved in the

community. These goals will later be able to effect change into the communities as the writers

will have become “post-socialized writers.”

A discourse community can be broken up into smaller categories one being a speech community

and how it falls under a discourse community. According to Erik Borg (2003), a discourse

community is developed from a speech community. In a speech community refers to actual

people who recognize their language use as different from other users. Borg also explains how

the speech community interacts with each other as they communicate to accomplish goals. This

is a way that he agrees with swales and how a speech community relates to a discourse

community. A way that a discourse community and a speech community connect is through

people in the discourse community communicate with written communication and speech. This

is how Erik Borg agrees with Swales on how a speech community is part of a discourse

community.

Methods
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 5

Research methods used for this project included interview, surveys, and observations.

Throughout the course of this research we interviewed four different secondary sources. This

research also surveyed artifacts of Swales characteristics by finding photos to go along with each

characteristic. We did this by organized them according to Swales six characters. In the

classroom we observed other students by taking photos of them engaging in class. These were

the research methods that we used in order to see how the class fit into a discourse community.

Discussion

This class shares common goals according to Swales who claims that a community shares

goals that each person wishes to achieve (p. 220). An example of this for the class would be that

we all hope to pass the class, a way that this can be seen is through a transcript or even through

their grades on blackboard. The reason that we can all agree on this, is because no one wants to

fail and have to retake it and pay more money again to do so. This is bad for the society because

college is already a high amount to pay for. So, having to pay for another class that you took that

you didn’t pass is a waste of money and time.

The classroom also consists of intercommunication. Swales agreed that

intercommunication is how a community is able to communicate with each other in large groups

(p. 221). In the classroom we do this in many different ways. The first one using blackboard to

help us communicate with other students and comment on their reflections. The second thing that

we use is group work, while we are doing this we communicate with each other to get the things

done necessary to pass.

This classroom has info and feedback, Swales suggest that info and feedback is how two

different people interact with each other by giving them info on something and feedback about

their view on it (p. 221). Our classroom consists of this as there is info and feedback given with
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 6

our professor and student interaction. In the classroom the professor and the student share info

and feedback through one drive. The professor is able to provide feedback to the students by

editing and revising their essays through Microsoft OneDrive.

Our classroom contains genres, according to Swales genres are the tools that are used in a

discourse community (p. 221). In the class we have three different types of genres. The first one

is our Writing about Writing textbook, the second is our online one which is called our first-year

composition, and the last one we use is our composition notebook. These genres are necessary in

our success in the class.

We use a specialized vocabulary in our classroom. Swales suggest that a specialized

vocabulary that is used mainly and usually only in that community (p. 222). There are many

different types of vocabulary that we use. But the main three that we use are AESL this stands

for American Education Second Language, the second is Endoxa and the last one is rhetoric.

These three different vocabs are the ones that the people in our community will typically only

understand.

The last way that our class fits into Swales categories is by hierarchy. According to

Swales a hierarchy is when there is a leader or a master at the top of the pyramid (p. 222). At the

bottom is the learner. But the learner can always move up to be the leader as the previous leader

moves out. This can be seen in our class as our professor is the leader of the course that we are

taking. And we are the leaners learning about the course.

Conclusion

We claimed that our classroom is a type of discourse community based on Swales’

characteristics. Throughout the research we learned that in fact our classroom is a discourse
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 7

community. It can be seen in evidence that our classroom fits these categories in not only each of

them but it fits each one of these in multiple ways.

Through Swales characteristics, RWS 1301, is in fact a discourse community. It relates

greatly to speech communities and to common public goals, However, there are many other ways

that it relates, In which people in the community are aimlessly trying to reach. By doing this it

allows the opportunity to examine other groups and how they individually contribute to the

community, Swales’s characteristics are a great tool for research purposes to be able to identify

how communication plays a role in groups.

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 8

Reference

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic

and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21–32. Print.

Porter, J. E. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. Rhetoric Review, 5(1), 34-47.

Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/466015

Borg, E. (2003). Discourse community. ELT journal, 57(4), 398-400.

Kain, Donna, and Elizabeth Wardle. "Activity theory: An introduction for the writing

classroom." Wardle and Downs(2014): 273-283.