Discourse Community Research Paper

Superior Essays
My discourse community is Christianity. My discourse community involves people who believe in God and follow the guidelines of the Bible. The people from this community are trying to enhance themselves by learning the Bible. An impeccable member attends church, strive for better lives, and aim to help others spread and disseminate words of wisdom. There are several reasons why Christianity is a discourse community. My discourse community has all of the six characteristics defined by John Swales. In my paper, I will describe how my discourse community meets all of Swales characteristics. The common goal of Christianity is to spread faith and good morals, and we give be inspiration. We try to be a good influence to the world and try to make …show more content…
The Bible is the most important genre that this discourse community uses. My discourse community can use scriptures that will be able to help them for the rest of their lives. The Bible help people get through hard times and most importantly, it helps people get through life. Prayers are also something that helps us work through our goals. We pray for people that seek help and we also pray for the church and other different things. Prayers are a call to help which helps us get through things because God answers all prayers. Sermons are also another important genre that helps us reach our goals. Sermons are a talk on a religious or moral subject. They are given through church services and are based on a passage from the Bible. It is a powerful tool to challenge a set of people who consider Christ and their need to be saved. Songs are also another type of genre. Praise and worship songs can help a person get through certain types of situations. Sometimes you are not able to go to church and worship music allows you to do that anytime anywhere. Songs are written of faith, scripture, and Christian inspiration. It makes us stay focused on the goals that we are trying to reach. It helps us focus on family, friends, God, and prayers. These types of genres help us reach our goals because our goal is to spread faith and good …show more content…
God was the one who created it, and he gave it to Jesus. Jesus has the most authority, but there are also other people who have authority also. The pastor has authority also. He is the main leader of the church. He is the one who teaches the word, guides us in the right direction, and keeps the church together as a whole. The Bible is not a person, but it also has power in my discourse community. The reason it has authority is because it tells us what to do to become saved. It also gives us scriptures that we are supposed to live by. Overall, Jesus has the most authority in my discourse community because he can do what nobody else is capable of, and no one has a problem with it. No one really has a problem with them having authority for tons of reasons.
If we do not accept the Bible as the authority in Christianity, then we are not listening to God. If we do not accept Jesus as the authority then we shouldn’t even be in this discourse community anyway. The only problems we have in the church when it comes to authority is the pastor. Some people in my discourse community have a problem with the pastor having authority. They might feel like he is not a good pastor, and he is not teaching us right. Sometimes, the pastors get ahead of themselves, and the people vote him out. If the pastor eaves, the deacons will take over, and preach until they find another

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    A discourse community utilizes its participatory methods specifically for the provision of information and feedback. A discourse community, not only uses genres but also owns at least one of them in the forthcoming development of its objectives. A discourse community has obtained some clear-cut Lexis that's necessary for its group to flourish. Lastly, a discourse community has a…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    First, a discourse community must have a set of public, common goals (Swales 471). The main goal in Journey is “to provide you with a holistic understanding and practice of Christianity that equips you for life in the real world after you graduate (“Vision”). Journey also has a vision of “Question. Explore. Transform (“Vision”).…

    • 1864 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, due to the strictly rules and monopoly power, this belief was protested by other reformed groups and abandoned by different beliefs as well (Fisher, 2014). Catholic church generally has one unify leader, the Pope, who decide mostly in the church daily activities and…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Swales Professor Light English 100 10 November 2014 CVS: The Discourse Community of Pharmacies Today, everyone partakes in different discourse communities such as their families, friends, and professions. A Discourse Community is a dedicated group of individuals who share similar ideas, goals, experiences, and different forms of communication about their perspective fields. According to Swales, a discourse community "has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (Swales 221). Like Swales methods on discourse communities, many people such as myself interact differently with multiple discourse communities by using Genres and Lexis’s to achieve a common goal.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A discourse community is a group of people who share similar goals or purposes and use communication to achieve these goals” (Swales 220). Discourse Communities are thought to have six characteristics according to John Swales in his excerpt “The Concept of a Discourse Community.” Swales stated that “These characteristics being the community has a set of common goals known to the public, mechanisms for communication, mechanisms to provide feedback, has one or more genres of communication, an acquired specific lexis, and a level of members with relevant expertise to this content” (Swales 221). “Keys to Success” is the name of a learning community for first year freshmen offered at the University of Memphis. I am a part of this community, in…

