Discourse Community Ethnography

Karoline Daland

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

March 5, 2019

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 Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how discourse communities act in different

settings. Through an ethnographic perspective, the discourse community of RWS 1301 is

explored through language, common goals, group motivations and communication

techniques. By using the literature from multiple authors such as John Swales, James E.

Porter, and Ann. M Johns- a better and broader understanding is given through different

perspectives.

Discourse Community Ethnography

“Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual

valuing.” Said Rollo May. RWS 1301 uses communication frequently as a main tool in

convey information and to create discussion around topics. This class together forms a

community where students exchange their knowledge. Discourse Communities is shown from

different perspective through this paper. Experiences from authors, such as John Swales,

James E. Porter, and Ann. M Johns are mentioned to give a better understanding of the

topic. While looking at the discourse community of RWS 1301- we learn that the group

share common goals but also have subtle differences. Furthermore, the paper explores

genres at multiple levels and looks at the way intercommunication is used in everyday

interactions.

Literature review (Swales and Porter+ Johns)

The article “The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales explains what a

discourse community is in general and what makes a group fall under this category. Swales is

a professor of linguistics and codirector where he spent most of his career within the

linguistics field developing strategies to help readers and writers succeed. Because of his

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active teaching of English for specific communities, he carries much experience within this

field of study (Swales, 1990, page 215). In the article, Swales claims that not every group is a

discourse community. He states that “there are six defining characteristics that will be

necessary and sufficient for identifying a group of individuals as a discourse community

(Swales, 1990, page 220). This quote suggests that a group that has a common goal but does

not communicate with each member cannot be defined as a discourse community because

these six characteristics must be present.

The article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community” by James E. Porter is about

what intertextuality is and what Vygotsky called “the web of meaning” (Porter, 1986,

34). Intertextuality is a process where you borrow information from other sources to create

your own text. Porter also mentions discourse communities and the power it has over

communication and language. A discourse community is defined as a group that has a

common goal and operates with good communication. People may belong to more than one

discourse community like the community of engineers. In conclusion, the author explains the

definition of intertextuality and discourse communities in an easy and professional way.

The article “Discourse Communities, and Communities of Practice” by Ann M. Johns

is about Discourse Communities where the focus is on how and why conflicts occur in them.

She also discusses the following concepts: rebellion against conventions in a discourse

community, along with changes in those conventions, identity issues within a discourse

community, and problems with authority and control (Johns, 1997, 320). Ann M. Johns is a

well-known linguist and directed the American Language Institute, the Writing Across the

Curriculum Program, the Freshman Success Program, and the Center for Teaching and

Learning while she was at San Diego State University (Johns, 1997, 319). Because of her

active teaching and conducted research within this area of study, she carries much experience

within this field. At the same time she directed all the mention things above, she had time for

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both research and writing (Johns, 1997, 319). In the article Johns uses many examples from

academic discourse communities like for instance that they must change their values,

language or genres (Johns, 1997, 333). The author also mentions dialogue as an important

factor within academic communities where disagreements and argumentation are present

(Johns, 1997, 337).

Methods

We used observations by reviewing text and artifacts from secondary resources such

as blackboard. This paper reaches primary research. Research will also contain secondary

sources. The sources and observations are found at University of Texas at El

Paso during spring semester 2019. Google scholar, Utep Library and other websites are used

as a guideline to find these sources.

Discussion

By using both primary and secondary sources I can safely claim my statements.

Primary sources include both transcripts and excerpts. Secondary sources are always

produced after the primary source. The historical question determines whether the individual

source is a primary or secondary source. We use primary and secondary sources to

have professional proof that let us have our statements. These sources are there for beneficial

for us. By using the articles “The Concept of Discourse Community”, “Intertextuality and the

Discourse Community”, and “Discourse Communities, and Communities of

Practice”, we have several sources and can safely make statements about discourse

communities. The articles are used to explain from different perspectives that makes it easier

to understand the concept. But why is Discourse Communities important? Discourse is

important because it is how we communicate in the social world. The social groups we

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communicate within are called communities. A community is a group of people connected for

a common goal or purpose. Discourse community is there for a social group that is involved

in discourse (Mascle, 2008).

