DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY 1

Discourse Community Ethnography

Hector Luis Chavez Moy

University of Texas at El Paso

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY 2

Abstract

A discourse is a written and/or spoken communication process. A discourse community

is a group of people sharing a common way of communication. According to Swales it has six

characteristics, a common public goal, intercommunication mechanisms, looped communication,

dedicated genres, specialized vocabulary and self-sustaining hierarchy. This paper will explain

all six of them in deep later on.

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Discourse Community Ethnography

We being this with a simple question, “is RWS 1301 a discourse community?”, this paper

intends that after this analysis, the answer to that question will be clear. The concept of discourse

communities was originated and developed from the concepts of speech communities and

interpretive communities, to become a mixture of the two. Erik Borg defines Speech community

as a way for people to recognize the difference between their language use from another

language use. As for interpretive communities, Borg recognizes that it is a open network of

people sharing their different ways of reading literary texts. A discourse community, unlike

speech and interpretive communities there is much more freedom of choice and members of a

discourse community goals shared and completed as a group to find a common goal.

Literature Review

Use of the term “discourse community” testifies to the increasingly common assumption that

discourse operates within conventions defined by communities, be they academic disciplines or

social groups. (Herzberg, 1986) A discourse community is a social entity distinguished by a set

of writing practices that result from the community’s shared values and goals, the physical

conditions for getting writing done, and individual writer’s influence on the community. They

employ genres to carry out the community’s purposes and have norms for text and specific roles

for writers. (Anne Beaufort, 1997) We would be giving the concept of discourse community a

half meaning without Swales, and his six characteristics. In simple words a discourse community

is a group of people who share certain language-using practices, willingly sharing knowledge

and ideas between them.

The characteristics of intercommunication mechanisms are based off of “providing information

& feedback”, we ourselves fall under the idea of being in a Discourse Community.
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Intercommunication is the action of two-way communication, whenever a Professor gives a

lecture he is educating us, we receive the message and take notes In order to retain that

knowledge. The expert which happens to be the Professor communicates with us; setting the

guidelines, educating us and we the “novices must conform to expectations of community.” After

lectures or assignments are given it is our goal to share feedback of the information that we’ve

learned through mechanisms such as Blackboard, Quizzes, Discussions. In this academic

community discourse we share a common goal, which is to complete assignments and ultimately

pass the course by using intercommunication mechanisms.(Erik Borg, 2003)

We can see that these authors have different ways of expressing basically the same idea.

Methods

In this analysis, swales concept of discourse community text was used, additionally other sources

to add different opinions about the subject were used as interviewing the author.

Although all authors used different words and ways to explain this matter, the main idea remains

among them.

Imitating a discourse community, our RWS 1301 class was divided in groups, every group had to

explain one of swales six characteristics helping this research.

Six characteristics

According to swales, discourse community has six defining characteristics:

1.- “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.”

This means that the goals and ends of the community are public, as people outside the

community may share if not all the goals as a whole, some common goals.

2.-“A discourse community has a mechanism of intercommunication among its members.”

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Every community has different methods of communication.

3.-“A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information

and feedback”

Even if a member is formally registered in the community, if there is no form of communication

between him and other members, then it is not considered to belong to the community.

4.- “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the

communicative furtherance of its aims.”

A discourse community has developed and continues to develop discoursal expectations. These

may involve appropriacy of topics, the form, function and positioning of discoursal elements,

and the roles texts play in the operation of the discourse community (P. 472)

5.- “In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. ”

The language used in a discourse community most of the times is a specialized one, technical

terminology is a good example.

6.- “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with suitable degree of relevant

content and discourse expertise.”

Discourse communities have changing memberships; individuals enter as apprentice and leave

by death or in other less involuntary ways. However, survival of the community depends on a

reasonable ratio between novices and experts. (P.472)

Discussion

An example of common public goals in the classroom would be to work in a project as a group.

To complete the project the group would have to exchange ideas and elaborate on the subject to

know how they will complete the project. According to the definition of swales common public

goals which says “It is commonality of goal, not shared object of study that is criteria!, even if
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the former often subsumes the latter” (pg. 71). Necessarily they do not have to ,but a group

sharing a common public goal have to keep the project discrete because other groups might

attempt to steal their ideas. Another example would be sharing goals but achieving them

independently such as everyone getting an “A” and passing the class. Everyone has their own

way of passing a class whether its different study habits or study groups but everyone has the

same common goal. In our RWS class, the teacher would be considered as the expert and the

students as the apprentices or beginners. This cycle is a self-perpetuating one, as the students one

day may become the expert and occupy the place of the teacher, and without his students, the

discourse of the class RWS would not exist. The Self-sustaining hierarchy from this class is both

the students and the teacher. If we (the student), do not learn the ability to communicate in a

more scholarly form then we would not know the proper techniques to produce an appropriate

research paper or any writing assignment like the one you are reading at this moment.

Discussion.

An example of common public goals in the classroom would be to work in a project as a group.

To complete the project the group would have to exchange ideas and elaborate on the subject to

know how they will complete the project. According to the definition of swales common public

goals which says “It is commonality of goal, not shared object of study that is criteria!, even if

the former often subsumes the latter” (PG. 71). Necessarily they do not have to ,but a group

sharing a common public goal have to keep the project discrete because other groups might

attempt to steal their ideas. Another example would be sharing goals but achieving them

independently such as everyone getting an “A” and passing the class. Everyone has their own

way of passing a class whether its different study habits or study groups but everyone has the

same common goal. In our RWS class, the teacher would be considered as the expert and the
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY 7

students as the apprentices or beginners. This cycle is a self-perpetuating one, as the students one

day may become the expert and occupy the place of the teacher, and without his students, the

discourse of the class RWS would not exist. The Self-sustaining hierarchy from this class is both

the students and the teacher. If we (the student), do not learn the ability to communicate in a

more scholarly form then we would not know the proper techniques to produce an appropriate

research paper or any writing assignment like the one you are reading at this moment.

Conclusion

In this paper we can reach the conclusion that a discourse community is created when two or

more people are communicating with each other, using an specific language, with a common

goal. It is the best way of transmitting knowledge, because the goal is mostly public, so anyone

can join the “conversation” with the purpose of sharing new knowledge.

Our RWS 1302 class is definitively a discourse community, since we satisfy all six of Swales

Characteristics.
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References

Swales, J. M. (1990).The Concept of Discourse Community

Beaufort, Anne (1997). Operationalizing the Concept of Discourse Community.

Borg, Erik (2003). Key Concept in ELT: Discourse Community