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Understanding Discourse Communities

The document discusses discourse communities using the example of a guitar jam group. It defines a discourse community as having six key aspects: a shared goal, communication between members, using communication to share information, common genres to explore the goal, specialized terminology or "lexis", and experienced members. The author relates their experience joining a guitar group as a beginner to learn and improve their skills. They explain how discourse communities can help people feel more comfortable when learning new skills as adults through work or college. Members are encouraged to ask questions to better understand a discourse community's goals and audiences.

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154 views

Understanding Discourse Communities

The document discusses discourse communities using the example of a guitar jam group. It defines a discourse community as having six key aspects: a shared goal, communication between members, using communication to share information, common genres to explore the goal, specialized terminology or "lexis", and experienced members. The author relates their experience joining a guitar group as a beginner to learn and improve their skills. They explain how discourse communities can help people feel more comfortable when learning new skills as adults through work or college. Members are encouraged to ask questions to better understand a discourse community's goals and audiences.

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Melzer explains the idea of a discourse community using his personal experience learning guitar and by

interacting with the audience. He defines a discourse community as having six fundamental aspects,
inspired by John Swales definition; a broad goal that all members act for, intercommunication, use of
intercommunication for providing information, genres to help explore the goal's maximum, a lexis, and
members experienced in the specific field (Melzer, 102). Melzer was learning guitar and joined a "guitar
jam group", where he started off as a complete beginner, but he found is way improving his skills. He
relates the six aspects to his experience; for example, he states that they communicate on a website
called Meetup.com (intercommunication), and there is specific language, like "1/4/5 chord progression"
that only guitarists and musicians understand (lexis). He provides for audience interaction by explaining
that when you are becoming an adult and new experiences, like college and jobs, come around, you are
going to be uncomfortable and will feel like a beginner. In order for you to improve your skills in these
fields, you must join the "discourse community", and force yourself into understanding the genre
(Melzer, 110). He then gives the reader questions to ask when you join these discourse communities,
such as "What are the goals of the discourse community?";"Who are the different audiences the
discourse community communicates with?"; and "What can I add to the discourse community?"

The main idea of this article is to educate it's audience on a discourse community, and provide examples
that are recognizable, allowing the audience to relate the information to their own personal lives.

Questions:

1. What makes a discourse community different from social media platforms?

2. What is considered an "experienced member" of a discourse community, and at point does a


discourse community become all experienced members?

Works Cited

Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities – Writing Spaces.” Writing Spaces, 2020,
writingspaces.org/past-volumes/grammar-rhetoric-and-style/.

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