Describing Discourse Communities: A Laudable Attempt


 When Swales (1990) endeavours to define as well as to clarify what a discourse community is, a list of requirements emerges from his theory which accounts for some basic criteria for a discourse community to be accepted as such. Although there are authors that can react against some of his ideas, most of them agree on his definition.
In order to fulfil those requisites, Swales (1990) establishes that a discourse community should achieve common goals as well as share the same interests. Furthermore, there should also be participatory mechanisms among members, who share community-specific genres and highly specialized terminology and who ought to possess a high level of expertise.
 Most of the requirements, which are seen as essential by Swales (1990) for a discourse community to be recognized as such, can be found in Kutz’ (1997) work, when he makes an effort to include community colleges within the realm of a community discourse. As she states:
                      The community college can be seen as a discourse community: Its members
                      have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves share
                      knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and
                      values, shared understandings about how to communicate their knowledge an
                      achieve their shared purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particula
                      structure and style. (Kutz, 1997, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001, para. 4 )

 All in all, many authors, researchers and theorists have intended to identify what a discourse community is, and Swales (1990) has succeeded in listing these criteria which allows us to gain a deeper understanding of such community. Those requisites serve the purpose of helping people know what to do so as to acquire membership in a discourse community.


                                                                     

                                                                      References
 Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s choice: An open memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review, Summer, 2004. Retrieved November 2011, from http/ /findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463 Kutz, E. (1997). Language and literacy: Studying discourse in communities and classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers. Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.