Discussion paper

Essentials of a discourse community

An investigation into the notion of discourse community should begin with the presentation of its definition. A discourse community, states Bizzell (1992), “is a group of people who share certain language-using practices … [that] can be seen as conventionalized” by social interactions within the group and in its dealings with outsiders. It is “bound together primarily by its uses of language, although bound perhaps by other ties as well, geographical, socioeconomic, ethnic, professional, and so on” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p.1). Considering Swales’ (1990) recognition of discourse community, six basic criteria should be analyzed, namely “common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology, and high level of expertise” (as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 13).

As far as the first criterion is concerned, Swales (1990) states that a discourse community “should achieve and have specific interests” (as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 13). In this sense, Kutz (1997), claims that members of a discourse community “have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, and similar attitudes and values”. He goes further to mention that they “share understandings about how to communicate knowledge and achieve shared purposes, and they exhibit a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p.1).

Participatory mechanisms, that Swales (1990) views as an essential characteristic of a discourse community, involve the “provi[sion] of information and feedback” (as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 13).  As Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004) put it, “for teacher learning to occur, teachers need opportunities to participate in professional communities that discuss learning theories and various teacher materials and pedagogy” (p.1). Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004) argue that these opportunities should “support the risk taking and struggle entailed in transforming practice” (as cited in McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993, p.15). In addition to this, he further notes that “this learning is not a unidirectional phenomenon. The community, too, changes through the ideas and ways of thinking that its new members bring to the discourse” (as cited in Putnam & Borko, 2000, p. 10).

Information exchange in Swales’ (1990) perspective refers to the fact that “the group will not survive unless its members are intercommunicated” (as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p.13). Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez-Torres (2003) illustrate this notion in their description of situated learning discourse community. “Reflection”, they claim, “is understood as a process […] situated in school cultures that are social in nature, where interactions with others are an important medium in which reflection occurs. Teachers interact with colleagues in goal directed activities that require communication and the exchange of ideas” (p.2). Likewise, in her reflections on community college scholarship, Kelly-Kleese (2004) states that “community college faculty have to cross boundaries in order to participate in traditional scholarship” (p.1).

In connection with Swales’ (1990) study of community-specific genres in a discourse community, Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez-Torres (2003) refer to “the development of a collective identity in which teachers strive to acquire and continually transform a social language” (p.5).  Social language is defined as “a discourse peculiar to a specific [societal group - - e.g., professional or ethnic group] at a given time” (Holquist & Emerson, as cited in Wertsch, 1991, p.57). In doing this, teachers “reveal the values and beliefs of the social group in which they are participating” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles, & Lopez-Torres, 2003, p.5).

Swales (1990) indicates that the use of highly specialized terminology as the fifth criterion for a discourse community to be recognized as such. Kelly-Kleese (2001) illustrates this view when she states that “the power of university scholars to name “what is” comes largely from their ability to be prolific with their writing and publishing ventures” (p.2). She claims that “by focusing on sharing their knowledge, findings and interpretations, they [university scholars] create policy and redefine the language and reality of higher education; engaging in scholarship is a well developed aspect of the culture of this discourse community”.

According to Swales (1990), a high general level of expertise, understood as the achievement of a certain level of knowledge, constitutes the last criterion characterizing a discourse community. Kelly-Kleese (2004) defines communicative competence as “what one must know in order to use language appropriately in particular discourse communities”  (as cited in Kutz, 1997). This 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, p.28). As Zito (1984) explains, “only the ordained may employ the ritualistic speech of their discourse and expect to be taken seriously” (pp. 91-92).

By and large, the analysis above has aimed to enlighten the essentials of discourse community and to provide evidence to support Swales’ (1990) views as to its main characteristics. Since academic literacy cannot be understood simply as a system of pre-established criteria but has to be viewed within the framework of social practices, the above research has intended to outline the basic requirements for community interaction. In reflecting upon Swales’ (1990) theory, different authors have been quoted in order to illustrate the basic criteria underpinning the establishment of a discourse community.

References

Bizzell, P. (1992). Academic discourse and critical consciousness. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Bowers, C.A. (1987). The promise of theory: Education and the politics of cultural change. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A.J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved September 2010, 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 September 2010, 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 September 2010, from                                http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_6361541

Kutz, E. (1997). Language and literacy: Studying discourse in communities and classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

McLaughin, M., & Talbert, J.E. (1993). Contexts that matter for teaching and learning: Strategic opportunities for meeting the nation’s educational goals. Stanford, CA: Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching, Stanford University.

Putnam, R.T., & Borko, H. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational Researcher, 29(1), 4-15.

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 September 2010, from                                                                             http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200404/ai_n9349405

Wertsch, J.V. (1991). Voices of the mind. A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zito, G.V. (1984). Systems of discourse. Structures and semiotics in the social sciences. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.