Summary

The reading started up with Swales clarifying the term “discourse community” by quoting, and defining it by his own understanding of it. The term “discourse community” basically means a group of people who gathered around a common set of ideas. But this definition is very vague and makes community very hard to categorize like how would you define the group would you categorize them by the common interests, ideas, genres,ect.? To clear up all the confusions Swales follow up saying that not all communities are discourse community, and not all discourse activities is related to discourse community. He provided a list to what makes a group not a discourse community and say that only groups qualified is the ones who have all the characteristic a discourse community required. On the next section he compared the difference between a discourse community and a speech communities. Basically a speech communities is a group who share the same dialects, vocabularies, way to speech and knowledge. Also speech community tends to group people together, and a discourse community separate people into their special interest. On the next section, Swales give us the set of characteristics a discourse community needs. 1) A discourse community shared the same goals. 2) They have some kind of communication with each other doesn’t matter what kind. 3) They need to have a way to share their ideas. 4) They might have multiple genres in the group. 5) Have their own vocabulary. 6) The community should have a ranking system to show who’s a new or leading members. Finally, Swales give an example of what a discourse community should be like.

Response

Overall, I found Swales writing style is interesting but confusing at the same time. I have to reread some paragraphs multiple times especially in the first section. The way he transition from another person idea into his own was very sudden, he doesn’t give us any warning sometimes it’s a period or a quotation but if you are skimming the reading you will be left very confused. I find his use of parentheses interesting in the last paragraph of section 2.2. He give us the definition of the word, what he means when he uses it instead of just using big words and leave us confused like he did in the beginning. I think he should do this more often in the text even though his target audience most likely understands those words but for students some of our vocabularies aren’t that extended.

Reflection

I don’t know how this text will help me as a writer yet. Since most of the time I was very confused by it. Swales section off his ideas and I think that’s a very good format if i ever want to write and inform someone on a complicated matter. Also, if I ever use complicated word I could use parentheses to helps clarifying it more for wider audiences. I don’t think the text connect to any of my former experiences.