Blog #9 Swale

Summary:

John Swales in his article really get into depth about discourse communities. He talks a lot about the topics speech communities and discourse communities and how they are not them same. He gives great explanation of how they are different with definitions and strictly purpose but also dives deeper into comparing them as sociolinguistic and socialhetorical. Many people question what exactly a discourse community is because, at times, we may think they are broad; Swales tells us about the six characteristics that are sufficient for identifying groups as discourse communities or not. His article is a great tool for learning more about a discourse community and breaking it down to help readers understand more.

Connections:

The first thing that came to my mind after reading this article was Dana Lynn Driscol article because of the project that we are doing. We are studying communities in their own environment and the ways that Dana explains are perfect way of getting information on the communities. Also primary research would be a prime ideal way of receiving the information we would need for the project rather than reading about in the book. Researching different communities are different then researching a certain topic you cannot just go to the books for. Discourse communities need a special kind of research and Dana’s article is a perfect source for them.

QD#3:

It is really hard to put education in general discourse communities because it is so broad and is a temporary thing. I would think that a first year college class would not be considered one because usually the classes you are taking are not dealing with the degree you wish to pursue. As a graduate you are taking classes that you need to graduate and for your occupation and there are other students who are sharing the same purpose. For example I am taking English and there are some students who are in my class that actually are pursuing a degree with writing and English. As for me I am a nursing student so English is just a class I need to take but there is nothing beyond that.

QD#5:

A group I am involved in that could be considered a discourse community would be the Student Advisory Council. We are all there to help the College of Health Professions and Science but also gain our leadership skills. We have some genres as a group that no one else has some including our purpose and activities we lead and are involved in. Because we are all medical majors we do have lexis in the fact we know certain language with the medical field. Obviously school is not for life, unless your maybe a doctor, we cannot be in the SAC forever so when we graduate would be the time to have to move on from the group.

Opinions:

Although the article was not the most entertaining topic we have talked about, I thought it was very helpful. I really honesty had never heard of discourse community before taking English 1510 so it was a greet read to get me educated on the topic more. Also after diving deeper with speech communities I was starting to question more about what they were and Swales really did a good job explaining them. I started to think that speech communities could also be a type of discourse community but after reading more I found what it takes to be a discourse community and the differences with the two.