“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
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I examined two of my classmates in close detail participating in their conversations about the classwork as well as going over thesis statements together for our discourse community analysis’. After close examination I found that they both have similar writing techniques such as procrastination. For example, our discourse community analysis paper I noticed that neither of them had started on it nor had they studied for the test the next day in our ACAD class. Another close observation I found out was that there are pretty specific guidelines for being a member of this community. Based on the specific guidelines in order to be a part of this community, it is fairly simple to differentiate the members from the non-members. This discourse community is exceptionally small containing about 18 members at the most. As a whole, we are given the same writing assignments for our English and ACAD class and therefore try our best to help one another when he or she needs it. I have discovered a deeper involvement within the community through our ACAD instructor Ms. Patsy Krech. She gave me a little bit of insight into her knowledge of the community as well as her standing throughout the …show more content…
In my opinion I believe this community is interesting because of the amount of effort put forth by most of the members. Although, there are some members within this community that fall short of the glory as a means of not meeting the community’s standards. A member could not be kicked out of this community, but they could be in trouble if they are not abiding by the set of rules given by the communities higher ranking member i.e. our professors. Our professors are the members in this discourse community with more expertise. They have acquired certain degrees needed to be able to teach us and they are the professionals. We, the freshmen, are the newcomers within this community and we don’t have as much experience due to our newcomer status and we learn all the material we need to know from our teachers. They may speak with more intelligence than the newcomers because of their higher expertise with education as
I examined two of my classmates in close detail participating in their conversations about the classwork as well as going over thesis statements together for our discourse community analysis’. After close examination I found that they both have similar writing techniques such as procrastination. For example, our discourse community analysis paper I noticed that neither of them had started on it nor had they studied for the test the next day in our ACAD class. Another close observation I found out was that there are pretty specific guidelines for being a member of this community. Based on the specific guidelines in order to be a part of this community, it is fairly simple to differentiate the members from the non-members. This discourse community is exceptionally small containing about 18 members at the most. As a whole, we are given the same writing assignments for our English and ACAD class and therefore try our best to help one another when he or she needs it. I have discovered a deeper involvement within the community through our ACAD instructor Ms. Patsy Krech. She gave me a little bit of insight into her knowledge of the community as well as her standing throughout the …show more content…
In my opinion I believe this community is interesting because of the amount of effort put forth by most of the members. Although, there are some members within this community that fall short of the glory as a means of not meeting the community’s standards. A member could not be kicked out of this community, but they could be in trouble if they are not abiding by the set of rules given by the communities higher ranking member i.e. our professors. Our professors are the members in this discourse community with more expertise. They have acquired certain degrees needed to be able to teach us and they are the professionals. We, the freshmen, are the newcomers within this community and we don’t have as much experience due to our newcomer status and we learn all the material we need to know from our teachers. They may speak with more intelligence than the newcomers because of their higher expertise with education as