Discourse Community Gonzalez 1

Harry Potter

Carolyn Gonzalez

RWS 1301

February 9,2017

Professor Ruby Pappoe

A discourse community is a group of individuals who share a common interest, goal, and

hobby who use communication to achieve certain goals that they have set upon each other. There

are many discourse communities all over the world, and many of us are in one or more discourse

communities and might not even know it. An individual, he or she life will form part of a

discourse community at one point of their life. Discourse communities have many similar

definitions to them; according to John Swales, linguist and physiologist defines discourse

communities as, groups that have goals or purpose, and use communication to achieve these

goals.

To start, there are two types of discourse communities, primary and secondary

discourses. Primary discourse communities are the discourse in which we first use to make

sense in the world, and interact with others and a secondary discourse those discourse we acquire

in a various non-home-based social institution; examples such as school, churches, and other

social communitys (James Paul Gee). If one is novices they must conform to the expectation of

the community in order to enter (Borg 2). There are six requirements that are required to form a

discourse community, and these requirements are what makes everything work in a discourse

community. The six requirements are that they have to have broadly agreed set of common

public goals, they have mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, they use its

participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilize and hence

possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, in addition to owning
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genres, it has acquired some specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable

degree of relevant content and discoursed expertise(Swales 471-473). These are the six

requirements according to Swales that a discourse community must have in order to be called a

discourse community of its own, and without these requirements within a community, it is not

considered a discourse community.

In my case, Harry Potter fans come together in many different ways. They discuss the

movies and books on forums, they create stories on fanfiction websites, they join websites and

many other things. Looking at these different places where fans come together can show how the

discourse community works.

One website where the fans of Harry Potter come together to discuss the films and

books is Potter Forums. On this website there are 43 different board, a person can go to each

other and have different topics. However not every board is Harry Potter related. There is a

general board for Harry Potter fans to share other things that they are fans of, for example,

music, other books, films, sport, news, and other real world topics. Once entering a board there

are many different subjects being discussed that fall under the main boards topic. The fans

discuss many different things here, this is one way they communicate. Fans also write many

stories about the characters in the books. When going to the Harry Potter section of

FanFiction.Net all different types of stories come up. There is a filter at the top of the page where

a person can choose the stories that come up. A person can decide what rating the want the

stories to be, the genre, characters involved, language, word count and when the stories take

place. Fans write these stories and people read them because they want to continue the story of

Harry Potter. The Harry Potter story is also being continued for the fans on websites like

Pottermore. Pottermore is a website created by the author of the Harry Potter books J.K.
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Rowling. Fans can join the website and be submerged in the world of Harry Potter. Here J.K.

Rowling has released information not touched upon in the books. People who join the website

can also be sorted into a house at Hogwarts, acquire a wand and many other things done in the

Harry Potter books. This website has gives the fans of Harry Potter a sense of connection with

J.K. Rowling and it too is a way for the fans to continue the experience of the story. Harry Potter

fans have also taken advantage of technology using YouTube to make Harry Potter related

videos. One relatively well-known series of Harry Potter videos are the Potter Puppet Pals. These

videos are created by fans of the books but they comical. These videos make fun of the Harry

Potter to some degree, but the fans still enjoy them and find them amusing. Looking at each of

these different things can show the values and language used within the discourse community.

The values of the Harry Potter fan discourse community can be seen in different ways. The

website Pottermore as previously mention was created by J.K. Rowling. This website gives fans

a way to continue the story even though the books have ended. Pottermore has 4.1 million

members. Members of this website get to go to a sort of virtual Hogwarts and J.K. Rowling

shares information that was not in the books. The fact that this website has so many members

shows that the members of the Harry Potter fan discourse community value the continuation of

the Harry Potter story. The discourse community does not want to let the Harry Potter story go so

having access to more information about the stories straight from J.K Rowling is something they

greatly value.

The language of the Harry Potter fan discourse community can be seen on the forums

and in the comments on the fanfictions and writing of the fanfictions. When looking at the

forum's language can really be seen the authors of the forums use the language used in the books

such as muggle, pure-blood, and mud blood. This language is used only by the members of the
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Harry Potter fan discourse community. While the members use these same terms another

language within the community is not necessarily the same. The following thread was found on

the Great Hall board which is for all things related to Harry Potter. The subject of this thread

was: Favorite scene, chapter or line.

Hi all,

Ive recently started reading the Harry Potter books for the first time and have so far read the

book up to, and including, the Half -Blood Prince. Ive also started watching the movies and just

watched the Half Blood Prince movie and noticed there is a strange scene, that seemed to come

out of nowhere, between Snape and Dumbledore where Snape says: Have you ever considered

that you ask for too much? That you take too much for granted?Has it ever crossed your

brilliant mind that I dont WANT to do this anymore? I dont remember a similar exchange

from the book. Is this just meant to illustrate Snapes resentment towards Dumbledore before

betraying him or is it meant to mean something else? Was there such an exchange in the book

that I just cant recall. Thank you. (Jaffas85 1) This post is written in a style that is similar to a

letter. The grammar is generally correct but the diction is still basic. Meaning there are not

complex words used. When comparing this post to the first one this one gives a more formal feel,

because of the use of correct grammar and writing style. The differences between the two threads

show that the language is not uniform within the Harry Potter discourse community. However,

this difference can be thought of as the communities language requirements. The members of

this community are accepting of both more formal writing and more general writing. Since the

members of the community accept both types of writing, the members expect to see a variation

in the writing on the boards. While informal and grammatical incorrect language may be

accepted by the community on the forums and other discussion areas, it is not accepted in the
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writing of fanfictions.

The Harry Potter discourse community could be view as a more complex community

than most others. The values the continuation of the stories by either website or fanfiction and

they also enjoy poking fun at the series at times. While members of the community generally

share the same values the community has conflicts. As shown there is this major conflict regard

what makes a true Harry Potter fan, while the community still remains one whether it will stay

this way is unclear.

Work Cited

Borg, Erik "Discourse

Communities.Http://stabler3010.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/58120109/Borg%20discourse%20co

mmunity.pdf.Pbworks, n.d. Web

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House, 2006.

Print.

Gee, James Paul. "James Paul Gee S Introduction to Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics by

Fernandomiguel." StudyMode. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2014.

Harry Potter Forums View topic - Should Movies Even be Existent? (n.d.). Retrieved February

09, 2017, from https://www.potterforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=19937

N. (2006, November 02). Potter Puppet Pals: Wizard Angst. Retrieved February 09, 2017, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD-Huwlg2kY