Broadcasting Discourse Community Analysis

To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time, a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre—type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. In the following paper, I will discuss three discourse communities and a genre that they typically use: people who read Nutritional Facts religiously, college students, and industrial organizational psychologists.

Preschool teachers have not been given the credit they deserve, with lots of people over looking their importance. Being a preschool teacher is more than just watching a couple of kids for a couple of hours. This field requires a lot preparation and behind the scene work that put into the job, so it really is not as easy as it may seem. Preschool could possibly shape the rest of their academic lives. At this level of school the children learn their basic building blocks for learning that they will use forever. That leaves parents with big expectations for the teacher. And for the teacher, they will have to set goals, have a plan to reach those goals, and for the most part

In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” Professor John Swales defines what a discourse community is, following with a list of six different points that a group must align with in order to qualify as a discourse community. These parameters are as follows: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” “mechanisms of intercommunication among its members,” the use of “participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback”, use or possession of “one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims”, “some specific lexis”, and “a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (471-473).

There are a number of things that I still need to do to revise my draft of the Discourse Community paper. First, I must check whether I have answered all the research questions required. I also must make sure I have completed all the activities that are also mandatory for this paper. For instance, I have to figure out where I will include the thirty-minute interview of the International Relations professor that I am going to conduct on Friday. Including the interview will allow me to properly answer the following questions that concern how research is conducted, what is the writing style like, and elaborate others. The more proof or evidence I have, the better my argument will me.

Promptly from the very beginning, feeling of formal writing strikes in mind while reading the paper and it is maintained throughout the whole writing. Coherence, clarity and attention grabber particularly at the onset of first paragraph through definition of discourse community, in the fifth paragraph via counterargument and many examples of real life experiences makes the paper interesting and always engaging to read. These are the strengths of this paper.

This discourse community consists of people who believe in God and follow the principles of the bible. Despite what people outside of this community may think, it is not full of people who think they are better than anyone else. The people who make up this community are far from perfect, but are striving to improve themselves through learning the bible, with one belief holding them all together. I am a part of this discourse community. It is tied to my primary discourse, because I have been in the Church since I was little, and have grown up in its values. To be apart of this community, you simply have to believe in God, believe in what Jesus did for all of us, and have a desire to learn to live your life right through learning the bible.There

Life is like a massive highway that have infinite routes anyone can choose take to reach some type of designated goal. Those various routes lead to distinct exits, where one can discover a group or groups that share similarities dealing with viewpoints, beliefs, or understanding towards a particular goal. These groups can be identified as discourse communities. According to, “The Concept of Discourse Community,” in the textbook, Writing About Writing, John Swales stressed that in order to be classified as a discourse community the group has to have all six defining characteristics. Swales emphasized, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilities and hence processes one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, acquires specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise” (Swales, 221-222). Keeping this key detail in mind, there is numerous type of discourse out there.

A discourse community is defined as a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. We all belong to multiple discourse communities.To earn a position of a discourse community one must possess accurate knowledge, establish reliability of members to be accepted and learn to persuade other members of the community. The discourse community that I identify with personally and the profession I plan to pursue is the world of film production. However, there are many jobs that need to be done on a film set leading to there being multiple discourse communities within the film industry, what I want to focus on specifically is the DP, otherwise known as the “director of photography”. According to “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by educator and researcher John Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics.

Secondly genre is the French word meaning type. Genres may be approached by way of various critical avenues. In the Aristotelian strain we recognize genres as kinds within a system of classification. These categories beg further definition, so there is a history of, on the one hand, the refinement of divisions and subdivisions, and on the other a Platonic search for the 'essential' qualities of tragedy, comedy, epic poetry, and so forth. By the recognition of genres we begin to find our way in the universe of verbal artifacts with their feigned discourses, and to train our expectations upon the experience that lies in wait for us.

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. John Swales defines a discourse community as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." The community I choose to identify with is special education. Special education teachers, or aids, really dedicate themselves and their time to others who need special assistance or treatment. The California Department of Education supports high quality educational programs for California’s big student population. According to the ideas from the federal government, the variety of the education working environment is one of the fastest growing areas of the American economy. The importance in understanding this career includes emotional, and physical growth of each student. Working with students who have disabilities can be very rewarding, but it is sometimes emotionally demanding and physically draining. Before stepping into the job of becoming a special education teacher, it is important to understand the patience that is needed in order to work with special children.

Genre is the French word for 'type'. Type is the kind of text it is.

Discourse communities are all around us, which can include a sports team, academics, and many others. However today I am focusing on a discourse community that relates to my major, criminal justice. In order for me to understand swales six characteristics I interviewed a homicide detective relating to criminal justice. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. A discourse community is defined by six characteristics. The six defining characteristics of a discourse community require a set of common goals, there must also be mechanisms of communications within the community as well as feedback among members. Genre, the fourth characteristic, describing the various methods of output. The last two are terminology, and expertise. In order to really understand that criminal justice is a discourse community, I had to do research, and interview an expert in the field. To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre which is a type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. My interviewee, Carol Mims, is a child homicide detective. She is an alumni here at

For the past week, I've combed through the pages of Reddit and delved deep into the community of one of the internet's most popular website. It is not unusual for me to waste away hours on Reddit on any given week, but this time it was different. Having read "The Concept of Discourse Community" by John Swales, a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, I spent my time on the website paying close attention to the nuances of this online community. While doing this, I took some notes, which I will now use to test whether Reddit, as an online community, meets the criteria for a discourse community. Before I get into that, I will go over what exactly is Reddit or a discourse community.

Since the dawn of time that humans have reigned around the world, they have formed groups or communities that share common goals or interest. John Swales (1990), a respectable professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, developed a list of characteristics to determine communities or, as he calls it, a discourse community. He identifies these characteristics as all the discourse communities has agreed upon common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, provide information and feedback, possess one or more genres of communication, distinguish vocabulary or lexis, and requirement for memberships (Swales, 1990, p. 1-5). The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), falls into the category as a discourse community. Founded in 1994, IGDA is a non-profit professional association that collaborates with projects that encompasses members from all fields of game development. They bring together developers to improve their lives and prepare the next generation of developers. The IGDA is a professional discourse community that defines all of Swales characteristic to be considered as a discourse community.

Genres assist individuals in categorizing related topics within a group in order for people to differentiate between different subjects. However, with so many genres, we often do not stop to consider what features contribute to making a specific topic, a topic of its own. For advertisements, the conventions of the genre demonstrate to the reader that the author has a strong desire to share their product or message by using strategies that subconsciously triggers our senses in order to attract our attention. For food recipe blogs, the conventions of the genre prove that the author provide images and methods to receive feedback if they need more assistance in order to successfully recreate the recipe