A discourse community to me is a group of people who all have a common goal or purpose and they all come together to communicate their connection and experiences to help each other reach their common purpose or goal. In Junot Diaz’s “Drown” he writes about two brothers who are spending their summer in the countries, The brothers don’t seem to have a good relationship with each other when they are home mostly because the older brother doesn’t require the younger brother when they are home because he has his friends to hang out with and listen to him and tell his story but when they are in the countryside where there aren’t as many people around, the older brother treats the younger brother almost as an equal or a friend telling him all the stuff he would a friend. After reading “Drown” my view on what a discourse community has shifted a bit. I understand that each person in a discourse community can contribute something to the conversation that will hopefully lead to achievement in finding the purpose for the community in the first place. In “Drown” the two brothers Bother throughout the story share a common purpose that constantly changes throughout the story. In the beginning, the goal was to try not to get bored in which the older brother used the younger brother to help meet that goal. The younger brother has the same goal as the older brother so he listens to his story even if he doesn’t understand too much of what the older brother is saying. The older brother was now inviting the younger brother to be apart of his discourse community. Then as the story continues the brother’s original goal begins to shifts when they find out about Ysrael, the boy with the deformed face because a pig had eaten it when the boy was a baby. The brothers both become interested in the story and want to go and see Ysrael without his mask helping them further their agenda not to be bored. In the discourse community, that I’m apart of, I and my friends started to use words to refer to an experience that only we can relate to. In other discourse community, I would not use that reference, because other people would not understand it.
In conclusion, a discourse community is an understanding that each person in a community can contribute something to the conversation that will hopefully lead to achievement in finding the purpose for the community in the first place.
A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, who understand the basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about goals. It also can be defined as discourse being in communities such as “groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve a specific level”. In Junot Diaz’s “Drown” he expresses about the difficult and harsh life about two brothers who are spending their summer in the countries but have only seen and have been raised in an abusive family. The brothers themselves don’t have a great relationship between themselves. But Diaz immediately establishes Yunior’s close relationship with his mother, and also the ways in which he conceals his emotions from her . After, understanding “Drown” my field of vision of what a discourse community has shifted a bit. In the book “Drown” both of the brothers and their story share a common purpose which constantly changes. The older brother uses the younger brother for entertainment even if the younger brother has no clue of what he is saying, but the younger brother has the same goal. The older brother is now persuading in the younger brother in his community. Furthermore, for more entertainment they pick on Ysreal who’s face is deformed due to the incident happened to him when he was a baby, and as of now he wears a mask. The brothers become interested and want to go see what’s it like behind the mask. In the discourse community, that I surround in, me and my co-workers use different language to refer to certain things we come in contact with, and that only we can relate.
Over all, discourse community is just a basic understanding that each individual in a community with an idea can contribute to a more extended conversation and more formal discussion to gain information from each other.
What a discourse community means to me is an interaction between other people towards a subject or topic, the group will understand. For example, a soccer fan club is a discourse community. The members will have a better understanding of soccer than the people outside of the club. They communicate better by using slang like a hattrick. It means when a player soccers three goals and a magic trick from a hat. The book “Drown” by Junot Diaz is about two brothers in the Dominican Republic growing up. The four chapters are about the relationship between the two brothers and their actions. The two brothers at end of the chapters are going to see Ysrael fucked up face. They hear stories on how his face is fucked up and how it is hideous. The two bothers are about to unmask him to see his appearance and find out how he looks. The way they handle and do things in this country is there way of them in a discourse community. For example, saying their slang language that even the readers wouldn’t understand as it is in the same language. The words like viana and cono has a meaning to the bothers and the people there. I am a Latino person. I am able to understand some Spanish words but most of the time i am not able to. My girlfriend who is Dominican has a better understanding of the context than me and able to understand their motives and the words. I feel like Ethnic groups can be a part of a discourse community because people have their own way of speaking and actions than others.