Re-Read “The Concept of Community Discourse” and Annotate
- : Discourse Communities -John Swales. Group members or groups that share a way of being in the world. Ex: Everyone who lives in your dorm room; Everyone in a microbiology class. Most people are able to navigate and maintain many ‘Discourses’ (Referred to by James Gee).
- : Not only are people who share view of the world are discourse communities, but groups of people who share common goals or achievements. There are effective ways of reading other people, and discourse communities. James Gee argues that there are six distinct characteristics of Discourses, and by knowing what these are, it is possible to understand what kind, and how many discourses that you yourself may be a part of. Ann Johns addresses common questions retaining to discourse communities, and uses the term ‘communities of practice’ to explain them. Elizabeth Wardle, author of “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,” examines in depth how writers try to become ‘enculturated'(adept at the culture), of a new community. Wardle utilizes case studies of how writers can struggle to earn the respect of others who are already enculturated in the new community. Wardle connects discourse communicates to activity systems that have a common goal or idea.
- :Tony Mirabellie studies food service workers, and how they are ‘read’ from other people in the world. He coins the term ‘multiliteracies’ when describing them. In broad terms, each department or major is made up of at least one distinct discourse community.
Who is the writer of this article (like more than his name–what important, pertinent
info can you found out about him online)?
He is a linguist best known for his work on genre analysis, specifically tied to its application to rhetoric and discourse analysis.
Who do you think he imagined as his perfect audience of readers?
He imagined graduate students, majoring in English, perhaps maybe other professors/teachers in the English department.
What do you think, in your own words, is the issue this article is trying to address?
I think the issue in this article that he is trying to discuss is that there is a distinct amount of characteristics inside of a
discourse communities, and that it can be challenging for
others to read in on and understand people in other discourse communities.
In your own words, what do you think that Swales imagined as the gap between what he had found out about discourse community versus what his
readers already knew about the concept of discourse community?
I imagine the gap in knowledge the swales imagined between himself and his readers is the 6 characteristics that he believes to be needed for
defining a discourse community.
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