Discourse Community Features
The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence to support Swales’ (1990) basic criteria to recognize a discourse community as such. Thus, considering Swales’ view, a discourse community (DC) is defined as a group of people whose members share goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology and a general level of expertise. All these characteristics constitute a particular discourse that becomes conventionalized by the social interactions or language uses of a group.
Following the stated criteria, Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez Torres (2003) stress the importance of interaction as a medium for reflection, and common goals as “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 it is “distributed” through the sign systems and artifacts that are embedded in the social activity of the school community” (“Situated Learning discourse community,” ¶ 11).
A community college can be regarded as a DC since “its members have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and values, share understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and achieve their shared purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style” (Kutz, 1997, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001, ¶ 4).
Information exchange and feedback are central features of DCs. In this sense, journal editors and peer reviewers must provide opportunities for community members to share their perspectives and experiences (Kelly-Kleese, 2004). Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004) focus on a collaborative culture in which teachers can learn from one another as peers.
Regarding community-specific genres, Kelly-Kleese (2004) point out that assessment is the key to legitimize a DC for its members must understand the accepted writing conventions and the standards set to evaluate their work. In reference to this, communication competence plays an important role since it is defined as “what one must know in order to use language appropriately in particular discourse communities” (Kutz, 1997, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, “Communicative Competence,” ¶ 12).
From all the evidence stated previously, it can be concluded that discourse communities have certain features that define them in accordance with Swales’ (1990) criteria. Therefore, interaction, shared knowledge, exchange of information, and community-specific genres are some of the characteristics for a group to be identified as a discourse community.
References
Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection:
teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved October 2007,
from
Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community
College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved
October 2007, from
Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community
college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved
October 2007, from
Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow.
Teacher Education Quarterly. Retrieved October 2007, from
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