Reyes 1

Janae Reyes

Mrs. Litle

ENG121

16 October 2017

Discourse Community in Society

Its never crossed our minds that when people in the same group or community

communicate and achieve goals the same way for a reason. Swales would call this a discourse

community and speech community. That is something I would have to agree on is that a

discourse community is involved in society with anything we do or are in. In the article Swales

says that a discourse community is, To signify a cluster of ideas: that language use in group is a

form of social behavior, that discourse is a mean of maintaining and extending the groups

knowledge and initiating new members into the group, and that discourse is epistemic or

constitutive of the groups knowledge. (Swales pg. 217). Meaning that a group or cluster of

people are trying to achieve the same goal and have new and old members to accomplish it.

Another concept Swales uses in this article is a speech community. Which is when a person

doesnt understand a way of communication that can or cant communicate to achieve the same

goals as a group its because they arent a part of their community. This concept is known as a

speech community, Swales defines this in the article A community sharing knowledge of rules

for the conduct and interpretation of a speech. (Swales pg. 219). Included in the article Swales

talks about the conceptualization of discourse community and examples of discourse community.

In the article there are six conceptualizations then first on is common goals, second ways

to communicate with each other, ways to get feedback, the way communicate the genres, specific
lexis, ratio of members to old and new. He also gives an example of the discourse community

hes in and how it works. He is part of a community that collects Hong Kong stamps and

communicates through newsletters and their community is all the world. He refers to this as an

hobby group and as an umbrella organization. (Swales pg. 222). This is something that

people do for fun not like work but as a hobby. Swales mentions that there are six but some of

them are repetitive of each other like the conceptualizations two, four, and five. They are all the

same ways of communication just in different ways with each other, outside people and their

own form of communication.

To be in a discourse community is to be in a community where people come together and

communicate and achieve goals together. I agree with the article that discourse community and

speech community are big part in society and a lot of us are involved in one. Even if some people

dont know it everyone is at least in one discourse community. For example, Im on the womens

soccer team and we are discourse community because we are all trying to make it to pass

regionals and go on to bigger and better things. In terms of the fabric of society, speech

communities are centripetal (they tend to absorb people into that general fabric), whereas

discourse communities are centrifugal (they tend to separate people into occupational or

specialty- interest groups). (Swales pg. 220). Which we use both discourse and speech

community. We use speech community because we say things that other people wont

understand, words like drop or PK they would assume that it would be the meaning the

dictionary gives it but really it has multiple meanings. Like if you have the ball that means to

drop the ball behind you but if we are defending then it means to sprint back and get behind the

ball. PK means a penalty kick and thats mean there was a foul in a box and one person is

kicking it into the against the goalie. Its a very complicated term to understand.
 Other discourse community are like your very close group of friends and how

your guys communicate together and they meet all six characteristics of a discourse community.

Common goals are to help each other grow up and learn how to grow up. The way a person talks

to their family verse friends is a speech community, also they let each other know what they do

wrong and help them fix it like feedback. The way things are presented and spoke is

communicating genres and the things are communicate through letters or specific words that

would be only understood with people in the group. And finally, the ratio of old to new members

is equal because most groups have the two friends that started it then they bring in other

members. So that why I agree that discourse community is a big part of society and we use it all

the time to get things done. We use it in anything considered a hobby or group that is trying to

achieve a goal.
 Works Cited

Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic

and Research Settings, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 21-32. Print.