Running Head: DISCOURCE COMMUNITY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Ezekiel Lang

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

October 14, 2019

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Abstract

This article is a bunch of data and fact from professional studies from other authors, who

compiled what they learned and knew about a discourse community. With there studies and

finding I will be seeing if the RWS meet the requirements and what requirements are needed to

be classified as a discourse community.

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Discourse Community

With all the key points targeted and checked off the list of what make a discourse

community a discourse community. The student in the class have common goals and that is to

pass RWS together which we all help out through the second point which is intercommunication

among the members in the class. Blackboard is the classroom intercommunication, we use it

when we need to get in contact with students or teachers. Intercommunication is good for

members in a group so no one can get left out and u always have a way to get in contact with

them when one has questions on anything. RWS class is a discourse community met by the

standards of an author name John Swales.

Literature Review

John Swales is a linguist that is best known for his studies on discourse communities. In

his article, he explained that a discourse community has six characteristics.. A discourse

community is characterized by Swales as a group of members that have a common goal and use

thing to communicate to reach these goals. There are six attributes that are used to characterize a

discourse group network according to Swales (pg. 471), one being having a shared objective or

reason. To be viewed as a discourse community there must be communication with each other,

and the utilization of technology to get in touch with your peers. There is regularly a particular

kind for this communication and every network has its very own lexis which was said by swales

in his article. For there to be a discourse community there should be a sure scope of information.

Each group has its own various objectives, lexis', and types that isolates them from each other

and make them a discourse community. For instance, if a server heard "expo" they would know

precisely what it implied, however in the event that somebody in retail heard expo they probably
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won't have any thought what is being said. One of the standards in a discourse community’s is

having a lot of shared objectives and purposes broadly settled upon.

All writings are copied from others, they are basically reworded and compiled differently

and in a way that allows the writer and the reader to trust it is something totally new. Realize

that in all composition this is most common. Understanding and agreeing with what Porter

(1986) meant by intertextual iterability since everyone utilize this multiple occasionally in their

writings. Everyone uses this method in every one of their papers, using the base of other with the

same audience or purpose as their own. Comprehending his concept of presupposition since after

noticing this in books and article. What we write may have bits and pieces of other written

works, but it is not entirely consistent of those alone. t our writings also include our person

thoughts and stances on the topic or the manner in which the work is written making it a form of

an original work.

Topic sentence. Discourse communities are people with common goal. John stated that

discourse communities are put together with people with common goals. Discourse communities

help members focus and progress to a goal it also helps with working in a team and

communication skills with one another. While we are learning about the discourse community in

RWS there also are others professional discourse communities throughout society that have its

own language, practices, values, and genres. With discourse community comes its own set of

problems or rebels within the group. in a discourse community they work out their problems by

who present the best research for the group and have the best intentions for the group.” (pg.332)

Methods
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Observations, Interviews. The RWS class had a couple of articles to do their research

with, from swales, porter, and johns’ article and put together things they had to say about a

discourse community.

Discussion

Common Goal

The RWS 1301 has a common goal. Swales defined common goals as a public goal that a

group of people would like to meet using specialized tools that improve the groups work load. (p.

471). No one wants to fail RWS; they want to earn an A, making it a common goal shared

between the class peers. Even though that is an individual accomplishment other student or peers

in class can help you reach that goal, but together you all can reach that goal. This group exist

because its members all decided to come to college and try to get a degree, and our advisor put

RWS on our class schedule. With us in this discourse community we have to help each other get

one step closer to that common goal, for example getting a degree. The discourse community

help society a lot because like the saying goes a group is better then one, meaning one-person

cant make all the decision for other people. JOHNS. With the students that is in RWS class and

passing RWS will put us a step closer to our goal, which is to get a degree. With us getting our

degree we can help the society out in the field that we are majoring in.

Intercommunication

The RWS class uses intercommunication in their discourse community. Swales defined

intercommunication as how people communicate throughout the discourse community (p. 472).

The RWS class uses Blackboard, Outlook, and OneDrive to communicate with each other in Mr.

Vierra RWS class. There are plenty other resources to use to communicate with the discourse
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group, but them are the ones we use in class. We do not live in an isolated society anymore, so

intercommunication is so important because they are a essential to developing other key life

skills. Being able to communicate well with others is often essential to solving problems that can

occur both in our private and professional lives. JOHNS Decision making is another area which

can benefit from good communication skills as it often requires communicating complex

information so that the most appropriate decision can be made.

Participatory Mechanism

Topic sentence. Validating Warrant. The participatory mechanism that the RWS class

have is a scheduled class meeting at 7:30 Mondays and Wednesdays. Even one on one office

hours are participatory mechanism. Swales says participatory mechanism are meetings,

telecommunications, correspondence, newsletters, conversations and so forth.(pg.472). the RWS

class shows that it has Participatory mechanism. Personal warrant.

Genres

The RWS class uses genres. The class includes ERs and the analysis a lot of articles for

this class. Swales defined genre as some specific lexis (p.473). ERs and the Abs are a few genres

the RWS class use. Add second validating warrant and personal warrant.

Specialized language

In RWS, specialized language is used by all in the class. It consists of a lot of Rhetoric

words from Pathos, Ethos, Logos, and etc. our language go all the from typing essays and even

with speaking to people on how to make people make up their mind or even win an argument.

RWS is an English like class, that teaches how to write professional papers, so with this being a

English class there are a lot of special vocab words we us in the class. Swales defined genre as

‘how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them'. (p.472).
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Hierarchy

The RWS has hierarchy. In this RWS class the professor which is Mr. Vierra is the

expertise in this discourse community which means he is on top of the RWS food chain. With

that expertise the professor job is to be responsible for preparing course materials and teaching

classes to graduate and undergraduate student. The students in the class are the new comers to

the discourse community, because the are there to receive the material that the professor are

instructed to give the students to be successful in his class. The newcomer of the discourse

community which is us students, learn the specialize word for the class from the professor which

he gives us the material and we interpret it. Once the student receives the information it’s our job

to obtain it because it will show up more then often throughout the semester. Johns stated, “there

are always authoritative utterances that set the tone”. (pg.334) That is true no matter what

discourse community you are a part of there will always be a higher up that control everything.

Analysis

After looking over the finding, everything laid out pretty great. And swales and porter

statement article and there claims I believe is one hundred percent understandable and should

Conclusion

The RWS class meet the requirements to be called a Discourse community. The class

have hierarchy which is the professor. The RWS class come with intercommunication for people

in the RWS to communicate with each other easily. Specialize words come up in RWS class that

if someone in another class wouldn’t be able to understand. And last but not least everyone in the

RWS class has a common goal they would like to reach.

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Reference

Discourse community. .

Johns, A. M. (n.d.). Discourse communities and communities of practice: Membership, conflict,

and diversity. Text, Role, and Context, 51–70. doi: 10.1017/cbo9781139524650.006

porter, james e. "intertextuality and the discourse community." rhetoric review 5, no. 1 (1986):

34-47.

swales j. The concept of discourse communities. In: wardles e, ed. Writing about writing. boston:

; 2011:466-480.

Johns, A. M. (n.d.). Discourse communities and communities of practice: Membership, conflict,

and diversity. Text, Role, and Context, 51–70. doi: 10.1017/cbo9781139524650.006

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Tables
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Figures