Response to "The Concept of Discourse..."

            In his article, “The Concept of Discourse Community”, John Swales shows readers what a discourse community is and explains the rules they need to follow. He argues that a discourse community is different from a speech community and that they are defined by:

1.) Broadly agreed set of public rules
2.) Mechanisms of intercommunication between its members
3.) Mechanisms providing information and feedback
4.) Utilizes and posses one or more genres

5.) Acquired specific lexis
6.) A threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise
            This article is similar to Greene’s article “Argument as Conversation”. In Greene’s article he explains that each argument takes place in a certain discourse community and in Swales’ article he explains discourse community more thoroughly. It is nice to get a look deeper into what a discourse community actually is.
            I found this article to be very dry. The way Swales writes really bores me. I think it would have helped me to read this before I wrote my first essay because it seems after reading this that discourse communities are a very important piece in arguments. Although overall I did not enjoy this article due to the dryness.

Before You Read

            The last time I can remember that I felt out of place was when I went to a part with my brother and everyone there, besides me, was wearing metal-band t-shirts and metal was playing. I was not into metal music at the time but in the end it turned out to be pretty fun.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling

            A discourse community I belong to would be the discourse community Steven Wilson fans. The goals are basically to keep up to date on what he is recording with each of his different projects. The lexis would be the discographies of his projects and re-mixes (Porcupine Tree, Solo albums, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, etc.). The genres would be music (Progressive Rock, Metal, Ambient/Drone, and Jazz/Jazz Fusion), live performance videos, and behind the scenes work.