Paper 1: Analysis and Discussion

Towards a Description of Discourse Community

Several factors have been taken into account when trying to conceptualize a Discourse Community. Swales (1990) establishes six principles that any discourse community should have to be recognized as such. We will attempt to show how these principles are reflected on some academic articles.

The first principle states that for a discourse community to be recognized as such there should be common goals, objectives and specific interests shared by a group of people. This group is expected not only to be engaged in the same line of work but also to share core criteria. This characteristic can be exemplified by Kelly-Keese (2004) who upholds that one of the most important attempts to set the boundaries of a two-year community college is to look for specific goals:

By more clearly defining and delineating the boundaries of the two-year college discourse community, community college faculty will be better able to assert their own knowledge and power within academe. Keeping the unique mission of the community college in mind, faculty must focus deliberately on developing their communicative competence within academe while carving out their own individual voice (para. 37).

The second principle refers to participatory mechanisms. Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles, and Lopez-Torres (2003) clearly identify that participants are expected to provide information and feedback by reflection. They assert, “We hope this vision of reflection … promotes the authorization of a new breed of professional knowledge that is mindful of issues of learning, culture, power, and social justice” (para. 27). The idea of reflection seems to involve both an intrapersonal moment for teachers to think about their own professional development and an interpersonal moment for teachers to interact critically, politically and technically with their colleagues. This reflection on every-day practice seems to foster collaborative work.

Following that line of thought, Hoffman-Kipp, et al., (2003) believe that cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) can help us “to envision teachers as cultural historical beings that work in politically charged institutional contexts” (para. 26).

According to Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004), “teachers’ comfort and rapport with each other, both personally and professionally, contributed toward a heightened awareness and appreciation of listening to and seeing perspectives other than their own” (para. 30). This need of teachers’ rapport supports Swales’ (1990) third principle which is centered on the communication among members of a given group. Thus, information exchange becomes a crucial tool for constructing a discourse community. The concept of isolated teachers cannot be coined within a discourse community. “Teachers need teachers to grow with. A discourse community cannot exist in the absence of a collaborative culture and an environment that supports risk-taking and reflection” (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993; as cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, para. 32).

Swales (1990) states that discourse communities should also have community-specific genres with highly specialized terminology. Kelly-Kleese (2004) can be paraphrased as an example of these principles, who believes that two-year college community should have its own knowledge, its own mission and its own communicative competence. Basically, any discourse community should have its own voice. These two characteristics of discourse community focus on having at least one shared genre with its own jargon.

The last characteristic demands that the members of a discourse community share some general level of expertise. Participants are expected to have a specialized training and trust intellectual skills. Kelly-Kleese (2001) has realized that this principle has been rather difficult to achieve in community colleges since much of their discourse takes an oral form. She believes that “through community college scholarship, we can enhance our colleges' reputations, bring prestige to our campuses and to our faculty, and continue to reshape the image of community colleges in America” (para. 11). Updating, mentoring and researching can help members of a given discourse community to grow professionally.

In this paper we have attempted to reflect upon the significance of Swales’ (1990) six principles applied to discourse communities by showing how these characteristics are represented in other sources.

References

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez-Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into practice. Retrieved on 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 on 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 on October, 2007 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541

McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993. (Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K.C. (2004). Teachers need teachers to grow. Teacher education quarterly. Retrieved on October, 2007 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200404/ai_n9349405)

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 on October, 2007 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200404/ai_n9349405