Swales Discussion
“The Concept of Discourse Community”
by John Swales was a challenging yet interesting read. As I began to
read the excerpt, I was utterly confused, but as I continued to read I
began to understand what Swales was trying to get at. Swales was trying
to establish what he considers the true definition of discourse
community. He does this by showing the differences between speech
community and discourse community and emphasizing that there are six
real distinct differences. The difference between speech community and
discourse community is that speech communities have inherit members
whereas discourse communities recruit their members by persuasion,
training, or by qualifications (220). The reason why Swales made a list
of these differences is to clearly show the differences between
discourse community and speech community in a way that everyone can
understand and use later. He writes this excerpt because he wants his
readers to understand why it is so important to know and understand the
differences that make discourse and speech community different. Swales
puts these differences in the form of a list, but he really uses it more
as a checklist for people to use to makes it easy for them to
distinguish between the two.
Swales, John M. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Setting. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990.21-32. Print.
Swales, John M. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Setting. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990.21-32. Print.
Peer Discussion Post
Alyssa Small Oct 15, 2014
“The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales was a text that was very in depth and was filled with a lot of information. Swales talks about discourse community and how it is formed. He explains the six criteria he thinks makes up a discourse community. This includes common goals, a way to participate, a way to exchange information, specific genres for the community, terminology only known by the group, and changing memberships with a level of expertise. Swales then goes on by explaining a discourse community that he is in and explains each criteria that makes it a discourse community. A speech community has “distance between members geographically, ethnically, and socially”. Next, Swales explains issues with communities and how some are not discourse and the reason why.
When I first started reading this, I knew it was going to be a hard read because of how hard I had to concentrate. A discourse community can only be read and talked about if one knows what it means first. I think that Swales did an amazing job of explaining it and trying to convey it to the reader. I was able to understand discourse community by reading each criteria and trying to put it to one of my discourse communities that I am involved in. However, when Swales talked about some of the communities that are not able to be discourse communities, I was a little confused on why they couldn’t be.
Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." 1990. Writing About Writing. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Warldle and Downs, 2014. 215-29. Print.
“The Concept of Discourse Community” by John Swales was a text that was very in depth and was filled with a lot of information. Swales talks about discourse community and how it is formed. He explains the six criteria he thinks makes up a discourse community. This includes common goals, a way to participate, a way to exchange information, specific genres for the community, terminology only known by the group, and changing memberships with a level of expertise. Swales then goes on by explaining a discourse community that he is in and explains each criteria that makes it a discourse community. A speech community has “distance between members geographically, ethnically, and socially”. Next, Swales explains issues with communities and how some are not discourse and the reason why.
When I first started reading this, I knew it was going to be a hard read because of how hard I had to concentrate. A discourse community can only be read and talked about if one knows what it means first. I think that Swales did an amazing job of explaining it and trying to convey it to the reader. I was able to understand discourse community by reading each criteria and trying to put it to one of my discourse communities that I am involved in. However, when Swales talked about some of the communities that are not able to be discourse communities, I was a little confused on why they couldn’t be.
Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." 1990. Writing About Writing. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Warldle and Downs, 2014. 215-29. Print.
Why I Choose Alyssa Small's Post
Before I tell you why I chose Alyssa's discussion post let me mention the grading guidelines.The biggest one was NOT to just list the six criteria that Swales talked about. Throughout Alyssa's discussion she seemed to get caught up by listing just the six and not elaborating further. Besides not following directions precisely her discussion post was well written. She understood what Swales wanted the readers to take away from Discourse community. Her transitions could be stronger, and if she wanted to standout more, she may want to discover more diverse ways to flow into her next point of thought. When your writing flows, it makes it more enjoyable to the reader and it shows that you know how to properly format and write a paper or post.
