There’s no secret in the writing that Swales presents us
with. His style of writing is complex, advanced, and likely not very
understandable by lesser-educated individuals like myself. Swales speaks of “discourse
communities” and “speech communities” like they are common things that everyone
and their mother is aware of. I don’t know about many other people, but for me,
this paper when right over my head, juggling vocabulary and data effortlessly
while I still try to get past the opening sentence. At least that’s how I felt until he brought
into his essay an example that I could somewhat understand. Using a stamp club
to develop his definition of discourse communities, Swales effectively
clarifies his entire essay into one simple metaphor. To add to his metaphor, I
believe that you could view a Facebook group as a discourse community. If we
were to take his first characteristic of a discourse community and apply it to
Facebook groups in general, I think we could see how these internet groups
could qualify for the title. Swales identifies that “a discourse community has
a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (11), and if you were to browse
your own Facebook page, I think you could find any number of pages and groups that
follow that description. Most groups are formed for a singular purpose: to get
followers to daily see the updates the company or group is making, as well as in
what direction the group is heading. Once you’ve liked the page (your admission
into the community), they will bombard you with information pertaining to the group
and you will be in constant communication with the group or company. This is another
quality that Swales identifies, where a particular community will accept
members, and keep them connected to the community through pamphlets, letters,
or status updates. With the advances of technology, discourse communities are
no longer a rarity, and whether you like it or not, I firmly believe we are all
involved in community or another.
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