#knowyourdiscoursecommunity

[buentello15-blog]

Quote 3

“On a less dramatic level, there is enough pretense, deception and face-work around to suggest that the acting out of roles is not that uncommon; and to take a relatively innocuous context, a prospective son-in-law may pretend to be an active and participating member of a bridge-playing community in order to make a favorable impression on his prospective parents-in-law.

-- John Swales

This quote shows more of what John Swales refers to what he call spies. Spies are people who fain interest in the subject of the community. The son-in-law would be the spy because he his pretending to like bridge in order to have his prospective parents-in-law possibly look at him with favor. This perfectly shows how getting to know a discourse community can be favorable, and now the son-in-law is expanding his knowledge of the game bridge, and scoring points with his future parents-in-law.

[buentello15-blog]

Quote 2

“The secondary purpose of the information exchange will vary according to the common goals: to improve performance in a football squad or in an orchestra, to make money in a brokerage house, to grow better roses in a gardening club, or to dent the research in an academic department.”

-- John Swales

This quote in particular speaks to me, as i played football in high school. From experience i can tell you that this very true, the only way to improve or gain more knowledge of football is to communicate with people who also have an interest in the game, people such as your team mates. Getting to know your team mates or Discourse community would help improve not only your knowledge and skill of the game but your team mates as well.

Originally posted by infinityandcyanide

[buentello15-blog]

Quote 1

“My own early attempts to be a full member of the community were not marked by success. Early on I published an article in the journal which used a fairly complex frequency analysis of occurrence derived from Applied Linguistics in order to offer an alternative explanation of a puzzle well known to members of the HKSC. The only comments that this effort to establish credibility elicited were “too clever by half and  “Mr Swales, we won’t change our minds without a chemical analysis”.

-- John Swales

Swales took a risk and decided to go against the norm of the community, and he was ostracized for it. Since Swales was seeking full membership to the Honk Kong Study Circle (HKSC), a community which fosters interest and knowledge of  the stamps of Hong Kong, he should have tried to have more in common with his opinion. This would have made them more open to his request to be a full member.

[buentello15-blog]

The Concept of Discourse Community

Jon Swales the Concept of Discourse Community is very difficult to explain. The idea of discourse communities is open to a wide variety of interpretation, there really is no definitive way to define a Discourse Community. Swales says for a Discourse Community to exist they must meet the six characteristics he outlines in his book. They have common public goals, a way to communicate with each other, use the community for information and feedback, possess one or more genre, use specific terminology to communicate, different levels of membership. While reading, i found that it is important to know if you are part of a discourse community. Knowing allows you to advance in the community, as well as build stronger bonds with those who share the same interest and goals.