Mirabelli Discussion
Tony Mirabelli’s “Learning
to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers” was not like
what I’m used to reading. Mirabelli discusses how that the level of verbal and
literary skills needed to be a waiter is not at the level of a ninth grader
which most people think. Mirabelli wanted to show that to be a waiter you need
to have a wide range of vocabulary and language that far exceeds a ninth
grader. The discourse community that Mirabelli is discussing are the waiters in
diner restaurants. He goes on to say that the menu is “the key text used for
most interactions with the customer and, of course, the contents of menus
varies greatly from restaurant to restaurant” (544). The waiters must know and understand the menu
to answer questions that the customer might have. If they do not fully
understand how it all works, there could be communication issues between the
waiter and customer and this can lead to bad reviews and possibly to bad
business. If waiters don’t know the menu
inside and out, it can lead to problems and misunderstandings. For example, like when a customer wants to swap
out carrots for potatoes. These little things can lead to much bigger problems
later on.
Tony. "Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers." What They Don't Learn in School: Literacy in the Lives of Urban Youth. Ed. Jabari Mahiri. New York, Peter Lang, 2004. 143-62.
Tony. "Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers." What They Don't Learn in School: Literacy in the Lives of Urban Youth. Ed. Jabari Mahiri. New York, Peter Lang, 2004. 143-62.
Gee Discussion
Literary Discourse Linguistics by James Paul was completely true. Gee said that anyone can understand language and use grammar correctly; however, he also mentioned that in certain situations the correct way to use grammar can also be the wrong way. He uses an example of two guys at a bar. One has just entered the bar and meets his tattooed drinking buddy and asked him for a match. Gee gives two situations on how he can go about asking this question. The first way is grammatically correct, but wrong for the situation. The other is grammatically wrong, but correct for the situation. He shows how “language” is a misleading term that a plethora of people use to suggest correct grammar. I never realized how often many of us misuse language and grammar in our everyday lives until I read this passage. It’s crazy to see how we as a society can change language and grammar so dramatically that we consider correct grammar wrong and wrong grammar right. It’s also crazy on how we rely so heavily on spell check. I knew someone that said “why do you worry so much if you spelled a word incorrectly or where a coma is supposed to go that’s what spell check is for”. I looked at her like you’re crazy.
Gee, James P. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17. Print.
Gee, James P. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17. Print.
Discourse Community Paper
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Small Steps to the discourse community Assignment Guide
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discourse_communities_paper_draft_1.docx | |
File Size: | 15 kb |
File Type: | docx |
discourse_communities_paper_draft_2.docx | |
File Size: | 17 kb |
File Type: | docx |
discourse_communities_paper_draft_3.docx | |
File Size: | 17 kb |
File Type: | docx |
writing_self_study_draft_4.docx | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
discourse_communities_paper_final_all_done.docx | |
File Size: | 18 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Before Revisions
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After Revisions
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Discourse Community Reflections
Discourse Community Paper was not the easiest paper to write, but after many shitty first drafts I was able to write a beautiful paper. As I started gathering my thought I felt lost and confused on just how I should begin. However, after going over the assignment in class and talking to my peers I knew I had nothing to worry about and that I wound be able to write an amazing paper. I decided to do additional research on the subject of discourse community and found a brief written by Bazerman. After finding this brief I had no problem writing my paper. I decided that because this paper is like none I ever wrote before that I should approach it a little differently. I decided that getting all my sources down first and then add my thoughts latter was the perfect plan. After all the stress and confusion I am extremely happy with how the final paper turned out.
