Discourse
Communities
At first, you may be unsure what the term "Discourse Communities" entails, but I promise you, it's easier to understand than you think! The reason for this is that we are all part of multiple discourse communities! I have come to understand the concept of discourse communities as groups of people with common expectations or goals, defined methods of exchange and usage of specific genres or terminology. John Swales's article titled, "The Concept of Discourse Community", expresses six characteristics of any discourse community and breaks down the concept that we are involved in multiple communities. For example, medical professionals are in their own discourse community; they have a common expectation for medical achievements and breakthroughs, a method of communication via reports, charts, and research and utilize complex terminology to describe proceduces and diseases. Let's look at one of my blogs showing two more communities that further develop these ideas!
In this blog regarding discourse communities, I discussed two groups that are associated with celebrities; media businesses and fans. Here, I showed how each group related to Swales's six steps of defining a particular discourse community. Even though these two groups have similarities, their differences are what create separate communities that end up influencing one another. What communities are you involved in? Do you understand how you have specific terminology, communications and goals? What is it that makes us conglomerate into these groups?
"As we have seen, those interested in discourse communties have typically sited their discussion within academic contexts, thus possibly creating a false impression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques."
-John Swales
Photo by Meredith Pearman
My Perspective
Discourse communities define groups; they bring people together to achieve common goals and create methods of specific communication and expectations. Each of us are involved in some type of community whether we realize it or not. Without these communities, information would not be relayed and larger organizations would not have formed. However, these communities are stable enough to keep members but fluid enough to change with the times; changing to accustom to new generations and new knowledge. These communities act as catalysts for current social issues and are a means of people knowing what's going on and how they can help. Without these groups of people, awareness would be at an all time low and knowledge would not be spread.