The Discourse Community In 'What Is Literacy' By James Paul Gee

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).

A discourse community has yet to have a solid definition; though some have come close. One of the people who have attempted to define discourse community is John Swales. Swales, rather than use a standard definition, chose to create a set list of criteria. With the help of the criteria and my interview of Dane (a member of my chosen discourse community) I will discuss how my chosen group, Communications 101, is a discourse community. Communications 101 (Comm. 101) is a college credit class that helps the students in the class learn the “fundamental principles of verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual communication with an introduction to relational and organizational communication, public communication, and media studies.

Any group of individuals who share a common goal, and who communicate distinctly in efforts to achieve their goal can be referred to as a discourse community. There are certain features that distinguish a discourse community from any other society. In the article, The Concept of a Discourse Community, John Swales identifies a discourse community by six different characteristics that not only describe a discourse community; he also illustrates the process of joining that specific community. In the article Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Work Places, Elizabeth Wardle discusses the engagement process of newcomers into a discourse community. According to Patricia Bizzell, the term discourse community suggests “a community bound

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Discourse Community about soccer sport team Although communication is regarded as art of sending a piece of information from one entity to another, it is perceived differently as far as discourse community is concerned. Essentially, the way communication takes place discourse community one needs to have a better understanding of certain terminologies and certain values in order to be in consensus with what the rest in that discourse community are discussing or to generally conform to that community. With regards to discourse community about soccer sport team, an individual needs to be familiar with the team

Science is often stereotyped as a primarily independent endeavor. Most people will never step foot inside a research lab during their lifetime, so their only understanding of a scientific researcher is the one portrayed in books and movies -- the smart, eccentric, socially-isolated male who spends all his time in the lab and doesn’t do much else. People assume that biomedical research is only for introverts, since it is often misrepresented as pipetting miniscule amounts of liquids for hours on end. In addition, researchers are assumed to be unusually intelligent. How else are they going to cure cancer or discover life on Mars?

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.

Porter says “A discourse community is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated.” To break it down, it’s having a conversation with other writers through writing. An example of this that comes to mind is when you first join a party, you’re obviously not just going to begin talking, you will first listen and see what anyone hasn’t said yet and then you elaborate. It’s the same with this concept, you’re having a conversation but it probably wouldn't be smart to repeat something someone has already said.

In James Paul Gee’s essay “What Is Literacy?’ , he uses the key term ‘discourses’. Gee explains discourses as a placement in society or the belonging to a group in society. Gee states that it come from an individual’s saying, doings, or just their identity. As Gee elaborates on discourses he breaks them down into different areas in which relate to one another.

An important discourse community that was a part of my life was my volleyball team during my four years of high school. I started playing my first year going into high school and continued until I graduated. Until now I wasn’t even aware that would even be considered a discourse community, but it fits all of the qualifications of Swales’ definition of a discourse community. Goals

Creations, like most things in life, are improvable. Ideas and theories are always evolving into different ideas or more sophisticated ones. Discourse communities is a term that has been debated over the years. Three of those debaters are James Paul Gee, James P. Porter, and John Swales. In this essay I will analyze what each of these writers see as the definition of a discourse community while comparing specific points that each of them have regarding their personal view on the subject.

Discourse Community : why or why not? In his book, Genre Analysis: English in Academics and Research Settings, linguist John Swales defined discourse community as “groups that have shared goals or purposes, and use communication such as mechanism of intercommunication, participatory mechanism, genre and lexis to achieve their goals."(220). He asserts that the six unique attributes of a discourse community. I applied his specifications to one of my communities that I belonged to prove why my community is a discourse community, and not a speech community.

I would like to explain why this is the game I chose to focus on, this game is the most recent of the COD franchise out there but it also captures what COD is mostly about. To maintain the idea of discourse community from Swales article, I would like to define it. A discourse community is a group that has goals or purposes and work, communicate together to achieve them (Swales, 22). To identify a discourse community, there is six qualifications that should be displayed. These qualifications include having common public goals, a way to communicate with one another, giving back feedback, a specific language set for the community, genres the community produces and having members have relevant knowledge and can keep being passed down to others.

As Swales (2020) suggests, one of the defining features of a discourse community is its members' possession of "a certain degree of authority or credibility" (p. 555) within the community. In the case of the NBA Analytics and Statistics community, mastery of specialized language is a key marker of this authority. Community members who can use this language effectively are seen as more knowledgeable and competent and are, therefore, more likely to be trusted and respected by other members of the community. However, this use of specialized language also can reinforce power relationships within the community. Swales (2020) notes discourse communities often have a "hierarchical social structure"(p. 554) in which some members are more authoritative than others.

A discourse in this understanding is not based on the classical distinction between thought and action, it “(…) is about the production of knowledge through language. But it is itself produced by a practice: “discursive practice” – the practice of producing meaning” (Hall, 2006:165). It follows that because all social practices involve meaning, all practices necessarily have a discursive side. A discourse is comparable to what sociologists would call an ‘ideology’. It is composed of statements and/or beliefs that shape knowledge in the interest of one particular group.

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.