Project 3 Intro & Conversation

If you are not actively interested in English, there is a very good chance that you have never heard of a discourse community. However, whether you know what it is or not, there is also a very good chance that you are a part of one. While a discourse community can be defined in many different ways, most can agree that it is a group of people who have common goals and ideas, who work together to further said goals and ideas. A discourse community does not necessarily have to be in a central location; you can be a part of a discourse community and have another member of it thousands of miles away. Although a discourse community could probably be described as simply a social group, it is so much more than that. People that are in the same discourse community share so many goals; they have many of the same skills. In cases where their skills are different, they always complement each other and some individuals make up for what others may lack. Discourse communities will have members that may see eye to eye, but it will also have members that may disagree on several topics. Take, for example, the discourse community that I will be discussing: a choir made up of twenty girls. Any time you put twenty girls in a room together, you are going to have some disagreements, but, as a discourse community, we still shared the same goals and broad ideas as each other.

                Many authors have discussed and expanded upon the idea of discourse communities, including (but not limited to) John Swales, James Paul Gee, Elizabeth Wardle, Amy Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff. While many of these writers’ ideas differ a bit, they still interconnect in many ways, and give a little more insight into how discourse communities actually work. Swales probably gives the most descriptive analysis, finding six criteria that make up a discourse community. These criteria deal mainly with how the group communicates. James Paul Gee believes that you do not bring yourself into a discourse community, but are automatically a part of it. Gee maintains that there is no way to be “halfway” in a discourse community, you are either part of it or you’re not, and this is mainly an involuntary thing. Devitt, Bawarshi, and Reiff look at discourse communities and how they relate to ethnomethodology, using comparisons to juries, patient medical history forms, and teachers and students. Wardle basically ties all three definitions together, using research that she did with a subject named “Alan” and how he dealt with joining a new discourse community. Wardle explains discourse communities using identity and how it relates to ones writing, which makes up the discourse community.

                All of these authors have their own definitions for what a discourse community is, and in this paper I hope to look at those definitions and hopefully expand upon some of them. I wish to add a little of my own conversation to what these writers have already contributed.