1- Quote

Quote 1: A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about their goals. Linguist John Swales defined discourse communities as “groups that have goals and purposes, and use communication to achieve their goals.”

Response: This part of the text is significant and compelling. Knowing that if you have a project to realize, you must group in association by choosing different people that can bring their idea and their intelligence. Acting in this way, the project will be much appreciated and realized much easier. We can say church is a good example of discourse community because inside the church, we find people who group together to reach their goal. Hierarchy is very important for all discourse community, people cannot do whatever they want, and there must be a leader who gives the directives.

Quote 2:  12There are essentially three sub-types of these: residential, vocational, and occupational, but only the last of these really applies to the university context. These are groupings of people who all work at the same place (as in a factory or a university department), or at the same occupation in the same area (all the bakers in a town). These DCs have acquired many abbreviations and acronyms as well as some special words and phrases that are needed in order to get their jobs done more quickly and more efficiently—terminologies that are not used, nor even often understood, by the general public. For example, when I worked in Aston University, one of the main eating places on campus was the Vauxhall Dining Centre. So, when we had visitors, if I were not careful, I would say some form of “Let’s go to the VD Centre for lunch”. When I saw consternation on their faces, I would hurriedly have to explain that I was not suggesting eating at the clinic for venereal diseases!

Response: This text helped me understand that discourse community is not standard; in other words, each community has its own language of a discourse community. Before going to another community, you have to do a survey just to know how this community functions, what the people in the community like and dislike, so you can understand better their goal and better communicate with them.

2– Think about the basic definition Swales gives (page 2/paragraph 3), and make a list of three discourse communities you participate in. Write at least two sentences explaining each of your choices. Discuss the basic â€œvalues, assumptions, and ways of communicating” found in each discourse community you listed. 

Midwood Catholic school,

I took part in one of my child school projects; It was in Midwood Catholic School in Brooklyn. This project had for objective to create training for opening a library where I had to assist and also help as a volunteer to give a guide to parents and students. It was an exciting project where I felt useful for the community.

Beraca Baptist Church,

I participated in many meetings at Beraca Baptist church; the goal of these meetings is to learn the bible. There were always many people who came to know the bible, which is the word of God. In such meetings, we communicate together, and each of us had the same objective.

Brooklyn Navy Yard, (CARE OF)

For my first job in the USA, the employer of this organization made orientation for all the people who desired to work for the company. The goal of the orientation was to explain to us how to make the job better and how we could use our skills better to create other activities relative to the company.