Discourse Community Research Paper

Josh Ladrigan Professor Gibson Intermediate Composition 6 February 2023 Sales Associates in the GFS Community Discourse communities can be found wherever you go, and many people are involved with a variety of communities. People may be involved in these communities through their profession, interests, or hobbies. These communities can be any group that uses a variation of communication to reach certain goals. The true definition of a discourse community is a group that has objectives or purposes, and utilizes communication to accomplish those objectives. The discourse community I am going to discuss is the community within my workplace, Gordon Food Service (GFS).

Owls are symbolic for their stereotype of them being wise and care takes. Ultmas Owl plays the role of being the care taker of Antonio and his family. For instance, “I heard an owl singing, and I heard its whirling wings. I saw is wise face and fluttering at the window” (pg.100. This shows how even when they were lifting the curse of Lucas, the owl was always there.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in discourse communities. According to James Porter, "a discourse community is a group of people bound by a common interest who communicate through channels and discourse is regulated (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Porter 38-39).  John Swales, however, states that a community can only be a true discourse community if they meet six requirements: they have to share clearly stated goals; they have to use a mechanism of communication; they offer feedback and information; utilize one or more genres of text, the group uses specific lexis; and they have old members with new ones (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Swales 471-473). Under these guidelines, Mike Rose 's mother Rosie is in a discourse community because

As a Sacramento State college student, I have observed that every student belongs to different discourse communities. Every student becomes part of an academic discourse community when declaring a major or minor. Gary D. Schmidt and William J. Vande Kopple define academic discourse community as “a group of people who share ways to claim [understand], organize, communicate, and evaluate meanings.” The academic discourse communities that I belong to will help me in the future to have experience working with others. Being part of the Sacramento State community, I have perceived that I belong to two academic discourse communities that have impacted my life in significant ways.

No matter the exact distinctions, John Swales proposes six defining characteristics of all discourse communities noting they each have publicly agreed upon set of common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication, mechanisms

The circles around the eyes of an owl are believed to be made up of the fingernails of spirits. Owls were also believed to be messengers from beyond the grave and would deliver warnings to people who had broken tribal taboos. Even to hear an owl hooting was considered to be an unlucky omen. Native American Indians are a deeply spiritual people and they communicated their history, thoughts, and beliefs from generation to generation through Symbols and Signs such as the Owl symbol.

In the article "The Concept of a Discourse Community" by John Swales (1990). He aimed to define the meaning of a discourse community; then he carefully deconstructs discourse community into six fundamental attributes that are important for recognizing a discourse community. Swales’ definition of a discourse community is a group that has objectives or purposes, and utilize communication to accomplish those objectives. He states that a discourse community is presented as a more practical and purposeful gathering than speech fraternity or speech group. The six essential characteristics that Swales (1990) belief to be the core of a discourse community are its goals, intercommunication, participation, genres, Lexis, and expertise.

A discourse community I took part of was my High School’s Varsity Baseball Team. Sacramento High’s Baseball team was very competitive, due to the fact that it was the least favored sport at Sac High, so we were always trying to prove ourselves better than any other sport. We had to do many things in order to try and get fans to come out and watch us play. The team consisted of six-teen players and four coaches whom worked extremely hard the past four years to finally earn the title of Champions.

Being Thrown into a Discourse Community As time passes, the human race goes through a process of automatically putting themselves into groups that we think may suit us best. Theres so called groups are portrayed as discourse communities. John Swales (1990), an analyst of written communication, claimed that “discourse communities [are] groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. This means that we generally go where we feel most comfortable, where others like us have the same goals and mindsets alike.

In my interview with Jeffrey, a student-employer that works in Cate Restaurant, I asked what is his main goal of working in Cate Restaurant, Jeffrey stated that he is working there to earn money to pay his bills, and just for the sensation of having a job and not staying at home with nothing to do (Jeffrey). On the other hand, in the midst of talking with Adam another student-employer at Cate Restaurant, he stated, “ …I’m there because first I want to gain money, and second because I want to help the community growing and supporting other students” (Adam). Analyzing both answers carefully, the trend goes towards the question of if the individuals of Cate Restaurant share similar goals, which they do not, making it plausible to accept that there can be in fact an exception on Swales’ characteristics of a discourse community. On the other hand, if both Jeffrey and Adam would have said that they would fight to contribute to the community, it could be more believable that a discourse community has to possess common goals in order to be a discourse community. Yet, the reason that Jeffrey and Adam not having the same goals towards the community does not imply that the Cate Restaurant cannot be a discourse community due to the fact that rather than common goals, they still possess traits that can be identified.

In this quote, the owl witnesses the murder of King Duncan and decided to advertise it. In addition, the quote sites the owl witnessing the heinous murder of the King before the town’s people observed it. The owl’s ability to view the occurrence that the town’s people were unable to see, presented him with a humanistic knowledge that surpassed the town’s people cognition.

My windsock, represent Scout Finch, with the symbol overalls. I chose Scout because she 's the main character and had a big impact on the book. I choose overall for her symbols because she continues to wear them as fighting against people trying to attempt her to be a lady. She 's not the average girl who dresses up and acts nice. She the type of girl who would fight with her fist instead of her mind.

Racism Trough Discourse Analysis Analyzing racism and gender discrimination in a white/black society discourse and its' reproduction in white elite culture. Based on educational researchers that consider racism discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior in characteristics, abilities and qualities. As defining discourse concept that spoken is written communications that provides a big supporting filed of racism application, beside the structure of text on minorities of words, mental, socio-cultural , politics, effects or function. The discrimination defines the unjust treatment of different categories of people through races, ages, sex, etc... . In addition, white elite is

Every field has its own set of specialized unique vocabularies, and for those people who are in the same field, we call them discourse community. According to “ Discourse Community” by Eric Borg, “A discourse community is the discussion and analysis in applied linguistics these groups are gathered into communities.” (1) In other words, a discourse community is a group of people who share commonalities in the same field that they specialize in. Biotechnology Innovation Organization is one of the discourse community that “focuses on biocellular process to develop technologies and products that are beneficial to living things and our planet”(bio.org).

Before I read the articles about Swales . I had no clue at all about what a discourse community was, but the idea once was known, was quite simple . A discourse community according to Swales, has six illustrative characteristics . First of all, a discourse community must have a common set of public goals. The community must also have various methods of communication between their members.