Response Blog: February 20, 2012

Swales Summary: In "The Concept of Discourse Community," by John Swales argues about the ongoing argument social nature of language use and what a discourse community is. He talks about the six characteristics of a discourse community and deems them necessary for identifying a group as a discourse community.

QD: 1. 1) Common goals, in a discourse community with your friends you all have the common goal to always be there for each other.
2) Certain ways of communicating, with your group of friends you have a certain and special use of language that not everyone else would understand
3) Take advice and give information, this is what your close group of friends is for is to listen to you and then help you by giving you what they think is the right solution
4) Able to advance their goals, be able to advance with your friends as different things develop and with age
5) More complex, (not quite sure about this one)
6) Have changing members, as time goes on and with differences people may leave the group of friends or along the way you may meet more friends with common values.
3. No, because he talked about in par. 28 that an academic class is unlikely to be a discourse community in the beginning, but a group of more advance students who are more familiar with the material which I think a graduate class would count.
5. A discourse community would be my sorority. It fits his characteristics because we all have common goals and are very involved. We were also chosen to be a part of the sorority and we all have common interests that form a bond.

MM: I didn't realize how many different characteristics went into being in a discourse community and it made me realize and understand a bit more of what discourse communities I am involved in.

Reflection: I found this piece harder to focus on, it was very long and lacked grabbing my attention so I am not sure if I got out of it what all I should have because of my lack of interest.

Gee Summary: In "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction," Gee is proving how in a discourse you are either recognized by being in it or you simply are not. He introduces what he explains as Discourse with a capital D and the difference between that and discourse without the capital D.

Q