Letter of Reflection
Overall Reflection
As I reflect back to this semester, I realize how much I have grown and how much I have learned about writing as a whole. When we started our first unit, I was stunned because I realized that I never stopped to think about the way I write and what works best for me. Instead, I conformed to the ways that have been laid out for me by others. I know now that while teachers are there to help me I must always stop and make sure that what they suggest will work best for me. After completing the writing self-study, I found writing to come effortlessly and it even made writing more enjoyable. Throughout the writing self-study I realized that I have a tendency to write down what others around me are saying. I have since learned to isolate myself from distractions and noises which keeps me more focused on my writing. By changing where I write, I have noticed a change in my writing. I now write papers that I’m proud of and am pleased with. Without knowing this vital bit of information I still would be writing in an environment that hindered my ability to write well. Learning about how important research is when you write a paper is vital to succeeding in writing. If I had not preformed the writing self-study and if I neglected to transcribe that information obtained onto paper, I would never have known my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to how I write. If not for doing research and taking that information and dissecting it, I would not be writing the way I am today. By doing research I now realize just how much research can change your paper form ordinary to extraordinary. It’s not just research that improves writing it is also using academic arguments. Academic arguments have always been talked about in my former English and writing classes, but were never discussed in detail. Academic arguments in writing are just evidence that you use to support a claim you stated earlier in the paper. When I write, I now always use this 1:2 ratio. This way I never am questioning whether or not I’m supporting my statement or just restating them in different words. By using this rule I am better able to makes sure that for every one statement I give I always have at least two strong reasons to defend my original claim. After every mayor paper, we have had two or more of our peers critique and give us feedback on what was good and what was needed to go back and change. These can be as small as a period that I failed to pick up on or it could be as dramatic as rewriting my whole second paragraph because it is too confusing and hard to understand. For some people peer reviews work great, but for me peer reviews did not work so great. The feedback that was provided to me by my peers was not helpful. Instead of getting back things that I needed to change I got back a few sentences saying how great my papers were. I decided instead to reach out to my sister and mother as peer reviewers because I knew my papers could always use revisions. By using family members, I got back a plethora of critiques that made my papers stronger. For future papers I now know to have my family look at my paper because it has helped me so much. The readings that were assigned were helpful when learning about the specific unit of study. While on the unit of discourse community, Swales was extremely helpful. Swales helped me to clearly understand the difference between discourse community and speech community. When Swales states his six criteria for discourse community that was when all the pieces fell into place for me. By having his list of six I can now clearly discern what makes something a discourse community. This reading really helped me to fully understand the definition of a discourse community. Swales was not the only reading that opened my eyes. Mirabelli was another reading that helped me when it came to discourse community. Mirabelli use a waiter in a diner to make his point. By picking an example that is so different it really helped me to pick up on a discourse community in my everyday life.
Depending on the subject and requirements for the papers my approach changed for each paper. For the writing self-study my approach was to first gather my data and create my code. From there I was able to start writing my essay the way I normally would. I always start by getting my opening paragraph written and all the revisions for that paragraph. From there, I start writing my paper from top to bottom and revising while I go. For the writing self-study I did have to tweak the way I approached certain paragraphs because of the information I had to put into them. For example, when I was talking about my code and describing what each letter meant, I had to decide if I was just going to list my code or if I was going to present it in a different way that the readers would understand. I was torn between whether I was going to list my code first and then explain it or explain it first and list it second. I decided that if my readers never saw my code they would not understand what I was saying and would be confused. So to avoid confusion, I decided to list my code and explain it after. I decided to do it this way because it would minimize the confusion. The biggest decision that I had to make for this paper was to make sure I understood my audience. I never want to talk down to my audience and I never want to go above my reader’s heads. All these little changes added to the overall look and feel of my paper. The revisions that I made to my paper were mostly subtle and the only major revision that I did was to add a paragraph before my last paragraph. By adding this paragraph, I felt like it added more clarification and made my paper stronger. I also added to my final paragraph by saying how I can take what I learned from my study and how beneficial it will be for me. If I had more time to do revisions, I feel like I would add much more than I did. I feel as though I could have made this essay much stronger if time was in my favor. If I had more time, I would add to my code and even do a second study to see if my code can be used in every type of writing style and not just one.
I have learned a plethora of skills this semester that I will take away and use in future classes. The biggest skill I learned and will use frequently is understanding what a discourse community is and how to distinguish between a discourse community and a speech community. In my major, I will be writing lots of research papers and I will have to be able to properly determine the discourse community. For each research paper there is a right way and a wrong way to structure my paper. If I structure my paper incorrectly, then I have failed. Knowing now what a discourse community is will help me greatly in my future classes.
