Reflection Of Academic Writing: Intersexuality And The Discourse Community

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What I learned in English 1113
I am an international student from China and this is my first semester studying at the University of Oklahoma. ENGL 1113 Principles of English Composition is the basic academic writing class for all the students at the OU. According to the First-Year Composition, English 1113 focus on the language of power in two ways “the power of language” and “the relationship between power and language “(First-Year Composition). English 1113 helped students learn how to use language analyzing and understand reading materials. More than that, English 1113 teach the format of the essay which is MLA. MLA is required by many courses to write essays and reports. We have written three essays in this class Critical literacy Unit
In “Intersexuality and the Discourse Community,” James E. Porter claims that a discourse community is organized by a group of people who have the similar interests and he also said “an individual may belong to several professional, public, or personal discourse communities” (400). It shows that people can be in the different discourse communities, which help me realized that I should take part in the other organizations except the different courses at OU to make my life colorful. Thus, I take part in the “the University of Oklahoma Chinese Student Union” (ouscss). The members in OUSCSS comes from China, we have same culture and language. Usually, we stay together to celebrate the Chinese Festival. Taking part in the OUSCSS can help me reduce the yearning of home. More than that, In “the Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales lists six defining characteristics which can find out a group of people in a discourse community includes “In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has an acquired some specific lexis” (220-222). It means we need to know some academic vocabulary so that we can understand the knowledge professors teach in class. In my physics class, as an International student, I often have some new words such as “piston” “thermodynamics” “hypothetical heat engine”, at the beginning of the semester, I really confuse in class because of the specific lexis. When I learned from John Swales, I realized that I should preview the chapter to know the academic words. Thus I can understand the knowledge that professors talked in class. Additionally, I may have some academic words when I work in the future, so I should prepare for my future and have a goal on future’s world. I should know the specific lexis, so that I can take part in the discourse communities in the future as soon as possible. Soon, I

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