The concept of Discourse Community has been widely defined in the academic world. According to Swales (1990), a community should fulfill six requirements to be considered a Discourse Community. This paper refers to different quotations that give evidence of Swales´ (1990) requirements.
The members of this kind of community should have specific goals or interests. Kleese (2001), states that these goals can be met with the help of language if the community college is understood as a discourse community.
As Swales (1990) affirms, a discourse community should have specific genre. Bizzel (1992) described it as “a group of people who share certain language-using practices …that can be seen as conventionalized” (p.222).
A discourse community should have participatory mechanisms; this can be supported by the reference stated in Hoffman-Kipp(2003), who quote Swales(1990; cited in Pintos& Crimi, 2010) saying that “Teachers interact with colleagues in goal directed activities that require communication and the exchange of ideas.”
According to Swales (1990), highly specialized terminology should be used among the community members. This can be perceived in the use of abbreviations and acronyms. Hoffman-Kipp (2010) refers to CHAT as the cultural historical activity theory. The same author discusses the relevance of reflection, participation and intercommunication among community members. This is the other characteristic that Swales (1990) proposes.
In conclusion, it can be seen that the concept Discourse Community is fully specified and clarified by Swales´ (1990) six characteristics. In short, if a community bears the six characteristics that he outlines, it is undoubtedly a Discourse Community.
References
Bizzel,P. (1992).Academic Discourse and critical consciousness. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press.
Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003).Beyond reflection: teaching learning as practice. Theory into Practice
Kelly-Kleese, C.,(2001). Editor´s Choice: An open memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review.
Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 1: Building up a community of teachers and prospective researchers. Retrieved September 2011, from
http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=6856
Dear Adriana,
ResponderEliminarGood job! Keep on working hard and upload the rest of the papers.
Kindly,
Yanina