Swales
See the attached file in order to answer the questions and Please see the link in order to complete the activity:
Question 1
According to Swales, what is the difference between a Discourse community and a speech community? Give an example to help your explanation.
Question 2
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the first criterion?
Question 3
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the second criterion?
Question 4
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the third criterion?
Question 5
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the fourth criterion?
Question 6
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the fifth criterion?
Question 7
Starting on page 220, Swales outlines six criteria for a Discourse community. Over the next six questions, you will define each and give an example. Feel free to use the reading AND the web link to help with your own explanation.
In your own words, what is the sixth criterion?
Question 8
Swales argues that it is possible to participate in a Discourse community without being assimilated into it. What does this mean?
Question 9
According to Swales, would a first-year college classroom count as a Discourse community? What about a graduate class? Why or why not?
Question 10
Which of the stock photos from the website I linked is the most unrealistic to you and why?
The Concept of Discourse
Community
• I.,wa It’s, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: En-
g/I.,/, ill Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP,1990. 21-32.
!lflllt.
101111 Swales is a professor of linguistics and codirector of the Mic~
AI,lIll’mlc Spoken English at the University of Michigan. He received
( oIlIllJridge University and has spent most of his career in linguistics wJ
lIo1llV(‘ speakers of English on strategies to help them succeed as readets allu VVlllt:!’~ ‘”
“It’ 1111iversity. His publications include English in Today’s Research World (2000) and
III “i/t’mic Writing for Graduate Students (2004) (both coauthored with Christine Feak),
/(“‘,f’ol(ch Genres (2004), and Episodes in ESP(1985; ESPstands for English for Specific
1’111 poses. a research area devoted to the teaching and learning of English for specific
‘1IIlllnunil.ies).
I ills excerpt is a chapter of a book Swales wrote called Genre Analysis. In it, he refels
III I onccpts discussed previously in his book, which will be somewhat confusing since you
“”VI’ not read his book’s preceding chapters. In the beginning of this chapter, Swales also
11””1\ to an ongoing academic argument over the social (constructed) nature of language
11′,1′ ,H1d to arguments about what a discourse community is and how it is different from
,I speech community. You likely will not fully understand this discussion, since you may
111111)(‘ familiar with the academic debates to which he refers. What’s important for you to
11I1Ilfll~Iand is simply that a lot of people think that discourse community is an important
“lIllllqh concept to argue about. Once Swales gets through this background/framing ma-
11’11011,he goes on to define the term himself in section 2.3, since he thinks other people’s
“”llIu[ions have not been clear and specific enough. This is where you should really start
IIolyI11Cjattention. As Swales defines his six characteristics of a dis-
‘11111’,f’ community, you should try to imagine groups you belong to
111011pxllibit all six of these characteristics.
nl~tourse community is the first of two frames for analysis that this
I IloIp’lfll provides in order to help you consider how people use texts
11111 I”nguage to accomplish work together, Swales gives you some
IIIIIHI” lO look for and consider when tryinq 10 figure’ alit what is hap-
1IIIIIhHJ 111,IllY situation where language ,1I\d I(‘xl’. pillY II 1′.111′ What are
I” lopll’ clolnq here? Do they have shaierl IItldl., I Iinw do Ilwy cornmu
III’ iiiI’ Willi 0111′ .1110111(’17 Ilow do IWW((lIlIl’I’ 1″.1111wllt’l It) tin 1)(‘107
JOHN SWALES
Framing the Reading
216 “”I’I[;II:l IlIdlvldll.1111I l(IIll1l1lOllIy
Ill’ tlW”‘(‘lIldI5wdl(‘~\ style 01 writing ISa htlll’ d,y .uul 1″””,11, 111111″,III,IY IJ~I’ ‘.p(·tlell One of the most important-and complex-of Swales’s characteristics is genre. Unfor- Genres develop over time in response to recurring rhetorical needs. We have wedding Swales demonstrates that discourse communities all use genres, many of which are rec- It might be helpful to think of genres as textual tools used by groups of people as they Getting Ready to Read
/1(‘[0((‘ YOLI read, do at least one of the following activltles;
• look up Sw,lles’s book Genre Analysis on a boct IlIlYlllq Will! ,ltl’rlI Wlklped,a and JUliN ,WAI , .. Iii 1,1 111II II II 11M (IIIIIIIIIIIIIIV 111
Ilow much do you think YOU’ll’ 1111′,’.11111try 1I·”dlllll (lilly 01 ‘.1(1<]1('(h,lplC'I/ (Do you
It·(ll in~pllcd to find the book tlnd "·.,,IIIIl' 11'\1t)
• wrlto (I brief description of a time ycu’vo 1,,11 “out of place.” What made you Icel I'” you lead, consider the following questions:
• Ilow does what Swales describes relate to your own experience moving among dif- • What are potential problems with Swales’s explanations-places that don’t line up • How would you describe the audience Swales seems to imagine himself writing to?
I f'” ••••. ~ ••••••••••••.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.••••••••.•••••••••••.••••.•••••••••••••••••••.••••••••••• P •••••••••••••••••
2.1 A Need for Clarification
I)iscou rse community, the first of three terms to be examined in Part IT, has so Jfar been principally appropriated by instructors and researchers adopting a Whatever the genealogy of the term discourse community, the relevant point 1. Usc of the term “discourse community” testifies to the increasingly common as- (I kr~hl’I’~, 1986:1)
1III”’IK’uiw of the merits of this “c 1t”’ll’l III Idl’,I\,” IIw cluster is, J Sl1ggl’St,(OIlS(‘ 11K CIIAt’ 1111 J I”tllvldll,.! III (1I1I1I1I111I1ty
l’OIlIlIHllliIICI’o,1101critcrtal for’ CSI.lhll,llIlI); III Idl’lIldyillg them. They puiut 1I~ Ilcrzberg in fact concedes that there may be a definitional problem: “The idea I Several other p.roponents of the “social view,” while believing that discourse I We need then to clarify, for pro- ………………………………………………
We need then to clarify, for procedural discourse community and, perhaps in
the present circumstances, it is better
to offer a set of criteria sufficiently the marginal, blurred and controversial
contenders.
………………………………………………… .. .11’111111 ~r convcmions) may be l’II11Il)’,h II’I’I (‘VI’llt discourse community Iorum It I’ possible, of course, that there is no pressing need to clarify the COil to 2.2 Speech Communities and Discourse Communities II speech community is defined, then, tautologically but radically, as a community [l lyrncs, 1974:51)
l’hcrc arc a number of reasons why I believe even a tight definition of speech no (IIAI’TII{ 7. Incllvldll.11 III (Ollllllllllily
,11’emore likely to communicate with !llh”, IIH’IIIIl(‘r~in distant places, and nrc A second reason for separating the two concepts derives from the need to H Thirdly, in terms of the fabric of society, speech communities are centripetal ‘I 2.3 A Conceptualization of Discourse Community J. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. II I()IlN~WI\II~ 1111 111111’1 1)1 111\1 (lIIIMJ (1IlIlllllllllly 111
2. II discnurse comntunity hll’ 1111’1 “(1111\111.’ o] intcrrnntmunlcatlon (/III(1//,~ I’ Bizzell (1987) argues that the cafe owner kind of social group will be II t II discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily tt: 1’1 ‘I. II discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres 1\ ‘l’JJ 1″/\1’11 n ‘J, IlIdlvld”.1I11I (1lIlIlll”lilly
d”ll)llrSall’xpt’LI.IlI()II~ are created by Ihl” ,~I’lIIf” tll.ll IIlh 111.111′ till’ Opt·I.I 5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some 110 6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable 2.4 An Example of a Discourse Community JOHN \WAJ r, I t” 10)11′ t’pl col I II’111111′.” (1)t1l1l1lllllty :1:1 t ‘lhc main mechanism, or “forum” (Herrington, 1985) for intercomrnunic.i 1″ ).. I long Kong, Type 12, with Index \. ‘1’11(‘B.P.O.’s in Kobe and Nagasaki r\ Iy OWIIearly attempts to be a full member of the community were not mnrh’d 2:l4 flll\l’lIl1} IlIdlvldlllll III ( IIIllllIlllIlly
.1 chcnuc.il nunlysis.’ I have also h.ul III 11′,1111 11\’1’1 111I1l’ Ihl: pnrticulnr tenus ot Apart from the conventions governing articles, queries and replies in till’ )II J 176 1899 Combination PPC to Europe franked CIP 4 C cane large CANTON Even if luck and skill were to combine to interpret PPC as “picture postcard,” 2.5 Remaining Issues In the absence o.f consensus, let me offer a tentative definition: a “discourse com- .. HI uup IIH’1I1h”I’~,how they illl(,IPII’I n 1″‘111’1111′; II) l hi, cxicn: “disnHlr.,I’ 101.1 JIll’ IS~IIL’ of whether a community’s discourse and its discoursal expectations Ilowever, this is precisely the position Iwish to maintain, especially if can be J.I uvcly innocuous context, a prospective son-in-law may pretend to be an active Secondly, sketching the boundaries of discourse communities in ways 1 hili ‘I Thirdly, to deny the instrumental employment of discourse conventions is 10 H Uti 111\111111′ IlIdlvldll,II III (IIllIllIlltllly
III ,1″II1I1I,ltl’ iucvuubf y till’ world VII’\\ III IIII’ l”l,t dl’~\)lIIM’ conunuuuy. Wildt, Just as, for my applied purposes, I do not want to accept assimilation or ‘I, The delineation of these variable features throws interesting light on the I rhe next issue to be nddresscd in this Sl’llioll I~wll, 11111 ‘1″1.1111 grt)lIping’l, ‘N I”IIN WAit 1111 (1111″1’1 III 111′,1IlIlIM’ 1IIIIIIIlIIIIIIV JJI
. III 1111’I\()()~ 01 the Muruh ( luh, VIlli'” for ,1 particulnr poliuc.il p.ut y, dll’ll”””’I 01 r~’!>w111′:111ts and htHI> (n,ll’pt pcrhn ps in son p-opcrns), L’IlI ployccs III ,I Filially, it is necessary to concede that the account I have provided III dl~ References 1):10922. 1IIId rill.’ writer: Case study of a student in a rhetOric Ph.D. program. Research in the ‘1’(‘(1(/””’11 lil/n’II,I’.lIricin. 1987. Some uses of the concept of “discourse community.” Paper prcsl’lll’ccIal till’ 111111’11.Pill ricin. 1992. “What Is a Discourse Community?” Academic Discourse IIl1d Crilmti (;”” Illnolllll(‘kl, I .. 1933, I.allgllage. New York: I tolt & Company. Iltl’ MIIIII(‘SII(,/ I{egioll”/ C()/lti’l·t’lIn’ /III 1.’III,~II’lgt·111111U”Ruislics: 11 .2,1). C’IlI/,’W 1’lIijb/I II/'”‘/ Nl’w’,”1 101l”WII,\ ‘118 (IIAI’I LII ‘J IIllllvldll,11 III t “”””’11111 V
1·.I1I\II’).I’·’H”, 19116. (‘oIllIWI.nl\ Ihcm.r, 01 J11t”‘~’ 11.11111111′ ,IlId.I propos.rl, (:tJlI”IW I “}lit ,I) l-cnnell, Ilnrhn”n, Carl Ilcrndl, and Carolyn-Mrllcr, I’)K 7. f\lilpping discourse C(11ll11lu.1I11l·,.1′.,,11’1 l’ish, Srnnlcy, 1980.15 there a text in this class? Harvard, Mass: Harvard University Press. uuional norms. College Composition and Communication 38:154-65. Basic Books.
l larris, Joseph. 1989. The idea of community in the study of writing. College Composition mul Herrington, Anne. 1985. Writing in academic settings: A study of the context for writing ill two Herrington, Anne. 1989. The first twenty years of Research in the Teaching of English and till’ Herzberg, Bruce. 1986. The politics of discourse communities. Paper presented at the CCC Con Horowitz, Daniel M. 1986a. What professors actually require: Academic tasks for the ESL class- Huckin, Thomas N. 1987. Surprise value in scientific discourse. Paper presented at the CCC Con Hudson, R.A. 1980. SOCiolinguistics.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. sity of Pennsylvania Press. academic milieu. English for Specific Purposes. 7:55-60. of Chicago Press.
Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Marrin.]. R. 1985. Process and text: Two aspects of human semiosis. InBenson and Greaves (eds.): McKenna, Eleanor. 1987. Preparing foreign students to enter discourse communities in the U.S. Perelman, Chairn and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric; A treatise 011 argumentation. Poncn jamcs E. 1988. The problem of defining discourse communities. Paper presented at the CCC Rorry, Richard. j 979. Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Prince ron, N]: Princeton University Snvtllt· Troikc, Muriel. 1982. The ethnography of communication. Oxfo”d: Bosil Blackwell. JUliN \WAH~ 1111l “””‘I’IIIIIlI\”III1~1 (.:011111111111llylJI)
Questions for Discussion and JOllrthlling
!J’,l’ your own words to describe (‘lidl of the six charactenstlcs of a discourse couunu J ‘)wrlll’5 discusseshis own attempt to join the Hong Kong Study Circle. What went 4 ‘,wales argues that it is possible to participate in a discourse community without beinq I, Consider a discourse community you belong to, and describe how it meets the six b Consider a time when you participated in a discourse community but resisted it or Applying and Exploring Ideas
Wllte a short narrative in which you dramatize Swales’sproblems joining the HKSC I wruc a one-page letter to an incoming student in which you explain what discourse Meta Moment
I/Pel IlIlnlli~tll terms that you don’t understand. lie I~ !Jowl, I”‘WIIYI’I, ,II IlIqhllt)hling lus
Illdi” (.1
tunately, Swales does not spend much time defining this term because he assumes that
his readers are familiar with it. As we discussed in the introduction to this chapter, genres
Me types of texts that are recognizable to readers and writers, and that meet the needs of
the rhetorical situations in which they function. So, for example, we recognize wedding
Invitations and understand them as very different from horoscopes. We know that, when
we are asked to write a paper for school, our teacher probably does not want us to turn
In a poem instead.
invitations because people keep getting married and we need an efficient way to let people
know and to ask them to attend. Rather than making up a new rhetorical solution every
time the same situation occurs, we generally turn to the genre that has developed-in this
case, the genre of the wedding invitation.
ognizable to people outside the group (for example, memos or reports), but he notes that
groups develop their own conventions for those genres in light of their desired goals. So
memos written within AT&T, for example, might look very different from memos written by
the members of the local school board.
work toward their desired ends; genres and the conventions that guide them change as
the community discovers more efficient adaptations, as group membership changes, or
as the group’s desired ends change. For example, consider a team of biologists studying
the effect of industrial pollutants on the cell structure of microorganisms in a particular
body of water. In doing their research and reporting on it, the team of biologists will use
many genres that are recognized outside of their discourse community, including research
logs. notebooks, lab reports, conference presentations, and published scholarly papers; in
many cases, however, they will have developed discourse-specific conventions guiding the
production of these genres (for example, the Council of Science Editors’ rules for documen-
tatlon in published papers). As is the case in every discourse community, the genres and
conventions that biologists use continue to change, in part as a result of new technologies
(the lnternet, computerized data analysis tools) that help them analyze and disseminate
information in ever more efficient ways.
lI’dd ,111″,,’,1 two r(‘lvl(‘w~ of It S(‘Q If you (rllllltlli ,,11\1111’1I” I,., I”hl,’ III fotllC’l1l’:o.
Ihal way?
ferent groups or communities?
With your own experiences?
“Social View” (Faigley, 1986) of the writing process. Although I am not aware of
Ihr original provenance of the term itself, formative influences can be traced to
~(,Vl’r:11of the leading “relativist” or “social constructionist” thinkers of our time.
I lerzberg (1986) instances Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s The New Rhetoric
( I%9), Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970) and Fish’s Is There
II Text in This Class? (1980). Porter (1988) discusses the significance of Foucault’s
,111,1 lysis of “discursive formations” in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972)·
other contributors are Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) 1979) ami
(;l’l’ftz (Local Knowledge) 1983), with Wittgenstein’s Philosophical lnuestiga-
1/Ill1S ( 1958) as an earlier antecedent (Bru£fee, 1986), particularly perhaps for the
vummcntary therein on “language games” (3.5).
III Ihe present context is that it has been appropriated by the “social perspectiv-
“Is” for their variously applied purposes in writing research. It is this use that
I wish to explore and in turn appropriate. Herzberg (1986) sets the scene as
lullows:
surnpcion that discourse operates within conventions defined by communities,
Ill’ they academic disciplines or social groups. The pedagogies associated with
writ iog across the curriculum and academic English now use the notion of “dis-
lUUI’SC communities” to signify a cluster of ideas: that language use in a group is
,I form of social behavior, that discourse is a means of maintaining and extending
lilt, group’s knowledge and of initiating new members into the group, and that
d”wursc is episternic or constitutive of the group’s knowledge.
‘/III’IIIiai nlthc nssumpt ion thnt Ihl’ll’ 0111 111111’1d 1’IlIIIi~’N i(kntilinhl(.’ nil dil’Kllllr”,’
IOwnrds asking bow a particular UI’lOIIl.,(, c ouununit y uses its discourvnl
conventions to initiate new members 01′ /)(JIII the discourse of another reilics
particular values or beliefs. While such questions are well worth asking, Ll1l’Y
do not directly assist with the logically prior ones of how we recognize such
communities in the first place.
of ‘discourse community’ is not well defined as yet, but like many imperfectly
defined terms, it is suggestive, the center of a set of ideas rather than the sign of
;l settled notion” (1986:1). However, if discourse community is to be “the center
of a set of ideas”-as it is in this book-then it becomes reasonable to expect it
to be, if not a settled notion, at least one that is sufficiently explicit for others to
be able to accept, modify or reject on the basis of the criteria proposed.
community is a powerful and useful concept, recognize it currently .raises as
many questions as it answers. Porter (1988:2), for instance, puts one set of prob-
lems with exemplary conciseness: “Should discourse communities be determined
by shared objects of study, by common research methodology, by opportunity
and frequency of communication, or by genre and stylistic conventions?” Fen-
nell et al. (1987) note that current definitions have considerable vagueness and
in consequence offer little guidance in identifying discourse communities. They
further point out that definitions which emphasize the reciprocity of “discourse”
and “community” (community involves discourse and discourse involves com-
munity) suffer the uncomfortable fate of ending up circular,
cedural purposes, what is to be un-
derstood by discourse community
and, perhaps in the present circum-
stances, it is better to offer a set
of criteria sufficiently narrow that
it will eliminate many of the mar-
~inal, blurred and controversial
contenders. A “strong” list of cri-
rcria will also avoid the circu-
larity problem, because in conse-
quence it will certainly follow that
not all communities-as defined
purposes, what is to be understood by
narrow that it will eliminate many of
011 01 her criteria-will be discourse
cornrnun ities, just as it will follow that not all discourse activity is relevant to
discourse community consolidation. An exclusionary list will also presumably
show thnr the kind of disjunctive question raised by Porter is misplaced. It is
likl’ly to show rhnr neither shared object of study nor conunon procedure nor
imcrncrion IH)!” agreed discoursal convention will lh~’II1Sl’lVt’Sindividually be
IIl’l’cssary :111dsufficient conditions for the ClnerW’IIU’ 01 ” dl’,lIlIlrsl’ community,
:dl!1olll’,11:1 COIlihinnrioll or somc or allllligill. (‘III1VI’IIoII)’.till’ :lhs(‘IIt”t’ of I1l1y
IIIH’ (diflt’I’I’llt .,llhkn :ll”(‘a~,l”ollflktillg proU·dllll ~ 1111 IlItll (1111111, .llld nillillpll’
JOliN ‘.WAtl’ till (“IIII’I’II)IIlIM(lIII~I.(Cllllltllllllly :119
tllIll .1’1 international politics frequently reminds LIS.
11’1’1 01 discourse community because, at the end of the account, it will turn
1111110 Ill’ nothing more than composition specialists’ convenient translation of
lilt” long established concept of speech community common to sociolinguistics
,1I1dcentral to the ethnography of communication. This view, for example,
would seem to be the position of Freed and Broadhead (1987). After a couple
01 opening paragraphs 011 speech community in linguistics and on audience
11I1,llysis,they observe, “only recently have compositional studies begun to in-
VI”t ignrc communities of writers and readers, though the terminology seems
III he changing to “discourse communities” in order to signal the focus on
til(‘ written rather than the spoken” (1987:154). Whether it is appropriate to
uk-nrify discourse community with a subset of speech community is the topic
c,l Ihe next section.
‘Pl’l’ch community has been an evolving concept in sociolinguistics and the 7
II inscqucnt variety of definitional criteria has been discussed-among others-
hv Hudson (1980), Saville-Troike (1982) and especially by Braithwaite (1984).
,\t ihc outset, a speech community was seen as being composed of those who
vh.irc similar linguistic rules (Bloomfield, 1933), and in those terms we could
h’l’.itill1<1tclyrefer to, say, the speech community of the English-speaking world.
I .uer, Labov will emphasize "shared norms" rather than shared performance
I hnractcristics but still conclude that "New York City is a single speech com
ruunity, and not a coiJection of speakers living side by side, borrowing occa
~loll;dly from each other's dialects" (Labov, 1966:7). Others, such as Fishman
(197 I), have taken as criteria I patterned regularities in the use of language.
III consequence, a speech community is seen as being composed of those who
~h'lrc functional rules that determine the appropriacy of utterances. Finally,
there :'HC those such as Hymes who argue for multiple criteria:
~h:lring knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech. Such
vhnring comprises knowledge of at least one form of speech, and knowledge also
of il~patterns of use. Both conditions are necessary.
I unununity (shared linguistic forms, shared regulative rules and shared cultural
(Olll'(‘pli-l)will not result in making an alternative definition of discourse COI11
1111111ilY1I111l~’ccssary.The first is coneenwd with mcdium; not so mllch in the t riv
I,d ~I’II~I’Ihnt “speech” just will n()t dOlih :111(‘xclusive 1110d.ificrof coml1lllniti(,N
ill,lt I)n’ ortl’ll hL’,lVilyengaged ill wlillilg, 11111 1,lll1t’I’in Icrms or whal Ih,lt lill’l
,II)’ ,nlivtI)’ ililplil·’. I ill’l”:lLYt:lkl’~ ,,,\.1) I,,”.dll\ 111111p:ll”Ol.hi,IIIIY.IIlI’ II 11’1Ilhl’l0.,
more likely to react and respond to W11[1I1g .. r.uhcr ihnn speech from the past.
distinguish a sociolinguistic grouping from a sociorhetorical one, In a socio
linguistic speech community, the communicative needs of the group, such as
socialization or group solidarity, tend to predominate in the development and
maintenance of its discoursal characteristics. The primary determinants of lin
guistic behavior are social. However, in a sociorhetorical discourse commu-
nity, the primary determinants of linguistic behavior are functional, since a
discourse community consists of a group of people who link up in order to
pursue objectives that are prior to those of socialization and solidarity, even
if these latter should consequently occur. In a discourse community, the C0111-
municative needs of the goals tend to predominate in the development and
maintenance of its discoursal characteristics.
(they tend to absorb people into that general fabric), whereas discourse com-
munities are centrifugal (they tend to separate people into occupational or
speciality-interest groups). A speech community typically inherits its member-
ship by birth, accident or adoption; a discourse community recruits its mem-
bers by persuasion, training or relevant qualification. To borrow a term from
the kind of association readers of this book are likely to belong to, an arche-
typal discourse community tends to be a Specific Interest Group.
Iwould now like to propose six defining characteristics that will be necessary ttl
and sufficient for identifying a group of individuals as a discourse community.
These public goals may be formally inscribed in documents (as is of-
ten the case with associations and clubs), or they may be more tacit.
The goals are public, because spies may join speech and discourse com-
munities for hidden purposes of subversion, while more ordinary people
may join organizations with private hopes of commercial or romantic
advancement. In some instances, but not in many, the goals may be high
level or abstract. In a Senate or Parliament there may well exist overtly
adversarial groups of members, but these adversaries may broadly share
some common objective as striving for improved government. In the
much more typical non-adversarial discourse communities, reduction in
the broad level of agreement may fall to a point where communication
breaks down and the discourse community splits. It is commonality of
goal, not shared object of study that is criteria], even if the former often
subsumes the latter. But not always. The fOCIIhnl tlw shored object of
study is, sny, the Vatican, does not imply ihm ,111t1″II1I,I)f the Vatican i”
history dcpnrrmcnrs, the Kremlin, dic)l(“””, I,hlli 1111111111IlgI’IICics rind
Itlwl’nt i011 t1ll’olo)’.y ,(‘minrll’il” fOl’111 11 dj~1111I1 I 111111111111111″
lis 11I1’I1I{J,’rs.
The participatory mechanisms will vary according to the community:
meetings, telecommunications, correspondence, newsletters, converse
lions and so forth. This criterion is quite stringent because it produces
😉 negative answer to the case of “The Cafe Owner Problem” (Najjar,
personal communication). In generalized form, the problem goes as fol
lows: individuals A, B, C and so on occupy the same professional roles in
life. They interact (in speech and writing) with the same clienteles; they
originate, receive and respond to the same kind of messages for the same
purposes; they have an approximately similar range of genre skills. And
yet, as Cafe owners working long hours in their own establishments, and
not being members of the Local Chamber of Commerce, A, Band C never
interact with one another. Do they form a discourse community? We can
notice first that “The Cafe Owner Problem” is not quite like those situa
lions where A, Band C operate as “point.” A, Band C may be lighthouse
keepers on their lonely rocks, or missionaries in their separate jungk’.”
or neglected consular officials in their rotting outposts. In all these caws,
although A, Band C may never interact, they all have lines of commu
nicarion back to base, and presumably acquired discourse community
membership as a key element in their initial training.
a discourse community because “its members may share the social-class
based or ethnically-based discursive practices of people who are likely to
become cafe owners in their neighborhood” (1987:5). However, even if
this sharing of discursive practice occurs, it does not resolve the logical
problem of assigning membership of a community to individuals who
neither admit nor recognize that such a community exists.
provide information and feedback.
Thus, membership implies uptake of the informational opportunities.
Individuals might pay an annual subscription to the Acoustical Society
o] America but if they never open any of its communications they can
not be said to belong to the discourse community, even though they art:
formally members of the society. The secondary purposes of the infor
marion exchange will vary according to the common goals: to improve
performance in a football squad or in an orchestra, to make money in n
brokerage house, to grow better roses in a gardening club, or to dent the
research front in an academic department.
ill the communicative furtherance of its aims.
!\ discourse community has developed and continues to develop discoursnl
expectations. These may involve npproprincy of topics, the f01’l11.,fUlll’tioll
.md pos.iri()ning of discoursnl t-k-meutv, IIl1d the roles texts piny in tlw oj)
crntinn of the discourse L’Ollllllllllll) III Nil foil ,I~ “gl:l1l’es nrc how ‘lhillg~ ,’,(‘1
dnlH” when Llll”,1It’gl’ i..11.,(·d 111,111111111’1t~h tI11’111″(Mn rt i11, I 9H~:).m), IIII’M’
unns of the discourse community. One of IIH’ JlIIII)(I~I” III tI”” criterion ito.
to question discourse community status for new ()I newly emergent group
ings, Such groupings need, as it were, to settle down and work out their
communicative proceedings and practi.ces before they can be recognized
as discourse communities. If a new grouping “borrows” genres from other
discourse communities, such borrowings have to be assimilated.
specific lexis.
This specialization may invol.ve using lexical items known to the wider
speech communities in special and technical ways, as in information tech-
nology discourse communities, or using highly technical terminology as
in medical communities. Most commonly, however, the inbuilt dynamic
towards an increasingly shared and specialized terminology is realized
through the development of community-specific abbreviations and acro-
nyms. The use of these (ESL, EAP, WAC, NCTE, TOEFL, erc.) is, of course,
driven by the requirements for efficient communication exchange between
experts. It is hard to conceive, at least in the contemporary English-
speaking world, of a group of well-established members of a discourse
community communicating among themselves on topics relevant to the
goals of the community and not using lexical items puzzling to outsiders.
It is hard to imagine attending perchance the convention of some group of
which one is an outsider and understanding every word. If it were to hap-
pen-as might occur in the inaugural meeting of some quite new group-
ing-then that grouping would not yet constitute a discourse community.
degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
Discourse communities have changing memberships; individuals enter as
apprentices and leave by death or in other less involuntary ways. How-
ever, survival of the community depends on a reasonable ratio between
novices and experts.
As we have seen, those interested in discourse communities have typically sited 1M
their discussions wi.thin academic contexts, thus possibly creating a false irn-
pression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual para-
digms or scholarly cliques. Therefore, for my principal example of a discoursc
wmmllnity, [ have deliberately chosen one that is not academic, but which
nevertheless is probably typical enough of many others. The discourse com-
munity is a hobby group and has an “umbrella organization” called the Hong
Kong Swdy Circle, of which I bappen to be a member. The aims of the HKSC
(no’ll’ the abbreviation) are to foster interest in :wd kl1owk·dgl· of the stamps
of 110111-\K()ng (thc various printings, etc.) :md oj’ dH’II’ II~(‘S (postal rates,
r:lllll’il:lIioIlS, etc.). ,urrcnrly there nrc abolll ~ I() 111\’111111″‘1 ~I ,lI!I’rnl across
Ill(‘ world, hili wilh l11:1jorl’onl'(‘l1tl’lllions ill (,11’,1111111 1111,11111)”1\ .lIld Iiong
“illig 11,(’11 .uid nunur Olll’~ III IIClII,,,,” .I!HI 1,lp.l1l. H.lst’d 011 IIll’ 1lH’1I1il(‘I’ .. llIp
it’l. Ill) gill·….i~ that about ,I rlunl 01 the members are non native ‘l)(‘ill..(·I\
III l’llglish nnd about a fifth wumcn. The membership varies in other wny’:
,I hw .irc rich and have acquired world-class collections of classic rnrit iex,
hili IlI:Iny arc not and pursue their hobby interest with material that COSls
VI’I)’ lillie ro acquire. Some are full-time specialist dealers, auctioneers and
l,II,IIOgliC publishers, but most are collectors. From what little) know, the
llllkt.lOr~ vary greatly in occupation. One standard reference work was co
.uuhorcd by a stamp dealer and a Dean at Yale; another was written by a
lI’II1TtI Lieutenant-Colonel. The greatest authority on the nineteenth century
lllrl’l,Ige of Hong Kong mail, with three books to his credit, has recently rc
11I(‘d from a lifetime of service as a signalman with British Rail. J mention
l!trse brief facts to show that the members of the discourse community have,
vuperficially at least, nothing in common except their shared hobby interest,
.ilthough Bizzell (1992) is probably correct in pointing out that there may be
I”Yl hological predispositions that attract particular people to collecting and
“,,11..1.’ them “kindred spirits.”
111111 is a bi-monthly Journal and Newsletter, the latest to arrive being No. 2(1~.
I’lu-re arc scheduled meetings, including an Annual General Meeting, that tnkc
pl.icc in London, but rarely more than a dozen members attend. There is .1
\I’rI.lin amount of correspondence and some phoning, but without the JOLIl”IlilII
Newsletter I doubt the discourse community would survive. The combined pI’
IIl1dical often has a highly interactive content as the following extracts show:
No one has yet produced another example of this c.d.s. that I mentioned on
1.2)6/7 as having been found with an index letter “C” with its opening facing
downwards, but Mr. Scamp reports that he has seen one illustrated in all auc-
non catalogue having a normal “C” and dated MY 9/59 (Type 12 is the 20 111111
‘”1glc-circle broken in upper half by HONG KONG). It must be in someone’s
collection!
Mr. Pullan disputes the statement at the top of ].257/3 that “If the postal clerk
h.id not violated regulations by affixing the MR 17/79 (HIOGO) datestarnp 011
Ihl’ [ronr, we might bave no example of this c.d.s. at ali.” He states that “By 1879
il was 110rmal practice for the sorter’s datestamp to be struck OD the front, the
dli1nge from the back of the cover occurring generally in 1877, though there nre
l\ol.lIcd earlier examples”; thus there was no violation of regulations.
hy SIl~l:I.’SS. Enrly on I published an artidc in the journal which L1seda fairly COlIl
pin, fl’l’tlllcncy analysis of occurrence dcrived frOI11Applied Linguistics ill
IInkl’ to offer an alternntivc (‘xplnll,Itioll I)f :l PII~~.ICwell known 10 IlWIl IIwl’l’
III IIH’ IIKSC. The ollly comnll’l1h 111111 1111 .. ,’11011 III cSI:lblish c;rl·dibilily (‘lidll’d
WI’II’ “100 li(‘vl.·r by hull”’ :1nd “MI ‘w,dl • WI’ WIIII’1 dl.llllW (IIII’ Illiml, wlIIIlIlI1
approval and disapproval for a phil.uclu Ill’lll (~f. Ike her, 1981) such as “~i~l1iti
cant,” “useful,” “normal,” and not to comment directly on the monetary value ot
such items.
Journal/Newsletter, the discourse community has developed a genre-specific
set of conventions for describing items of Hong Kong postal history. These
occur in members’ collections, whether for display or not, and are found in
somewhat more abbreviated forms in specialized auction catalogues as in the
following example: ‘
dollar cbop, pair HK 2 C carmine added & Hong Kong index Beds. Arr
cds. (1) (Photo) HK $1500.
ClP as “Chinese Imperial Post,” a “combination” as a postal item legitimately
combining the stamps of two or more nations and so on, an outsider would
still not be in a position to estimate whether 1500 Hong Kong dollars would
be an appropriate sum to bid. However, the distinction between insider and
outsider is not absolute but consists of gradations. A professional stamp dealer
not dealing in Hong Kong material would have a useful general schema,
while a member of a very similar discourse community, say the China Postal
History Society, may do as well as a member of the HKSC because of over-
lapping goals.
_ !he d,isc~urse community Ihave discussed meets all six of the proposed de- , I
finmg cntena: there are common goals, participatory mechanisms, information
exchange, community specific genres, a highly specialized terminology and a
high general level of expertise. On the other hand, distance between members
geographically, ethnically and socially presumably means that they do not form
a speech community.
If we, now ,return to Herzberg’s “cluster of ideas” quoted near the beginning l’
of this section, we can see that the first two (language use is a form of social
b~haviour, and discourse maintains and extends a group’s knowledge) accord
With the conceptualization of discourse community proposed here. The third is
the cia im that “discourse is epistemic or constitutive of the group’s knowledge”
(l lcrzberg, 1986:1). This claim is also advanced, although in slightly different
form, in a paper by Bizzell:
muniry” is :1 group of people who share certa.in language-using practices. These
prucricea cn n be seen as cOl1ventionaJlzed in two ways, Slyli~1k ~'()I1Vl’l1lions ,regu-
lal(‘ Nocitll inlel'(lctions both within the group :ll1d ill il’> d”lIliIlIlN witl, ollrslders:
I() Ihi~ (‘,(Il”l( “discourse community” bon’owN t,.,1I1 1111 ‘Hllllllllllllllklk ~()n,epl
01″~lwl’rh ~’)llllllllllily.” AI~o, t’nlloll1l’:11 kll()wl.,.I,i’ 111,”1111 , til! “,”ld I’il’w~ of
JOliN ‘WAil \ II” 111111’pU,II }I,tll’II~”(Ollllllilltliv ‘JJS
1I1111111y” borrows [rom the liu-r.uy 111l1l,lllOIll’l’PIof “interprcrivc CIlIl1II1I1IlIlY.”