Common Goals

This class uses common goals by providing benefits of getting ahead and RWS 1301

shares common public goals to help students be prepared. According to Swales (1990), a

discourse community has many public goals. The goals can be formally inscribed, or they can

be more tacit. These goals are public because spies may join speech and discourse

communities for hidden purposes of subversion. Ordinary people on the other hand, may join

organizations with private hopes of commercial or romantic advancement (p. 220). Johns

article mentions that a discourse community has “a broadly agreed set of common public

goals” (Johns, 1997, 321). And according to Porters article “a discourse community is a group

of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and

whose discourse is regulated” (Porter, 1986, 38). This tells us that a discourse community

must share common goals among its members. In RWS 1301 we all share common goals

which is supposed to benefit us later in life. For instance; for students their common goal is to

graduate. By graduating, students will have the opportunity to get a job after

college. [Elaborate on this. Why are these good for society?] Therefore, RWS 1301 shares

common goals such as graduating and passing classes.

Participatory Mechanisms

This community uses different mechanisms to help the class understand the objective

and succeed in the course. Feedback is important to improve your work and to get confidence.

According to Swales article “discourse communities use participatory mechanisms primary to

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exchange information and provide feedback to each other” (Swales, 1990, 221). In the RWS

1301 class participatory mechanisms are used frequently. Exchange of information,

discussions about assignments, rewrites opportunities and dialogues are all techniques used in

this course to give feedback to the students. Because of the mention feedback opportunities,

RWS 1301 uses participatory mechanisms frequently.

Intercommunication

Intercommunication we use in this course is for instance dialogue and discussion

among the students and the professor. According to Swales article a speech community is

defines as “ a community that shares knowledge about rules and interpretation of speech

(Swales, 1990, 2018). In RWS 1301 we discussed the syllabus that contains the class rules

and information about the course. Powerpoints are also used as a tool in this course to convey

information to the students. Intercommunication are therefore used in both theoretic and

practical ways in this course.

Genres

According to Oxford References the definition of genre is a collection of texts, which

are related by certain characteristics like different groups. (Oxford References) For instance,

different categories of movies like horror, comedy, and romance. Categorizing is the main

purpose behind genres and makes it clearer and more straightforward. People may define

genre as something that creates expectations and tells you what to expect, such as the

knowledge that you may laugh watching a comedy. Swales article focus on the use of genres

in discourse communities. He mentions that discourse communities use genres to reach their

goals more efficiently (Swales, 1990, 221). According to Johns article, genres are “vehicles

for communication” (Johns, 1997, 325). This shows how important genres are for discourse

communities. RWS 1301 uses multiple genres such the syllabus, rubrics, calendars and

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PowerPoints. These tools help students to be organized, get better grades and to stay focused.

Because of this, RWS 1301 can be considered as a discourse community.

Specialized Language

According to Swales article, specialized vocabulary takes place in a discourse

community in forms of terminology or abbreviations (Swales, 1990, 222). RWS 1301 uses a

wide scope of specialized language. The course uses both difficult and easy vocabulary that

makes some people having difficulties understanding. Abbreviations such as ER or AB may

be hard to understand for students not attending this course. In addition rhetoric methods like

ethos, logos and pathos are examples on specialized language. Different formats such as APA

format are also mentioned. Because of the frequent use of vocabulary and topics learned in

this course, RWS 1301 uses specialized language in a broad range.

Hierarchy

Hierarchy defines changing memberships in which a member enters as one thing and

leaves as another. According to Swales (1990), hierarchy is where discourse communities

have changing memberships; where individuals enter as apprentices and leave by death or in

other less voluntary ways (p. 222). Therefore, a member’s level is constantly changing

depending on the discourse community they are a part of.

Abstractly, a hierarchy can be modeled mathematically as a rooted tree: the root of the

tree forms the top level, and the children of a given vertex are at the same level, below their

common parent. However, a rooted tree does not allow for items to be "at the same level as"

one another, since a tree prohibits cycles. To accommodate this, a hierarchy can be modeled

using a graph or a pre-order relation on the set of items. Alternatively, items of like type can

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be grouped together, and the hierarchy can be modeled using a partial order relation on the set

of sets-of-like-items.

Conclusion

Discourse communities have been presented from different perspective in the articles

“The Concept of Discourse Community”, “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”,

and “Discourse Communities, and Communities of Practice”. The author discusses for

instance how discourse communities act in different settings, and genres at multiple levels.

Swales, Porter, and Johns also mentioned experiences from daily interactions to state their

claims. Looking from an ethnographic perspective, we noticed that the discourse community

of RWS 1301 was explored through language, common goals, group motivations and

communication techniques. Students share common goals but also have subtle differences.

References

Swales, J. M. (1993). Discourse community and. Georgetown University Round Table on

Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 1992: Language, Communication, and Social

Meaning, 316.

Porter, J. E. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. Rhetoric review, 5(1), 34-

47.

Johns, A. M. (1997). Discourse communities and communities of practice: membership,

conflict, and diversity. Text, role, and context: developing academic literacies, 51-70.

3/9/19 CBFA +1

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