I belong to a discourse community within my school. UCBA is a community of students who all share a goal of graduating in the future, whether it be within the next year or within the next ten years.
This community meets all six characteristics that Swales describes.
1: “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.”
We all together have a goal to graduate at some point in the future.
2: “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.”
We communicate through talking and emailing, as well as texting and talking on the phone.
3: “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.”
We can help each other with our studies and we provide each other with information on better studying techniques.
4: “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.”
We have a genre of anticipation and goal-seeking.
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.”
We all understand each other’s goal of graduating and moving on wiht our lives.
Ceci's English 1001 Portfolio 
5 replies on “Discourse Community”
Very detailed and fleshed out explanation and comparison. Bound to help someone understand this!
LikeLike
I like how you made it easy to read and understand the six characteristics that Swales came up with and comparing them to being a student at UCBA.
LikeLike
We are in same discourse community, we all share common goals and hope to graduate in the future. I can relate to all of your six characteristics. But there is one thing I think you missed out on. I think you forgot to share your experience of not being included in a discourse community that you think you belong to.
LikeLike
This was very easy to read through and comprehend, I myself wish I would have thought about using the bullet points or numbers to specifically note the six characteristics, then maybe I wouldn’t have forgotten about them.
LikeLike
I like your break down of being a UCBA discourse community member and what we do and how we are indeed one. this is the second blog i have read on UCBA discourse community and its so surprising how people can format and view different points about the same topic and both be correct.
LikeLike