Blog #5?? I've lost count already

How accurate is this??

Good evening and happy Monday! Usually I'm not a complete hater of Mondays, but this particular Monday I am definitely dragging my feet. I've been unusually tired the whole day, and I am super sore from yesterday's leg day! Okay, enough complaining and on to the important stuff.

So, after discussing discourse community in today's class and also reading Swales lecture, I see that this stuff is pretty complex... Swales must have done a lot of research and observation to see that there are so many communities and each have their own set of rules and norms. He notes that discourse communities are not just audiences that a group caters to, but are much more complex. He explains that all discourse communities all exhibit certain characteristics and even gives a guideline, listing the 6 characteristics that each discourse community has:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possess one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. 

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.   

So, at first glance this list looks pretty long and confusing. For me, a great way to showcase these characteristics and make them easier to understand is with an example. A group that I belong to is the cook/baker group. Now this may seem a little broad, but as someone who has cooked and baked for years, I have a good understand of the terms used in cooking. The first characteristic, which states that each discourse community has a set of agreed goals, and this is definitely prominent in cooking. The goal of chefs across all boards all have the same goal of producing a dish that tastes and looks appealing. The next characteristic discusses the communications of people within the same discourse communities, chefs all over speak in a way that may confuse people who don't cook. Words such as sauté, julienne, and flambé are words that all chefs know and understand. The next characteristic covers the mechanisms to provide information and chefs do this is a number of ways, they share recipes from recipe books to online blogs. Characteristic 4 states that each discourse community possess one or more genres in communication and this is true of chefs. They have their own way of communicating between each other and it usually in the form of instructions. Such as telling another chef to prepare a dish, or communications with other works such as sending out an order. The fifth characteristic goes into more detail on the specific terms exchanged by each discourse. Chefs used abbreviated words to work more efficiently. Terms such as evoo (extra virgin olive oil) and a pinch (one-quarter teaspoon) and specific lexis between chefs. The last characteristic speaks of the levels of the people that fall within the same discourse communities. From established chefs to home-cooks, the different levels of chefs varies from highly skilled to just starting out. They all fall under the same category and have general characteristics that unite them.  

Hopefully the above paragraph wasn't too hard to get through. I know it was very long but I just didn't see a good part to separate it at. If you got through this whole thing, props to you! It took me a lot longer to write than I had hoped, but that's probably because I'm also simultaneously watching the debate and wow... definitely distracting!! 

See you all in classssss!