Swales Initial Post

Discusion Post #9

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

After reading the 2nd chapter of John swales’ book “Genre Analysis”, I’ve been exposed to the idea of what a discourse community is and how it differs from a speech community. Swales defines a discourse community as “The communicative needs of the goals tend to predominate in the development and maintenance of its discourse characteristics” “Discourse communities are centrifugal” (Swales pg.220) Discourse communities “own” a genre or genres through expansive use of a subject with limitations, and by having clear goals.

Speech communities and discourse communities are different in a couple ways. Speech communities are born into, discourse serves the group in creating a homogenous unit and is more focused on socialization. A discourse community one has to be indoctrinated into, the language is focused around a specific goal or genre, and are people who get together to pursue a particular goal. The transfer of informations is important to discourse communities because they consist of members that are wide spread and have a degree of separation that speech communities don’t have. The information transfer is also the discourse that makes the community and holds them together.

I belong to a discourse community called the WCOMC or “West Central Ohio Manufacturing Consortium”. I became a member through studying manufacturing, and passing a series of tests to be certified.

1. The WCOMC has a broadly agreed on goal, of certifying members in manufacturing knowledge, clarifying the processes, and expanding the use of manufacturing.
2. The WCOMC has an online forum for learning more about the subject.
3. There are feedback threads on the community pages.
4. The WCOMC’s genre consists of the safe use of manufacturing machinery, and the processes of how to improve efficiency.
5. An example of some specific lexis that is associated with the WCOMC is TPM, spindle, chuck, and quill.
6. I was certified as a tech basic which is the second level or degree of certification. There are four levels of certification in total “Advanced” being the highest level.

Which sums up the six characteristics of a discourse community. The only thing that might make it less a discourse community and more so a speech community is that it doesn’t spread out side North Central Ohio.