DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES Kimberly Turner English 101 WHAT IS

DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES Kimberly Turner • English 101

WHAT IS DISCOURSE? Communication of thought by words; talk; conversation; image

WHAT IS A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY? A group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals"

ANALYZING DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES 1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. 2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among their members. 3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. 4. A discourse community utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. 6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

COMMON GOALS

INTERCOMMUNICATION • Texting • Talking on the phone • Emailing • Meeting/gathering • Blogging • Writing papers

PROVIDE INFORMATION AND FEEDBACK • Why would you email a professor? • What happens when you do email a professor? • Think about our class. What ways do I provide information? How do you provide me with feedback?

USING GENRES TO COMMUNICATE What kind of genres would teachers use to communicate: • with parents? • with students? • with other teachers? • with their principals? What kind of genres would a police officer use to communicate? • with traffic violators? • with other officers? • with their superiors?

SPECIFIC LEXIS

NEW MEMBERS

NOW… Let’s examine the discourse communities of the WSJ and NYT articles using these features of discourse communities.