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sacred Rhetoric Summary

    • 1776 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Pastors must be servant-leaders and not lord it over their flock. Gregory presents important points with much wisdom that pastors would do well to follow as an example. There are some (many) who should not be in pastoral ministry because they lead their flock astray. This is due to the fact that there are pastors who do not have sound doctrine which leads to wolves invading the flock. One must be called into pastoral ministry by God in order to do this important work.…

    • 1776 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This definition does a great job explaining what these types of communities do. As a community, we will share the same values about the subject, we will have a purpose and a certain way to communicate one another how to complete that purpose successfully. How does my discourse community communicate? Well, my community is very positive when it comes to communication. It is a very uplifting environment to be a part of.…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Discourse Community Essay

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Laraine Shawa Discourse Community: A discourse community can be defined as a group of people who link up in order to pursue objectives that are prior to those of socialization. Which basically means it’s a group of people that share the same interests and goals and communicate in a certain way. These discourse communities have several different genres including: books, debates, sports, lectures and more. You need to master specific terminologies in order to be a part of a specific discourse community.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Perspective A discourse community is a social group or can be anything that inquires shared values, practices, or can even share the same language. A speech community, however; is not the same thing as a discourse community. A speech community is a community that shares the knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech. (WaWpg.219) Defining a discourse community can be hard due to the range of different types of discourse communities.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Discourse communities exist all around us. From being involved in a Japanese biker gang to being a high school cheerleader, all of these groups are a perfect example of a discourse community. Almost every single person has been involved in this type of community whether they know it or not. A discourse community is a group of people who share a common goal and communicate about a specific topic. According to John Swales, he characterizes a discourse community as a group of individuals who broadly agree on a set of common public goals, have mechanisms of intercommunication among their members and use these mechanisms to provide information and feedback.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Discourse Community

    • 2344 Words
    • 10 Pages

    A discourse community cannot be defined by words alone, it takes a set of specific characteristics that define each of the individuals that created a discourse community. They are what make a discourse community unique and separate from other communities. James Paul Gee’s definition of a discourse community is “A form of life that combines social languages, discourses, intertextuality, conversations, recognition, kits, and mapping” (Gee). According to Gee, these are the seven essential components that are needed to make up any intercommunication among members of a discourse community. A discourse community can be anything from a basketball team to a student organization or a regular classroom each and every member of the group may be coming…

    • 2344 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I then drew up an outline that had each trait of a discourse community and then went on to write notes for each example. After this I wrote two drafts that were peer edited, revised my paper, then presented the final draft. In this paper I never said “I” or “mine”, but unfortunately used “you”. I could have used clearer examples. For some reason I was incapable of using the proper MLA header for this paper.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social work, with the hope of obtaining a master’s degree in the same, I will move through multiple threshold concepts within my discourse community. I will analyze the ways in which social work is a discourse community and the influence my degree program at Washburn University will have on my future in social work. A threshold concept is an area in which one learns what they need to do in order to be part of a discourse community (Wardle and Downs, 2014, pp. 1-11). A discourse community is a community that shares common goals, beliefs, lexis, and genres (Swales, 1990, pp.…

    • 1949 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From Swales, I learned that a discourse community is deemed distinct for the members share a goal, for how they utilizes specific genres and lexis, and how they provide a specific kind of information to a specific audience. From Johns' extension of Swales’ argument, I learned that discourse communities are distinct from one another because of how individuals of said community share genres, share practices and values, specific knowledge, specific vocabulary and concepts, as well as regulate and initiate new members into that community. This allowed me to define my current and…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Nearly everyone is part of a discourse community, most of the time, multiple discourse communities. However, the majority of people do not even know what a discourse community is. A discourse community can consist of any of the following including, but not limited to, particular academic fields, religious organizations, and hobby groups. Discourse communities have the power to influence and shape the way many individuals think and behave. The particular discourse community I have chosen to analyze is my sorority, Delta Gamma.…

    • 2404 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays