Characteristics of a Discourse Community

The purpose of this paper is to find evidence of Swales’ (1990) characteristics to define a discourse community in four different articles. Swales (1990) proposed six characteristics for a discourse community. According to Swales (1990), if a discourse community does not meet these characteristics, it means that it cannot be called a discourse community. The requirements are the following: Common goals, Participatory mechanisms, Information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology and high general level of expertise.

Members of a discourse community should develop common purposes, relationships, attitudes and values so that their knowledge and goals can be achieved (Kutz, 1997; as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001). This is connected with Swales’ (1990) first characteristic of a discourse community (common goals). Similarly, Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and LopezTorres (2003) explained in their article that “teachers function as resources for one another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build new ideas”. This idea is similar to Swales’ (1990) second characteristic of a discourse community, “participatory mechanisms”.

Moreover, Hoffman-Kipp et al. (2003) stated that “team teaching and collaborative planning typically require teachers to discuss their beliefs and practices within the routines of their daily work”. This idea is related to Swales’ (1990) third characteristic of a discourse community which establishes “Information exchange”. The fourth characteristic established by Swales (1990), “Community-specific genes” may be associated when Kelly-Kleese (2004) stated that “In order to have their work deemed worthy, community college faculty and administrators must understand the convention of writing and the standards by which their work will be judged.”

“The community college can be seen as adopting language that has been given particular meaning within the larger higher education community (…)” (Kelly-Kleese, 2001). This is what Swales calls “highly specialized terminology”. The last characteristic of a discourse community mentioned by Swales is “general level of expertise” and there is evidence of this when Zito (1984) argues that “an author is granted a certain binding authority to his intended meaning; this is legitimated by academic credentials, professional associations, and the division of knowledge within the academy” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001).

On the whole, the six characteristics established by Swales (1990) for describing a discourse community seems to be present in the articles and thus giving evidence and supporting Swales’ theory.

Reference

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. j., &Lopez Torres, L. ( 2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into practice. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mONQM/is_3_42/ai_108442653

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mOHCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticle.com/p/articles/mi_mOHCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.