“In addition, discourse communities both influence and are influenced by the larger communities within which they are situated.” (Paragraph 9, 2nd sentence.)

Despite the ideas of discourse communities being introduced decades ago, they still serve many purposes. This quote is one of the functions of the a discourse community, and one that I feel is overlooked. The idea of influence is huge. In recent times, I think about the stock market meme stock craze that started off of a reckless trading forum on Reddit. This small community essentially influenced much bigger communities with little similarity to rally against hedge funds for billions of dollars. I enjoyed this quote because it really serves as a reminder on how much influence certain discourse communities might carry, and how they have a reciprocal relationship with other communities in terms of “influential-ness”.

“To an outsider, a linguistics department, for instance, might seem to represent a collectivity of folks with a like-minded interest in language. However, to an insider, there are clear differences between a phonetician and a phonologist, or between those who pursue the relationship between language and mind, and those who pursue the relationship between language and society.” (Paragraph 10, Sentence 6.)

I really enjoyed this quote because as a Nursing major, you really see an identity crisis between titles, occupational areas, and different sectors of nursing. An example of this is an RN, LPN, NP, or CRNA. Both have varying nuances, some similar and some different, but all are confusing to the public. Despite the title or work it requires to obtain that, most of the public will certainly refer to those people as Nurse. I think it is important to form and respect a distinction but I can also understand how it can be confusing.