ALEJANDRO ARCAY

ENC1102
DISCUSSION POST
SWALES
John Swales' excerpt "The Concept of Discourse Community" discusses the concept of discourse
communities and what it entails. First, Swales discusses what a discourse community is and how
it's different from a speech community. Swales goes more in depth by providing six specific
characteristics that make up a discourse community. As we go through this excerpt, Swales
attempts to take apart and analyze the underlying meaning of what a discourse community is and
how it differs from a speech community.
Swales starts by defining what a speech community is. That is, a community sharing knowledge
of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech (Swales, 219). Swales then talks about how
the separation of the two concepts derives from the need to distinguish a sociolinguistic grouping
from a sociorhetorical one (Swales, 220). He goes even further by saying that speech
communities are centripetal whereas discourse communities are centrifugal (Swales, 220). A
speech community typically inherits its membership by birth, accident or adoption. A discourse
community recruits its members by persuasion, training, or relevant qualification.
At this point of the excerpt, we see how Swales breaks down discourse communities into six
characteristics. He first discusses how a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of
common public goals that can either be formal or informal (Swales, 25). Next, we take a look at
how discourse communities has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members such as
meetings, telecommunications, newsletters, etc. (Swales, 25). Furthermore, we learn that a
discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and
feedback. Basically what that means is in order to be a part of it, one must uptake the
informational opportunities. A discourse community also utilizes and hence possesses one or
more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims (Swales, 26). This means that as the
community develops, the ideas, principals and goals may change. In addition to owning genres, a
discourse community acquires some specific lexis (Swales, 26). Lastly, this type of community
has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal
expertise which means that those who join enter as apprentices and leave by death or by an
involuntary way (Swales, 26).
To wrap it up, Swales stresses how discourse communities don't necessarily change its members
perspective, members can be spread out as opposed to a speech community that are likely to be
close together, and that academic classes are not particularly discourse communities at start but
the goal is to become one by end. Looking back at this reading, I noticed that I have been a part
of several discourse communities throughout my life in and out of school. I can honestly say that
I now know the difference.
Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.

-----------Reply-----------Well said Daniel! As I read this passage for a second time, It was pretty clear to me as to the
qualifications of a discourse community. Then again, I've seen this reading before which gives
me the upper hand in grasping Swales' underlying meaning in discourse communities. One of the
main things that I would take away from this passage is that no matter who you are or what you
believe in, you will always be apart of a discourse community. Whether we think it or not, there
will always be a group out there that believes and acts the way you do for a common public goal.