HW 1/28

Discourses: How Do Communities Shape Writing

Everyone throughout their life gains more literacies. A discourse community is a community that share goals and they communicate to reach their goals. The article pushes the reader to figure out what discourse communities they are apart of. The article brings up questions that the reader can think about as they they think about their discourse communities. Multiliteracies explain how people read other texts, people and activities. People learn how to use language and write differently when they interact with different people and engage in new activities. This encourages the reader to continue to go out of their comfort zone, so they they can grow themselves when it comes to using language in a new way. The goal of this article is to have the reader understand that learning is ongoing.

The Concept of Discourse Community

John Swales is a linguistic professor at the University of Michigan. He talks about the difference between a discourse community and a speech community. He talks about how all discourse communities use genres. Genres are texts that can be recognized by writers and readers. This article asks the reader questions before they continue reading in order for the reader to fully engage in the reading. One question asks the reader to think of a time that they felt out of place. The article also gives questions that the reader can think about while they read. The questions are great questions and help the reader understand the article more. The reader has to think about their experience with moving between different groups. The reader also has to think about possible problems with Swales explanations, this is important because the reader has to think critically and use their mind. And the reader has to describe who the audience of the article is. He talk about the importance of defining a discourse community. He talks about how it is important to distinguish a speech community from a discourse community. He says that a discourse community has common goals, a system of communication, information and feedback, genres, a community abbreviation, rules about joining. The goal of the article is to help the reader understand what discourse communities are and help the reader think for themselves as they read.