Caroline Eberhart ENC 1102 9:30 Swales, John. The Concept of a Discourse Community. Writing About Writing.

Eds Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 466-480. Print. John Swales first talks about how the definition of a speech community (shared linguistic forms, shared regulative rules, and shared cultural concepts) does not allow another definition of a discourse community to be made. The three reasons Swales had of backing this up dealt with medium, the need to distinguish a sociolinguistic grouping from a sociorhetorical one, and speech communities are centripetal. Swales then goes on to identify six characteristics of a discourse community. The first being each discourse community has an agreed set of common goals, each community has mechanisms of intercommunication, each community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, each community possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, each community has acquired some specific lexis, and each community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. I picked up on a few more details when reading this article for a second time. I feel like I can apply his six characteristics to my major; Event Management. The common goal for people studying my major is to graduate with a degree and get a job using the degree. Ways of intercommunication include Webcourses, email, and phone. Some specific terms (lexis) used in the major include HFT, Rosen, etc. Genres include flyers, brochures, and websites. Ways of feedback include grades, acceptance letters, and diplomas. Last but not least, there are many levels of being in this major with first year students and fourth year students. After reading Swales article for a second time, I have a much easier time identifying and pointing out his characteristics in a group.