CL 2/4

I think the purpose of Stein’s article is to draw attention to how America acts towards other countries. He wants people to think about how other countries view America, he does this by writing a rhetorical essay that is really bold. He wants people to connect the dots that people are annoyed with America, the same way that people are annoyed with the Yankees for always dominating.

1. Swales called speech communities centripetal, because speech communities, because they bring people into their community. Speech communities get people through birth, adoption or accident. Discourse communities are centrifugal, because they separate people into specific groups(jobs, or interests). Discourse communities get people by persuasion. (471)
2. The characteristics of a Discourse community include; common goals, intercommunication, genres, a specific abbreviation name, changing memberships, and sharing information and feedback.(471-473)
3. Swales says that the problems of a Discourse Community is figuring out what communities are discourse communities, and also the communities can be somewhat utopian and not realistic. (478)

1. I think that Swales thought the gap was that his readers thought that discourse communities and speech communities were the same. I also think his readers did not know all of the characteristics of a discourse community.
2. This piece fills the gap, because he explains what a discourse community is and talks about the difference between a discourse and speech community.
3. I think that he imagined college students to be reading his text, since he worked at a college. I also think he imagined other professional colleagues to read his text, and then they would share it with students.
4. The danger of an essay like this, is that people will have many questions because he makes a lot of fact- statements about discourse communities.