(Iii …11’11, 1992: I)
II’I’ lOl1’>titutive or regulative of world-view is a contemporary reworking of tlw
Whorfian hypothesis that each language possesses a structure which must :11
hOIIll’ level influence the way its users view the world (Carroll, 1956). The issue
I~ ,III important one, because as Bizzell later observes “If we acknowledge that
partlcipnting in a discourse community entails some assimilation of its world
vu-w, then it becomes difficult to maintain the position that discourse convcn-
lIuns can be employed in a detached, instrumental way” (Bizzell, 1992:9).
l’III/I/oyed is interpreted as may sometimes be employed. There are several rea-
~Oll~ for this. First, it is possible to deny the premise that participation entails
,I”illlilarion. There are enough spies, undercover agents and fifth columnists in
11ll’ world to suggest that non-assimilation is at least possible. Spies are only
“‘1~l’l’ssfl1l if they participate successfully in the relevant speech and discourse
cummunities of the domain which they have infiltrated; however, if they also
“”lilli/ale they cease to be single spies but become double agents, On a less
dr.unaric level, there is enough pretense, deception and face-work around to
lI~gesl that the acting out of roles is not that uncommon; and to take a reb
IlIld participating member of a bridge-playing community in order to makr ,I
l.rvorubic impression on his prospective parents-in-law.
I h.ive attempted implies (a) that individuals may belong to several discourse
lOlllnlllnities and (b) that individuals will vary in the number of discourse corn-
1I11111iticsthey belong to and hence in the nwnber of genres they command,
AI ()IIC extreme there may be a sense of discourse community deprivation-
“( .oopcd up in the house with the children all day,” At the other extreme,
IIIl’I'(‘ stand the skilled professional journalists with their chameleon-like ability
In .ISSlIl11etemporary membership of a wide range of discourse communities.
I III’M: observations suggest discourse communities will vary, both intrinsically
.uul in terms of tbe member’s perspective, in the degree to which they impose a
world-view. Belonging to the Hong Kong Study Circle is not likely to be as con
.. 111111 ivc as abandoning the world for the seclusion of a closed religious order.
Ihn-atcn one common type of apprenticeship and to cast a hegemonical shadow
UWI’ international education. Students taking a range of different courses of
‘1’11 operate successfully as “ethnographers” of these various academic milieux
(,I011 Ill>, 1988a) and do so with sufficient detachment and instrumentality to
.Ivoid lkvdoping mLlltiple pcrsonnlitit:s, ev(‘” if, with more senior and specinl
i/,(‘d HIlIlk-nl’S, the epistcmic n01tlll’l’ of I Itl’ d i~,,:ollrse mny be more a ppan’lIl, 11~
IIII’ illtl’rl’~tin~c;,scstudy by Ikl’kl’lIkolll’l 1’1111. (ILJRH) shows. I would aisillilt’
III ,Ivoid l:lkil1/!. ,I positiOIl Whl’lPhy ,1111111″,11 ,,111I1t’1I1 i~ ~t’i,.’I),vi;1 pUllidp,llioll,
th” rnny happen, I would nOI want tn ,llll’PI rh.u discourse convcntiuns cun
not be successfully deployed in an instruuu-ut.rl manner (sec James, 19HO (01
further discussion of variability in foreign student roles). Overall, the extent
to which discourse is constitutive of world-view would seem to be a matter 01
investigation rather than assumption.
world-view as criterial, so neither do 1 want to accept a threshold level of per
sonal involvement as criteria]. While it may be high in a small business, a class
or a department, and may be notoriously high among members of amateur dra-
matic discourse communities, the fact remains that the active members of the
Hong Kong Study Circle-to use an example already discussed-form a suc-
cessful discourse community despite a very low level of personal involvement.
Nor is centrality to the main affairs of life, family, work, money, education,
and so on, criteria!’ Memberships of hobby groups may be quite peripheral,
while memberships of professional associations may be closely connected to
the business of a career (shockingly so as when a member is debarred), but both
may equally constitute discourse communities. Finally, discourse communities
will vary in the extent to which they are norm-developed, or have their set and
settled ways. Some, at a particular moment in time, will be highly conservative
(“these are things that have been and remain”), while others may be norm-
developing and in a state of flux (KuJ1n, 1970; Huckin, 1987).
fine study of contexts for writing in two senior college Chemical Engineering
classes by Herrington (1985). Herrington concluded the Lab course and De-
sign Process course “represented distinct communities where different issues
were addressed, different lines of reasoning used, different writer and audience
roles assumed, and different social purposes served by writing” (1985:331).
(If we also note that the two courses were taught in the same department at
the same institution by the same staff to largely the same students, then the
Herrington study suggests additionally that there may be more of invention
than we would like to see in our models of disciplinary culture.) The dispari-
ties between the two courses can be interpreted in the following way. Writing
in the Lab course was central to the “display familiarity” macro-act of col-
lege assignments (Horowitz, 1986a)-which the students were accustomed to.
