Running head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Jonathan Talavera

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

September 26, 2018

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Abstract

There is no abstract for this paper

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Discourse Community Ethnography

The question that is being asked is this class a discourse community and according to

Swales characteristics it qualifies as one. The six characteristics of a discourse community are

common public goal, intercommunication, info and feedback, genres, specialized vocabulary,

and hierarchy. Although we are all different we work together using different methods and

discuss things to solve a problem or explain how something works. Our class is a discourse

community and works together to solve a common goal.

Literature Review

Swales (1990) defines a discourse community as a group of people with common public

goals (p. # 220) some of these bring people together. Swales provides an example of a discourse

community in the Hong Kong study circle. He talks about how this group provides the six

requirements to be a discourse community and provides a through explanation. The group has a

wide variety of members around the world and they provide topics and discussions that must

deal with the genre or topic of the group. Even though not everyone speaks the same language

the group will find a way to discuss the interest of the group to the others by translating or asking

another member to explain it to them (p.# 223).

According to Wardle and Downs (2002) over the course of school you have done many

mistakes and they were counted wrong but that’s not a bad thing that revision is connected to a

characteristic of discourse community. This gave the student a feeling that they had to always do

it a certain way or else it was wrong. This chapter brought light upon the many mistakes that

students make and how the teachers mark all the mistakes you made. According to the author of

Writing about Writing teachers only showed us the mistakes that we made. They never thought

about the thought or ideas that we put into the essay which is very true. This chapter also gives
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you steps to help assist academic reading and writing. An example they used to help bring up

another subject and introduce more questions is the phrase the present research tries to clarify (p.

# 23) found in the Writing about Writing textbook . The author also talks about how people will

try and predict what the person is going to say or type out.

Sherin (2002) provides insights into discourse in math and tells us that a discourse

community can be created for any subject and can still relate to others common goal. The author

of this article uses a middle school math class as an example for a discourse community (p.#

220). The teacher of the class tries to keep the students learning while working as a group and

tries to increase their knowledge of math as they are working together in groups. The groups of

students can be considered a discourse community because of Swales characteristics. All the

students of the class have a common goal to pass the class and the students communicate to each

other to try and solve a math problem. They also provide insight on each other’s work telling

them they did something wrong or that it was done right.

Kain and Wardle (2002) are unique writers they both came up with the idea of activity

theory to explain the different ways discourse community’s solve problems. The authors describe

how activity theory helps people understand how different community’s carry out their activities.

They encourage students to use activity theory to help understand certain historical text or how

people live in such bad conditions (p. # 402). An example the authors use is the tools that are

developed by computer science. Normally you would think the items or tools that are created

would be used on a computer, but they can go into any electronic system and innovate machines

that are in the hospital or schools. A way to figure out how you or a group of people can achieve

your goals is to create an activity system where you and other people work together to achieve

those goals.
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Methods

The methods that were used to find information on this class varies between all three. The

secondary sources that were used was Swales, Porter, Kain and Wardle these articles provided

insight into discourse communities. There are artifacts that fit into certain characteristics of

Swales description providing evidence on discourse communities. During the class students

observed the professor while taking pictures of information and asking questions in class that

will further develop their knowledge of the subject.

Discussion

This class shares a common goal. According to Swales, a common goal is something that

everyone in the group wants to achieve (p. # 220). This can be incorporated into other classes

such as math or engineering. Sherin provides an example of a middle school math class they

have a common of passing the class this encourages them to work harder. For this class our

common goals are to pass this class and to graduate from college. Another example is the goal of

wanting to graduate with straight A’s for all classes. Our discourse community exist to provide

knowledge and to teach the students how to become a better writer.

Over the course of class everyone has a conversation with each other this can be

described as intercommunication. According to Swales, intercommunication is the action of

talking amongst each other to define a certain statement or action that was done (p. # 221).

Intercommunication is a characteristic of a discourse community and is used a lot in our

discourse community. An example of this is when a student speaks to the professor and starts a

conversation. By talking to each other they are having a conversation amongst each other.
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Another example of intercommunication is the students texting and talking amongst each other.

Texting is a form of intercommunication since both people are communicating to each other.

Although this form of conversation may not be a descriptive it can still provide knowledge on a

subject or person.

In a discourse community students or members provide info to each other and give their

feedback on it this can be described as info and feedback. According to Swales, info and

feedback is important to practice in a group due to the many mistakes that could happen with a

bad source or misspelled word (p.# 221). For example, during class students provide information

to each other and provide insight as to how they can make their paper better. Another example is

our professor he provides feedback on our work and gives insight on research papers to help

make the paper better and to improve our writing skills.

Genres can be described as different types of reading material and is used to help provide

info on a subject. According to Swales, the genres is how things get done and can have multiple

genres that include articles, and other material (p.# 221). In a college class you don’t use many

other genres other than a text book, fictional books, and nonfiction books because these types of

genres can provide information about certain subjects and information on how to solve

something. For example, a text book we use often called Writing about Writing provides insight

about discourse community’s and other subjects. This text book is a type of genre that is used a

lot in colleges around the world. Another example is comic books although it may not provide

the best information for a class it can prove as some ones view on how humans are viewed as

heroes.

When a student is writing a research paper the professor expects the student to use

specialized vocabulary that changes up your regular vocabulary. According to Swales, it is a key
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factor in making your paper feel exciting and interesting, so the reader doesn’t get bored reading

your paper. An example of a specialized vocabulary can be doxa which means popular opinion

or common belief. Students can use this word to describe other people’s opinion in a paper and

in our discourse community. Furthering our vocabulary will provide a positive outcome for the

student’s papers and for their education.

Hierarchy can be described as different levels of something where someone or something

is always higher, in a discourse community hierarchy can be a higher level of education.

According to Swales, if you can have a professor that knows more and can provide more

information to you. For example, a professor from another class may not know a lot about

discourse community but can provide information about a group he is in. This relates to our

discourse community since we use sources that provide information on different discourse

communities’

Our discourse community has all six characteristics provided by Swales and allows us to

use some of these characteristics. We incorporate some of these characteristics into our research

papers to help prove a point. Such as using specialized vocabulary to bring interest to a certain

subject or topic. By learning from other professors or any person that provides information can

benefit the professor by learning more about a certain subject or topic. By incorporating these

characteristics that will prove positive on our ability to make the research paper more exciting.

As well as develop our ability to work together and accomplish the goal of graduating.

Conclusion

Our class can qualify as discourse community due to the characteristics that are provided

by Swales. These characteristics provide insight as to how a discourse community operates and
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works together to solve a common goal. In class the professor and students talk about subjects

and discuss how they can make an article or sentence sound better.
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References

Swales. J. (2014). The concept of discourse community. Wardle and Downs, 215-28

Kain, D., & Wardle, E. (2014). Activity theory: An introduction for the writing classroom.

Wardle and Downs. 273-283.

Sherin, M. G. (2002). A balancing act: Developing a discourse community in a mathematics

classroom. Journal of mathematics teacher education, 5(3), 205-233.

Wardle. E., & Downs. D. (2002) Threshold Concepts: Why do your ideas about writing matter.

Writing About Writing, chapter 1, 1-30