Defining a discourse community

Throughout the years, many scholars have analysed the term: discourse community.  But one definition that has become widely spread in academic circles, is the one provided by Swales (1990 as cited in Pintos, 2009, p.13). The purpose of this paper is to address the six characteristics, which Swales (1990) considers are necessary to define a discourse community, and find evidence on different papers to support his theory.

According to Swales (1990), one of the basic criteria that define a discourse community is sharing common goals. This idea seems to be supported by Kelly Kleese (2004) when she states that the members of a discourse community develop a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, and similar attitudes and values. The same criterion appears to be validated by Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004). Following their research, one of the aspects that contributed to the success of the cohort program they studied was that teachers worked in teams towards the same goal, which lead to the conclusion that teachers need teachers to grow with.

A second criterion proposed by Swales (1990) is that a discourse community should provide information and feedback. If we consider Wenzlaff and Wieseman’s study, it could be concluded that one of the main purposes of the discourse community they described was to provide constant feedback on teachers’ practices. The interactions among the teachers were essential to the success of the program: “The community too, changes through the ideas and ways of thinking that its new members bring to the discourse” (Putman & Borko, 2000, as cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, p.1).

The importance of interaction has also been considered by Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and López Torres (2003): “Teachers interact with colleagues in goal-directed activities that require communication and the exchange of ideas where reflection itself is not contained wholly in the mind of the individual but is ‘distributed’ through sign systems and artifacts that are embedded in the social activity of the school community” (p.3). This would support Swales’(1990) third criteria, which refers to the importance of interaction among the people involved in this community.

The other three criteria comprise: sharing  a specific genre, highly specialized terminology and  a high level of expertise. On the one hand, evidence to support these characteristics could we found in Bizzell (1992), who states that a discourse community “is a group of people who share certain language-using practices… (that) can be seen as conventionalized by social interactions within the group and its dealings with outsiders” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p.2). The sharing of a specific jargon is also described by other authors. “Teachers also mediate their labor through cognitive mechanisms as they learn scientific concepts (…)” (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996, as cited in Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López Torres, 2003, p.5).

On the other hand, there are authors who consider the power and influence that certain writers may have above other members of the same discourse community. Kutz (1997), for example, defines communicative competence as what one must know in order to use language appropriately in particular discourse communities. In other words, “communicative competence implies that ‘individuals and groups with greater skill in using (and manipulating) the language system will exercise power in naming and thus controlling how others will view social reality” (Bowers, 1987, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p.2). This notion was also perceived by Zito (1984): “within a discourse community, only those qualified by some socially institutionalized agency may engage in such discourse and be taken seriously” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001, p.3)

All things considered, it could be concluded that the basic criteria that Swales (1990) proposes in order to define a discourse community are also taken into consideration by other authors when they provide their own definitions. In addition, some concepts which appear in Swales (1990) were developed more in depth by other authors, who analysed the implications of communicative competence.

References:

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NQM/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 October 2007, from

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2007, from

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010) Unit 1: Building up a community of teachers and prospective researchers. Buenos Aires. Universidad Caece. Retrieved August 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=6856

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow. Teacher Education Quarterly. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200404/ai_n9349405