The Importance Of Discourse Communities

A Discourse community is a group of people who contribute a selective intrest and use a certain type of language to communicate with each member in the community. A register is another type of way in which something is explained or written and can be very important the meaning of the message. We interact with each other in many various ways , such as texting, e- mailing , talking , in person , social medias or even letters which allows us to get the messages as fast as we can and get things done .

What is a discourse community? According to “The Concept of Discourse Community,” it’s a “discourse operates within conversations defined by communities, be they academic disciplines or social groups.” In other words, it is a group that has goals or a purpose and use communication to achieve that goal. In the movie Mean Girls there are many examples of discourse communities but I’m going to focus specifically on The Plastics. The movie Mean Girls is about a sixteen year old girl, Cady Heron, who has recently moved from Africa to the United States, and is attending public school for the first time. Her first day of school was not the best, but on her second day of school she meets Janis Ian and Damian Leigh who start to guide Cady into high school by telling her about different groups (cliques/discourse communities) in the school, including the Plastics, which is made up of Karen Smith, Gretchen Wieners, and Regina George. The Plastics soon take interest in Cady ask her to sit with them at lunch. Thanks to that we learn all about the discourse community of The Plastics. According to John Swales, there are six characteristics of a discourse community which I will discuss and use The Plastics as an example.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in discourse communities. According to James Porter, "a discourse community is a group of people bound by a common interest who communicate through channels and discourse is regulated (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Porter 38-39).  John Swales, however, states that a community can only be a true discourse community if they meet six requirements: they have to share clearly stated goals; they have to use a mechanism of communication; they offer feedback and information; utilize one or more genres of text, the group uses specific lexis; and they have old members with new ones (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Swales 471-473). Under these guidelines, Mike Rose 's mother Rosie is in a discourse community because

Everyone has a Discourse, whether they are aware of it or not. One might ask, “What is a Discourse”? James Paul Gee’s Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics: Introduction states, “Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are a form of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (6-7). Entering the writing Discourse may be difficult, as there are many styles and versions. It is common to come upon many styles of writing such as college level writing, scientific writing and technical/business communication. They all differ yet share a common purpose; to provide information to their audience whether it be to entertain or educate.

According to the lecture in the UWP 101 class, I have learned that discourse community is a group of people who communicate with one another to achieve a common. In addition, Porter who wrote the article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”, states that discourse communities creates its own collective meaning, and shares assumption about what objects are appropriate for examination and discussion. In the other words, discourse community is a group of people who build up an individual ideology. Ideology is a collection of beliefs about the world that held by a group of people who share the information together. Thus, to understand a world of a person who we are trying to involve to,

Joining a discourse community is something that we’ve all experienced, whether it's family, sports clubs or even going to church. In class we have been talking about the types of discourse communities we are apart of and sharing it with our fellow classmates. A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. I feel that it is very important to be apart of a discourse community because you share ideas and thoughts upon each other to build a relationship. Everybody is apart of a discourse community throughout the world. A very important discourse community that I belong to is my family. Being apart of a discourse community is much more than having a relationship, it’s building a bond and a family together.

A discourse community has yet to have a solid definition; though some have come close. One of the people who have attempted to define discourse community is John Swales. Swales, rather than use a standard definition, chose to create a set list of criteria. With the help of the criteria and my interview of Dane (a member of my chosen discourse community) I will discuss how my chosen group, Communications 101, is a discourse community.

“Literacy Myth and the History of Literacy” by James Gee a profound and insightful piece. James Gee states “what I propose in the following papers, in the main, is a way of talking about literacy and linguistics.” (Gee) The main focus that gee writes about in this pieces is when he is speaking about discourses. gees definition of a discourse is: “A discourse integrates ways of talking, listening, writing, reading, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and feeling in the service of enacting meaningful socially situated identities and activities” (Gee) 719 This quote from Gee is quite a long quote but also quite a very important quote. It shows how discourses in writing is linked into almost everything we do. What this means is it’s not always about a specific language itself. It goes much deeper, rather the actions and experiences that make a specific group/community a discourse. For example being part of a football team itself is a discourse. You speak in words that no one else

Discourse is any literary work, whether it is literally written or orally spoken, that has meaning underlying inside of its text. It can range from books to images to music, etc.

Reading an endless passage of texts allows the readers to give up for many reasons from not being engaged or being convinced of the beneficial aspect of the text is due to the lack of good writing. The definition of “good writing” can confuse people by being too broad. My belief of good writing is writing that compels an audience to feel interested, motivated, or deeply connected through the composed text. The article “To The Youth Athlete I was, And The Adult Athlete I’ll Never Be” written by Gina Davis have the qualities of good writing which targets a certain Discourse community. A Discourse community is living to a certain role or “identity kit” they upholds themselves with the driven skills, values, and beliefs to their community. Davis’s text emphasizes on the connection between the target Discourse community

A discourse community implies all kinds of communication adding to a specific established manner of thinking employed by a particular gathering of persons who utilize, and thus assist in developing a specific discourse. In the subsequent text, I will be discussing the perspectives from two dissimilar discourse communities; an online subscription discourse community and one that is essentially academic based. I will additionally express my opinions regarding these discourse communities, how I think I am connected to them and the manner in which I can be more beneficial to them.

The University of Oklahoma currently supports several active student groups that can be classified as discourse communities according to the criteria set by John Swales. One such group is the Secular Sooners, a community on campus that seeks to “provide common ground for people with a secular world view” (Lunde). However, many of these groups differ in the ways that they accomplish their goals, and indeed in the goals that they have set. Additionally, they utilize varying methods of intercommunication to aid in attaining these goals. As such, there is not one catch-all method to describe all the discourse communities on campus, thus necessitating further study. Therefore, in this paper I will compile several primary sources, including observation

Although they do not always consider it, individuals are all members of different groups and communities. At the University of Oklahoma, there is a wide ranging variety of discourse communities that anyone could get involved in. In such groups, there are practices, concerns, traditions, history, beliefs and ultimately something held in common that binds them all together. One such discourse community is St. Thomas More University Parish. As a Catholic Church, St. Thomas More is a community that provides services to the Catholic students attending the University of Oklahoma. The discourse community of St. Thomas More University Parish is a growing parish that is encouraging involvement and spiritual development.

Lainie Pomerleau is an English professor currently teaching at the University of Georgia. Before that she went to the University of Southern Maine for her Bachelor’s in English Language and Literature, and then to the University of Tennessee for her Master’s Degree. She is a candidate for receiving a PhD. She has studied English literature extensively and has a broad understanding of different uses of it. Therefore she has immense credibility in literature.

Considering Fukuyama theory, the city designed for the posthumanism civilization. This city contains four main parts, which are: Laboratory, Factories, Posthumans’ Cliff, non-posthumans’ cliffs. The owners of the city are posthumans who live in the central cliff. This cliff has a luxury design and is the most advanced cliff in the city. Factories produce what people need for living. Laboratory is the place where posthuman scientists experiment on human genes. The other cliffs are for non-posthumans who are conditionally accepted to live in the city. Instead of supplying their basic necessities, posthumans use them as laboratory mice. It means they have chosen to live here and had access to the facilities by risk their