Swales

Before You Read

One time where I felt out of place was over the summer on a mission trip to south texas. All of the people we worked with only spoke spanish and I could not understand  any of it. All of my friends who went with me took spanish in high school and could somewhat interpret what they were saying, but I had no idea what was going on.

Summary

In John Swales "The Concept of Discourse Community" he talks about what a discourse community is and how it is different from a speech community. In this article, Swales discusses the background of discourse community as well as giving his own personal definition of a discourse community. Swales also shows us his six characteristics of a discourse community. The audience of this article is students who want to learn more about what a discourse community is. 

Synthesis

Swales article can be compared to Hook's article on autobiographies. These articles can be compared because they both talk about the importance of using your own thoughts to define things and create ideas. Swales gives us his own deffiniton of a discourse community, and Hooks tells us the importance of giving your own opinions on things. Another article that can be connected to Swales is Brandt. Brandt's article talks about literacy sponsors, and Swales article on discourse community can be related to having literacy sponsors. Lastly, Swales article on discourse community can be compared to Glenn's article. Both of these article talk about discourse community.

Dialectical Notebook

QD

5. In high school I was involved in a service club called Key Club. It had clear goals for serving the local community and raising money for bigger projects. We had a strong speech community where we planned out what we would present and say at each meeting. We allowed members to give feedback and provide information by having a comments box in the cafeteria for anyone to put ideas in. Key club had a genre of service and helping others. We were also highly technical and often made promotional videos and posters. Lastly, we had a level of members that had a suitable degree of relevant content and experience with service. 

6. A time where I resisted a discourse community was when my parents tried to get me to play tennis. I wanted nothing to do with the sport and did not even understand the game. I did not enjoy it and was often confused when playing it. 

Thoughts

I liked this article because it was day to read and had a good format. I liked how Swales made his six points clear by first italicizing them, then explaining them. It was easy to read and therefor made it less painful to get through. I could also relate to this article because I have been involved in many discourse communities.