Identifying Discourse Communities
A discourse community
is a social group that uses discourse for a common purpose. The members within
a discourse community use specialized vocabulary and genres in order to share
their knowledge and exchange views and ideas, and consequently create new knowledge
and achieve their goals. Swales
(1990) states that a discourse community should meet certain requirements to be
recognized as such.
Swales (1990) believes
a discourse community should have common goals. He believes the group should
achieve certain objectives and have specific interests. For example, discourse
communities in teacher reflection highlight how teacher reflection itself is “mobilized
in particular contexts for particular political, pedagogical, and phenomenological
purposes” (Ovens, 2002, p. 507, as cited in Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez
Torres, 2003).
Other important
requirements for a discourse community to be recognized as such are participatory
mechanisms, so as to provide information and feedback, and information exchange,
as Swales (1990) believes the group will not survive unless its members are communicated.
In a discourse community its members communicate and interact sharing their knowledge,
exchanging different views and opinions and collaborating. For example, Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004) describe how important it is for teacher learning that teachers
participate in a discourse community where they can interact in a collaborative
culture exchanging ideas, thus learning from other teachers.
Furthermore, other
aspects of a discourse community mentioned by Swales (1990) are the use of
community-specific genres and the use of highly specialized terminology.
Regarding these, Kutz, (1997, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001) states the
following about a discourse community:
Its members have,
over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common
purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and values, shared
understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and achieve shared
purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style.
(p. 200)
According to
Bitzell (1992, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001 and 2004), a discourse community
is “a group of people who share certain language using practices …[that] can be
seen as conventionalized” (p. 222).
Swales (1990) also considers
that a high level of general expertise is essential in a discourse community,
and that the group should achieve a certain level of knowledge. As regards this, Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez Torres (2003) state that
teachers who take part in discourse communities are participating in the
construction of knowledge and that teachers function as resources for one
another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build
new ideas. Kelly-Kleese (2001) makes
reference to the existence of a general level of expertise by stating that “only
those qualified by some socially institutionalized agency may engage in the
kind of discourse required for a particular discourse community and be taken
seriously” (Zito, 1984, p. 89, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001).
In conclusion, discourse communities have certain
specific features which allow us to identify them as such. We have analyzed
them and found out that many researchers provide us with evidence that supports
Swales’ (1990) theory. Therefore, only those communities that meet the
requirements stated by Swales (1990) can be considered discourse communities.
References
Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as
praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved September 2013, from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/theory_into_practice/v042/42.3hoffman-kipp.html
Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s
Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community
College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/editor-s-choice-an-open-memo-to-community-college-faculty-and-5lPjH3hd0V
Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004).
UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and
discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from
http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-121672231/ucla-community-college-review-community-college-scholarship
Swales, J M (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and
Research Setting. Cambridge (Ed.)
Wenzlaff, T. L., &
Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow. Teacher
Education Quarterly. Retrieved September 2013, from
No comments:
Post a Comment