Writing in the Design course was central to the persuasive reporting macro-acr
of the looming professional world, which the students were not accustomed
lO. The Lab course was norm-developed, while the Design course was 110rm-
delle[opillg. As Herrington observes, in Lab both students and faculty were all
lOO aware that the conceptual issue in the assignments was not an issue for
Ihe nudiellce-the professor knew the answers. But it was an issue in Design,
I\s t1 part consequence, the level of personal involvemellL was much higher in
till’ Design cOllrse where professor and student illtl’l’,ll’tl’d tOAt’lher in a joint
problem-solving envirollment.
illdlldil)~ i1l’nd(‘lnic dnssl’s, C()lIst’ilIIll’ dili(U/I/\J’ ,1111111111111111′” (,iv(‘1) ill(‘ si”
111(1’11,1, It wlluld ‘(‘,’111 dl’,lI’ th,lt ,h,lIri1llld( I .. III I’ll” I II r-.IIIIIII~, 111(‘111111’1’
1I1l1\'(‘I’sity, .nul inhabitants 01 an npartrncnr block all fail to qualify. l~lItwh.u
Ihl)1I1 .icndcmic classes? Except in exceptional cases of well-knit gro”p~ 01
IIIV,UH.l’d students already familiar with much of the material, an acndcmu
,1,1″ ” unlikely to be a discourse community at the outset. However, the hoped
1m outcome is that it will form a discourse community (Mckenna, 19H7).
\1)1lll’wherc down the line, broad agreement on goals wiJJ be established, n filii
1,lIIgl’ of participatory mechanisms will be created, information exchange and
k,.dhnck will flourish by peer-review and instructor commentary, understand
Ilig thl’ rationale of and facility with appropriate genres will develop, control
III the technical vocabulary in both oral and written contexts will emerge, and n
h’wl of expertise that permits critical thinking be made manifest. Thus it turn …
IIlIt Ihat providing a relatively constrained operational set of criteria for defining
d,o,lOlirse communities also provides a coign of vantage, if from the applied lin
~1I”t’s corner, for assessing educational processes and for reviewing what nn’d …
II) hl’ done to assist non-native speakers and others to engage fully in the III,
c oiu ~l’ community, for all its attempts to offer a set of pragmatic and Opl I.’
t IIlim! criteria, remains in at least one sense somewhat removed from n’,tllI> II
” utopian and “oddly free of many of the tensions, discontinuities and Willi” J’.
III the sorts of talk and writing that go on everyday in the classrooms ,11111 til
p.rruncnrs of an actual university” (Harris, 1989:14). Bizzell (1987) toll IhI’,
c l.umcd that discourse communities can be healthy and yet contain cont 1,,,1,,
t 1I11lS; nnd Herrington (1989) continues to describe composition researchers “N
,I “community” while unveiling the tensions and divisions within the grollp
I Ill’ precise status of conflictive discourse communities is doubtless a 111:111,’1
tlll’llit lire study, but here it can at least be accepted that discourse comrnuniticv
\ .in, over a period of time, lose as well as gain consensus, and at sOl11ecrili!;,d
III1I1.:tllre,be so divided as to be on the point of splintering.
11,’.1\(‘1’,’11)IlY. 1981. Towards a definition of disciplinary cultures. Studies in Higher EdllC1I1/1II1
Ilrlkl’llkOIl(‘r, Carol, Thomas N. Huckin, and John Ackerman. 1.988. COllvenrions, convcrsnlioll~
II!”.lIg/is/J 22:9-44.
1’1’1111 ~lnlC Conference on Compositioo, July, 1987.
\(/IIIWI1’SS, U. Pirtsburgh P. 222-237.
1\,,111 hWIIlII., Chnril” A. 1984. Townl’d~ a COIlu’plllnllZ:lIion of “speech C0l111111111il y.” In 1\11″‘” /111111
1\, IIllc’l’, 1\ A. 1IJ1l6, Sod,1I ((111,JrllU IIl1l, 111111111III’ , 111.1 1111′,1111he” ily or knowl\·dl\l’: A l”hll”III,ll’h)
‘IH:~17 41..
prcscnrcd or the CCC Convention, Atlanta, Gn, March, 19M7.
l’ishman, joshua (ed.) J 971, Sociolinguistics: A brief introduction. Rowley, Mass: Newbury l louse.
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The archaeology of knowledge. New York: Harper & Row.
Freed, Richard C. and Glenn J. Broadhead, 1987. Discourse communities, sacred texts, and insu
Cccrrz, Clifford. 1983. Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York
Communication 40:11-22.
college chemical engineering courses. Research ill the Teaching of English 19:33J-61.
growth of a research community in composition studies. Research in the Teaching of Englist)
23:117-38.
vention, New Orleans, La, March, 1986.
1’00111. TESO.L Quarte1’iy 20:445-62.
vcntion. Atlanta, Ga, March, 1987.
Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations in sociolinguistics: Ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: Univer
james, Kenneth. 1980. Seminar overview. In Greenall and Price (eds.):7-21.
johns, Ann M. 1988a. The discourse communities dilemma: Identifying transferable skills for tilt,
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions (second edition). Chicago University
Center for Applied Linguistics.
248-74.
1£1Iglisil(01′ Specific Purposes 6: 187-202.
Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Convention, St. Louis, March, 1988.
Prt’~~.
Willr,l’n,rcitl, Ludwig. ·195R. PWosophical irlVestigatiolls. Oxford; l\1I~jJ 111111.’1
“Ily c1((.ordingto Swales. Can you find examples of each from your own experience?
wronq? Which of the six characteristics did he have trouble with?
1\( cording to Swales,would a first-year college classroom count as a discourse com
munity? What about a graduate class?Why or why not?
Ii,slmilated in it. What does this mean?
characteristics of a discourse community. For example, what are its shared goals? what
I~its lexis?What are its genres?
were not assimilated into it. What happened?
or In which you imagine the problems a newcomer has in learning the ropes in ill1y
IlI’W discourse community you can imagine, from World of Warcraft to medical school
10 a sorority.
communities are and how knowing about them will be helpful to that student in
college.
Spend a few hours hanging out with or near a discourse community of your choice
dorm, store, gaming community, and so forth. Write down every use of specialized
llinguage that you hear-whether it is an unusual word or phrase, or simply an
unusual use of a fairly common word or phrase. And note on your “lexis list” when a
tel m you were familiar with was being used with a new meaning or in a new way.
ilo you understand anything differently about your own writing experiences after reading
‘,Wdlt’S’s description of how discourse communities work? If so, consider a way that this
1II1dl’Istanding can help you navigate discourse communities in the future.