Norah Albaiz WRIT101-037 10/4/2015 Discourse Community Ethnography Introduction: A discourse community is a group of people that are involved in and communicate about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. I chose to do my discourse community ethnography on the dance community. The reason why I chose the dance community is because I find it amazing how a group of people can convey an idea or a message without saying a word, just through dancing. The definition of dance is to move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps. There are many dance styles from the more traditional like contemporary and hip-hop, to the lesser known like African jazz and waacking. Research methods: For my findings, I started …show more content…
A discourse community has mechanisms of communication amongst their members. A discourse community uses its sharing mechanisms mainly to provide information and feedback. A discourse community applies and holds one or more genres in the communicative progress of its goals. In addition to holding genres, a discourse community has to obtain some specific lexis. Lexis is the total stock of words in a language. A discourse community has a level of members with a proper degree of appropriate content and discoursal expertise, ranging from a novice to an expert. I will further explain each characteristic and how it relates to the dance …show more content…
What Swales means by this is that a discourse community should have ways where members of the community could communicate with each other, and that each way should have a specific purpose. The two most effective ways of communication in the dance discourse community are dance classes and workshops, since it is mainly a community that requires members to be involved physically. There are also a lot of ways to communicate online, such as blogs where someone, usually a dance expert, posts some tips and information that might be helpful. And group chats, where dance members from all over the world can chat together and share experiences. Also live dance tutorials, where you can learn how to dance from home as if you were in a dance class. There are a ton of dance magazines, weekly newsletters and subscription services where a member can be up to date with what is going on in the dance community, especially dance
The dancing community I’ve been apart of since the age of three is one that has consisted of blood, sweat and tears... literally. My discourse community, meaning a group of members who use communication to achieve goals and purposes, is one I have worked hard to be apart of. My Dance studio is its own discourse community. With the movement of a person’s body on and off stage, they are able to express emotions as well as tell a story at the same time. John Swales believes their are six characteristics which makes for a discourse community. These include having the members of a community sharing their own goals, intercommunication, feedback, genre, lexis, and a level of members with a suitable degree (Swales 220-222). When one thinks of dancers,
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
As you might be aware discourse communities can be found in every shape, form, and fashion all over the world. Some communities can be exciting while others are just mild, every community differs in many ways but in other ways they can relate to each other. I belong to the Endurocross community and I so glad to be part of such an amazing community. That is my discourse community... So What’s
Joining a discourse community is when you all share a common like or belief. Joining a discourse community can sometimes be a challenge. Rather you’re new at it or been participating in something for a very long time. Every discourse community is different and can be operated differently and by different type of people. They say drill team and dancing is easy and doesn’t take a lot of hard work like in other sports so in this paper I will be sharing with you all my journey of joining drill team/dance team and appealing ethos, logos and pathos.
In the article “The Concept of Discourse Community” John Swales touches a few very important main ideas about what discourse community really is. I found it to be refreshing that he is able to express his feelings how he does in this article. Swales talks about discourse community and how our world today really isn 't that good at being apart of them. He discusses the six qualities or characteristics of being apart of a discourse community. You have to be active in communicating and wanting to be apart of that community and if you 're not that type of person than maybe it 's not your thing.
In the Swales document we looked at in class, a discourse community has a set of common goals (Discourse Community). In high school basketball, the goal is to win the state championship. Also, a discourse community uses a specific jargon (Discourse Community). We see this in the rules and how some players and coaches communicate. Finally, a discourse community has its new members learn from experienced members (Discourse Community). This is evident when we talk about learning the fundamentals from the coaches. High school basketball can be a very diverse discourse community because while every team has different ways of doing things, they all have the same end goal of being the state champions. Basketball has always
Discourse communities play a big role in life and how humans interact in general. A discourse community refers to a group of people who have language, life patterns, culture, and communication in common with each other. The idea of a discourse community has also been used to bring people of different orientations together, like family members, students, or committees. All of these types of people might have different standards of living, like their level of income, education, and work abilities. Discourse community can also refer to a speech community, because the main feature of a discourse community is communication. A discourse community can include groups of different regional areas that may or may not share norms and living patterns
Football is a discourse community I am involved in where the members have similar goals and expectations. As in, what Swales describes a discourse community as groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community” (Swales 466-479) Swales argues for a fresh conceptualization of discourse community, especially as a distinct entity from the similar sociolinguistic concept of speech community, and building upon the foundations of that argument defines discourse community in his own. In the Conceptualization of Discourse Community he talks about the six defining characteristics of a discourse community. The discourse community I am part of is playing and coaching football.
My discourse community is Christianity. My discourse community involves people who believe in God and lives up to the guidelines of the Bible. The people from this community are trying to enhance themselves by learning the Bible. An impeccable member attends church, strive for better lives, and aim to help others spread and disseminate words of wisdom. There are several reasons why Christianity is a discourse community. My discourse community has all of the six characteristics defined by John Swales. In my paper, I will describe how my discourse community meets all of Swales characteristics.
To examine various discourses, it is crucial that the idea of discourse and the way in which discourses operate is clear. A discourse is a language, or more precisely, a way of representation and expression. These "ways of talking, thinking, or representing a particular subject or topic produce meaningful knowledge about the subject" (Hall 205). Therefore, the importance of discourses lies in this "meaningful knowledge," which reflects a group’s ideolo...
1. The Animal Science Department at Utah State University is an academic discourse community. Majors within the Animal Science department are Animal and Dairy Science, Biotechnology, Bioveterinary Science, and Equine Sciences and Management. The department lies within the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences. Disciplines it’s related to are journalism, landscaping, graphic design and more.
In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales describes a discourse community as a group of people that “have a broadly agreed set of common goals, contain certain mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, have acquired a specific lexis, and have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content discoursal expertise” (Swales #). An example of such a discourse community is the legal profession. The legal profession has the common goal of understanding and applying general principles to particular factual situations. In doing so, lawyers use language, concepts, and methods that are unique to their community. In order to become a recognized member of the legal community, a person must graduate from law school and pass the bar exam thereby demonstrating an in depth knowledge concerning all areas of the law and the specialized rules, methods, and jargon used by lawyers to communicate about legal principles.
Dance, like any other art form, is constantly evolving. Its roots are planted in every place in the world. America can thank several countries for creating what the dance industry is today. Since America is a melting pot, it has blended movements from all over the world. This country accepts all cultures and invites new art. Textbooks do not expand on the importance of dance, but it not only played a role in early American society, but todays as well.
“Dance, the art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment. Dancing developed as a natural expression of united feeling and action.”
In this paper, we will be focusing on dance functioning as a recreation in the society during the Pre-War period, War period and Post War period of World War II. The paper will examine how society turned to dance recreationally, how society benefitted from dance during those dreary tedious times and examples of dance which represented the zeitgeist of the periods.