The concept of discourse communities is one that has been widely debated among English scholars. Discourse community may have many definitions, but James Porter' definition as "a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated"(WAW) is a good one to begin with. Basically what this means is any group of people read each other's writings and will talk, write, and act in a common way. It is important to understand the concept of discourse community when reading because if you know who the person writing is and who their intended audience is, then you can more easily frame the document to how the writer intended it to be interpreted. When writing, it is also important to realize what discourse community you are writing for so that you can determine how your writing will be interpreted.
Different scholars have written about their thoughts on different aspects of discourse community. James Paul Gee describes discourse communities, or as he calls them Discourses, as a major part of a person's identity. He calls Discourses "identity kits" which consist of how you act, talk, write, value, and think. Since Discourses determine so much about their members, it is impossible to be somewhat fluent in one; either you are fluent or you aren't. He also argues that you cannot become fluent in a Discourse by studying it, you must actually join it. These views contradict the views of Swales who argues that joining a discourse community may or may not result in assimilation to the community's views of the world. He gives the example of spies, who may join a discourse community because they do not agree with its views. Swales also argues that "If they also assimilate they cease to be single spies but become double agents"(WAW 476). This suggests that it is possible to "fake" being part of a discourse community.
In her article "Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces" Elizabeth Wardle argues that "for workers to be successfully enculturated into new communities of practice or activity systems, including learning to write in ways that are appropriate to those new communities, neophytes must learn and conform to the conventions, codes, and genres of those communities"(WAW 521). This means adapting to more than just how people in your new workplace write; you must also assimilate into all aspect of their discourse community. As Gee would say, you must adopt their ways of saying, doing, valuing, believing, and all of the other parts of the identity kit.
One major aspect of discourse communities is genre. As it relates to discourse communities, genre is a document that has a certain meaning to a discourse community. For example, in the discourse community of runners, Runner's World magazine is a genre. Amy J. Devitt points out in her article "Where Communities Collide: Exploring a Legal Genre" that there can be a disconnect between the author and reader of genres. The author of a genre may have a different level of knowledge of the discourse community than the reader, so the reader may not interpret the genre the right way. She gives the example of jury instructions and how they are written by lawyers, who are highly literate in the law discourse community, but read by jurors who are not nearly as familiar with the law discourse community.
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