Chelsea Hunter

November 11, 2014

Discourse Community
Throughout this section of ENC1101, weve observed multiple views on the
concept of discourse communities. Writers such as Gee, Mirabelli, and Swales have
defined the term discourse communities each in their own way. All of the writers
weve read are a part of a discourse community in itself. I think the book
successfully tried to choose articles that resembled each other to show the audience
different views of the same concept, in order for college readers to fully understand
and find use out of the theories written about. Swales defined discourse
communities in six characteristics they all share. Mirabelli showed us the work that
goes into each professional discourse community. Gee doesnt even use the term
discourse community but instead categorizes it into primary discourse and
secondary discourse. With all these contradicting views, its only natural to assume
they cant all be right, this was something I struggled on. But on the contrary, they
are right in their own way. They are all looking at discourse communities in
different ways, characteristics versus professions versus backgrounds. Swales put it
the most basic in his article, The Concept of Discourse Community. He describes a
discourse community must include: a common goal, intercommunication, feedback,
a common genre, a specific lexis, and always changing, capable members. A
discourse community I am currently apart of is my sorority. Our common goal is to
help and extend our resources as an organization to outside communities. We
intercommunicate between our members and give feedback on social media and in

person at chapter every week. Our lexis is specific to all sororities, not just mine
individually. And we receive new members every year we deem acceptable to our
standards (Swales, 216). This is the main discourse community Im apart of but I
expect to be in a larger one once I graduate. Swales did teach me what to look for in
a discourse community but I am not sure that will benefit me in the future. The
traits he described are ones aware students inherently know. We unknowingly
identify discourse communities in order to fit in properly with society. Swales just
put a specific name to it. Gee describes how people blend into new discourse coming
from their old discourse. This contradicting article, Literacy, Discourse, and
Linguistics: Introduction peaked my interest. He says discourse is not about
grammar or writing or who has the best adjectives as I had previously thought. Its
the saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations this he calls
Discourse with a capital D. Discourses are a form of life with acts, beliefs and
words. Because he has this outlook on Discourse, he believes one cannot simply just
walk into another discourse and become apart of it, they must think like it too,
which cannot be taught. This is why he doesnt believe in apprentices (Gee, 1989).
After I graduate, I have quite a specific plan ahead. I plan to work in a
forensics lab for the government. This job is not an easy one to achieve, which is
why I thought the lessons of literary discourse were useful. When I think back on
the articles I dont think the characteristics Swales taught would be difficult in the
future, but I do see Gee as my biggest challenge. Gee explained my inevitable fate of
exclusion. Its impossible to fit in to this discourse community right away, even if I
was a genius I would still fail at thinking like a scientist. Only in the future, when I

have been around it for years will it come naturally. Then, when another new
graduate student is welcomed they will assume I am completely encompassed into
this strange, new discourse. And that is what I have learned I have to do to be
accepted quicker, completely encompass myself into my profession. This includes
receiving credibility. Credibility is very important in the scientific community. It is
the only thing other scientists judge you off of. Your credibility comes from
successful experiments. The more credit you have the quicker youll be seen as a
member of the discourse community.
This section of the class has also taught me the different values that go into
discourses. In each article weve read, I have seen a different value exposed. For
Anne Lammott Shitty First Drafts the value of mistakes was highlighted. This I
found especially helpful because I plan to make plenty of them. When doing
experiments in my future profession, most will be failures but its important to not
look at them as a waste of time. Instead they gave me more answers (or questions) I
had in the beginning! Sometimes its not about the final outcome, but of the process.
Discourse Communities allow me to see groups of people who communicate
in any situation. For my future the identifying isnt very useful, but the methods of
bonding we learned in class will be. We reviewed how to become assimilated into a
discourse communities by dissecting Gees article. This showed me I must
encompass myself into a new discourse community in order to be accepted.

Citation
Gee, James P. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction. Journal of
Education. Vol. 171.Dept. of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, 1989. 5-17. Print.
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Writing About Writing: A
College Reader. 2nd ed. Wardle, Elizabeth and Doug Downs. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 215-229. Print.