IS RHETORIC & COMPOSITION I

1301 A DISCOURSE
COMMUNITY?
Alexandra Rodriguez

FEBRUARY 7, 2018
RWS 1301
University of Texas at El Paso
 Is Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 a Discourse Community?

Discourse community according to Swales (1990) is a group of people who have

common goals of expanding knowledge within the group through the six characteristics of

common public goals, intercommunication, looped intercommunication, dedicated genres,

specialized vocabulary, and self-sustaining hierarchy (p 471). And with this definition that

Swales came up Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 is a Discourse Community. Discourse

community can be explained several different ways, over the years it keeps changing. The

meaning of Discourse Community has been used in different ways and it can all depend on how

the readers understand it. But mainly Discourse Community has been explained at it including

six different characteristics and these characteristics include common goals, intercommunication

mechanism, looped intercommunication, dedicated genres, community of practice, and self-

sustaining hierarchy. By putting different meanings and examples we will come up with one

definition that will be understood including different examples. The way I see our class as being

Discourse Community is as all of us students having the same goals but wanting to achieve it for

different reasons and in different forms.

Discourse Community includes six different characteristics that affect the goal.

According to Swales (1990) the goals are public, because spies may join speech and discourse

communities for hidden purposes of subversion, while more ordinary people may join

organizations with private hopes of commercial or romantic advancement. What this is basically

saying is that we all have different reasons to believe in different things or different reasons on

why we want to accomplish different things. Having Common Goals compare us to others, but it

doesn’t mean that we are doing it for a certain reason. In Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 we all

want to pass the class with an A; for some of us it might to make our parents proud, for others it
is just to graduate, and for others it might be to keep receiving financial aid to be able to keep

going on with their studies. We all have the same goals but different reasons behind wanting to

accomplish them and different ways of doing so. Being in a class for example in Rhetoric and

Composition I 1301 it helps you in finding a way to learn from others, to see how all the

classmates have some thoughts in common. Everyone’s common goals bring everyone together.

Discourse Community is also describing according to Swales (1990).

Intercommunication mechanisms is a way of interpreting and responding to similar purposes and

being able to communicate in any form. It is a working towards the same goal through

communication with others. Having a good intercommunication mechanism is a really helping

factor because different things can be learned, or different ideas can come to mind because

everyone can be able to communicate without any severe misunderstandings. Being able to have

good communication with other people can be a positive thing always because it will only help

you to move forward on achieving the goals. In a classroom being able to communicate with

your teacher helps you understand the assignments and have them ready on time. Also, being

able to communicate with your classmates helps because students share different ideas in a

certain topic and it can make the assignment a bit easier for everyone else.

Another characteristic according to Swales in Discourse Community (1990) is

participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. What participatory

mechanisms means, is that to be part of the Common Goal you need to participate. The feedback

really matters to be able to count. Without any feedback coming from you as a student it

wouldn’t work because that means you have no idea on why that is your Common Goal. As well

as when you don’t receive feedback or comments from other classmates it makes you miss out

on different ideas coming from different people. It keeps you from learning new ways on
achieving your goals or on different ways that it can make you accomplish your goals faster.

When there is no feedback then there basically isn’t any common goals.

Discourse Community according to Swales (1990) utilizes and hence possesses one or

more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. What this means is that all the process

must be divided into different sections that can help figure out how it’s going to get done. It is a

different way to assemble things together that way it can work out at the end. It has been

explained that when something is a genre it has a story to tell. When something is a genre then it

means there’s a point of view about the subject. For a common goal the genres are needed that

way a story can be told, because once there is meaning to something then a story can be told. For

example, in Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 you can have all this adventure during a break but

then theres moments when everything is about being serious to be able to achieve all your goals.

The fifth characteristic according to Swales in addition to owning genres a Discourse

Community (1990) has acquired some specific lexis. Specific Lexis is being able to have a better

explanation to the goal. Being able to express it in a better manner and in a more understandable

way really matters because it can expand the idea a bit better. Being able to have a better

communication because of this character tic makes the process a lot easier because you can keep

expanding the ideas a lot more. For example, in Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 it helps

because it will give you a better idea on how people thing, or the way people see their common

goals with you. Sometimes their goals are the same as yours, but they see it as a furthermore

neutral goal.

And the last characteristic that Swales establishes (1990) is that is has a threshold level of

members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. What it can mean is

that once you start focusing in this one thing you become better at it but sometimes you run out
of time for one reason or the other. This characteristic makes perfect sense with Rhetoric and

Composition I 1301 being Discourse Community. The reason being is because every day you try

to become better at what you are doing, and you keep practicing. But then the end of the

semester comes, and you didn’t make it. Even when you try to use all this characteristic to

accomplish your Common Goal sometimes you ran out of time. Even when you keep trying to

become better at trying to achieve your goals it might not work because it becomes hard or

because you don’t understand. Another way that you can run out of time is by not being part of

the Discourse Community, because sometimes all you can be doing is receiving all the

information but never giving feedback to help others. Sometimes you just wait till last minute to

try and get everything but it’s too late. You had all the time to accomplish everything little by

little, but you didn’t listen all you did was receive the feedback from the Discourse Community

which in this case is Rhetoric and Composition I 1301 but you never gave any feedback. Even

though you know exactly what is going on sometimes theres not enough time or enough

understanding.

At the end we came up with Discourse Community must be all about the ways that things

can be presented. Discourse Community is all about people having all these common

characteristics and being presented all in the same ways. This can be explained as the same goals

but everyone understanding and taking them all different in ways that they can still have a

positive outcome. Discourse community can all be reflected through the six characteristics that

were explained and they can all be seen different because we all have a different point of view.

The way humans approach things affect the way that they are understood. Discourse Community

has all to do with goals humans have. Discourse Community can be compared to the classroom

or to the school. Everything ties up to all of us being students and having the same goals. We all
want to become better people by learning as much as we can. We either learn from the professors

or other students. We all use the six characteristics that Swales explained. And therefore Rhetoric

and Composition I 1301 is a Discourse Community and how it works. It’s a long process but at

the end we realize that it’s a group of students trying to achieve something one step at a time, and

through six characteristics.

References

1) https://eng1301-knous.wikispaces.com/file/view/Swales-11.pdf

2) http://ns128108.blogspot.com/2011/10/concept-of-discourse-community.html

3) http://shrike.depaul.edu/~jwhite7/discoursecommunitydef.htm

4) https://www.slideshare.net/zackgill56/discourse-community