Quote #1: “…discourse communities both influence and are influenced by the larger communities within which they are situated. in consequence, when a university becomes established in a town, the presence of this constellation of discourse communities influences the wider urban environment…”
Response: I found this interesting because it gives a clear example of how discourse communities can be established, while using rhetorical language. A discourse community is a group of individuals that share a set of discourses; values and goals, people in these communities communicate their ideas amongst each other. Students in a university form groups or just a few friends that share the same ideas and commonalities which influences others as well. Rhetoric language is used when the author describes the multiple discourse communities as “constellations”.
Quote #2: “a third problematic area is that both the discourse community concept and that of communities of practice tend to view their objects of study through an overly idealistic lens, especially in terms of assumptions about shared beliefs, values, motives, and allegiances among its members. ”
Response: This quote was of interest because it is something that describes most individuals in society. Many people struggle within their discourse communities because of assumptions and prejudice. People view most beliefs homogeneously as a opposed to holistically, which makes people within these communities feel restricted even though they share the same ideas.
Three Discourse Communities:
- My family is a discourse community, being that we all live together and share similar ideas. We celebrate the same holidays and have the same customs.
- Friends are a discourse community because we all have commonalities, those being hobbies, similar majors, and sharing similar goals in life.
- Job/career settings are discourse setting because you all work together to achieve the common goal, to make money and survive in society.
Good work with your first quotation. The second one was harder to follow. Do you mean that a DC (especially if it is one defined, at least in part, by religion or race or class ) can experience discrimination?
As for your list of DCs they need to go further.–especially for thinking towards the Unit 1 Assignment. For example, is your family a part of a DC –where do the values, beliefs, behaviors, ways of communicating and thinking of your family come from? Likely from several different DCs so maybe brainstorm about that. I would ask similar questions of friends as a DC. You mention majors–students in a particular major can definitely be a DC. And for job/work you would need to really narrow that down to specific jobs/places of employment.