As I reflect back to this semester, I realize how much I have grown and how much I have learned about writing as a whole. When we started our first unit, I was stunned because I realized that I never stopped to think about the way I write and what works best for me. Instead, I conformed to the ways that have been laid out for me by others. I know now that while teachers are there to help me I must always stop and make sure that what they suggest will work best for me. After completing the writing self-study, I found writing to come effortlessly and it even made writing more enjoyable. Throughout the writing self-study I realized that I have a tendency to write down what others around me are saying. I have since learned to isolate myself from distractions and noises which keeps me more focused on my writing. By changing where I write, I have noticed a change in my writing. I now write papers that I’m proud of and am pleased with. Without knowing this vital bit of information I still would be writing in an environment that hindered my ability to write well. Learning about how important research is when you write a paper is vital to succeeding in writing. If I had not preformed the writing self-study and if I neglected to transcribe that information obtained onto paper, I would never have known my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to how I write. If not for doing research and taking that information and dissecting it, I would not be writing the way I am today. By doing research I now realize just how much research can change your paper form ordinary to extraordinary. It’s not just research that improves writing it is also using academic arguments. Academic arguments have always been talked about in my former English and writing classes, but were never discussed in detail. Academic arguments in writing are just evidence that you use to support a claim you stated earlier in the paper. When I write, I now always use this 1:2 ratio. This way I never am questioning whether or not I’m supporting my statement or just restating them in different words. By using this rule I am better able to makes sure that for every one statement I give I always have at least two strong reasons to defend my original claim. After every mayor paper, we have had two or more of our peers critique and give us feedback on what was good and what was needed to go back and change. These can be as small as a period that I failed to pick up on or it could be as dramatic as rewriting my whole second paragraph because it is too confusing and hard to understand. For some people peer reviews work great, but for me peer reviews did not work so great. The feedback that was provided to me by my peers was not helpful. Instead of getting back things that I needed to change I got back a few sentences saying how great my papers were. I decided instead to reach out to my sister and mother as peer reviewers because I knew my papers could always use revisions. By using family members, I got back a plethora of critiques that made my papers stronger. For future papers I now know to have my family look at my paper because it has helped me so much. The readings that were assigned were helpful when learning about the specific unit of study. While on the unit of discourse community, Swales was extremely helpful. Swales helped me to clearly understand the difference between discourse community and speech community. When Swales states his six criteria for discourse community that was when all the pieces fell into place for me. By having his list of six I can now clearly discern what makes something a discourse community. This reading really helped me to fully understand the definition of a discourse community. Swales was not the only reading that opened my eyes. Mirabelli was another reading that helped me when it came to discourse community. Mirabelli use a waiter in a diner to make his point. By picking an example that is so different it really helped me to pick up on a discourse community in my everyday life.
Depending on the subject and requirements for the papers my approach changed for each paper. For the writing self-study my approach was to first gather my data and create my code. From there I was able to start writing my essay the way I normally would. I always start by getting my opening paragraph written and all the revisions for that paragraph. From there, I start writing my paper from top to bottom and revising while I go. For the writing self-study I did have to tweak the way I approached certain paragraphs because of the information I had to put into them. For example, when I was talking about my code and describing what each letter meant, I had to decide if I was just going to list my code or if I was going to present it in a different way that the readers would understand. I was torn between whether I was going to list my code first and then explain it or explain it first and list it second. I decided that if my readers never saw my code they would not understand what I was saying and would be confused. So to avoid confusion, I decided to list my code and explain it after. I decided to do it this way because it would minimize the confusion. The biggest decision that I had to make for this paper was to make sure I understood my audience. I never want to talk down to my audience and I never want to go above my reader’s heads. All these little changes added to the overall look and feel of my paper. The revisions that I made to my paper were mostly subtle and the only major revision that I did was to add a paragraph before my last paragraph. By adding this paragraph, I felt like it added more clarification and made my paper stronger. I also added to my final paragraph by saying how I can take what I learned from my study and how beneficial it will be for me. If I had more time to do revisions, I feel like I would add much more than I did. I feel as though I could have made this essay much stronger if time was in my favor. If I had more time, I would add to my code and even do a second study to see if my code can be used in every type of writing style and not just one.
I have learned a plethora of skills this semester that I will take away and use in future classes. The biggest skill I learned and will use frequently is understanding what a discourse community is and how to distinguish between a discourse community and a speech community. In my major, I will be writing lots of research papers and I will have to be able to properly determine the discourse community. For each research paper there is a right way and a wrong way to structure my paper. If I structure my paper incorrectly, then I have failed. Knowing now what a discourse community is will help me greatly in my future classes.