Us Versus Them: The Loss of Individuals in Discourse

“The idea of Community in the Study of Writing” is a very different twist from the things we have previously read and it provides an interesting twist on what we discussed about discourse communities the other day. I found Harris to be immediately relatable in his opening paragraphs when he talks about “being part of several communities, yet never wholly a member of one”. I think that it is easy to categorize ourselves as members of certain communities because human nature compels us to do so, yet it is also easy to not feel like a real member of the community, especially if your values or ideas differ slightly from the communities as a whole.

I find it very interesting that Harris and the others point out that the word community does in pretty much every circumstance have a positive connotation, and I think that this has to do with its association with that innate need to belong. If we can say we belong to a community, than we have satisfied that basic need. However, there is validation in Harris’ idea that we overtime lose our individual qualities and become a part of “them”. I think that this very much applies to writing, and it can be seen throughout today’s education system, and can be related back to our earlier discussions about the conformity of the five paragraph essay and how it squanders individualism within our writing. When we conform to a discourse community and write in the style that they encourage, then we slowly can lose our ability to discourse on our own, and I think this can be true for any academic community if they are not careful to foster individualism. The “insiders vs. outsiders” part of the article also relates to this in the sense that, as students, we tend to not write against the grain because we are told that we are wrong in situations like the one above. Overall, it seems that Harris and the others believe that community can hinder individualism, and that there should be a fine line between having students conform to academic rhetoric and keeping their own individualism within their writing styles.

Relative to Swales’ discourse community theories, I do not think that Harris and the others necessarily disagree with the idea of a discourse community, yet they seem to foster a warning about squandering individualism. When Harris begins to describe literate communities, I began to think of URWT and its goals. We do come together and offer feedback on each other’s writing and foster discussions. I think that in this sense, it is more relatable to what Swales was describing as a discourse community. I think that within the blog posts we have been able to use academic rhetoric, yet for the first time for many of us, we have been allowed to put individual spin on our posts while maintaining what I believe to be a discourse community.

 

Discourse and Diversity

The idea of a discourse community is one that is new to me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to think as I read the introduction of John Swales “The Concept of Discourse Community”, but I am now able to apply that term to a lot of my life at the university. Being a transfer student, I am not yet a part of many student organizations, but I was able to take Swales characteristics of a discourse community and apply them to my courses that I am currently taking. I think two of the most contrastable classes I have are this class (University Writing) and my biology lab. After thinking about both of them, I was able to apply many of the characteristics that Swales talks about to both classes, yet each one varied in how they fit that characteristic. For example, the first characteristic Swales talks about is having an agreed set of common goals. Each class at UNC Charlotte has a set of Student Learning Outcomes, but I think that each class has very different goals. UWRT 1103 focuses on improving writing and serves to introduce students to a collegiate level of writing. The Biology Lab serves to enhance the material that is learned in lecture and give the students hands on instruction with various subjects within the course.

The second characteristic describes mechanisms of intercommunications. Swales mentions at one point things such as newsletters, and when applied to university classes, I thought of Moodle. Being our source for pretty much every bit of information dealing with the class, from syllabi, to homework, to the ever-exciting class cancelation, I think that Moodle most certainly fulfills this characteristic for both of the classes I am comparing.

Swales’ third characteristic is participatory mechanisms to provide information. He goes on to talk about things that may further the discourse community as a whole. To me, this sounded like our textbooks and other resources that are provided to us so that we may understand what is being taught and give us a background so that we can facilitate discussions. In my biology lab, we use lab manuals and other paper resources, but we also use microscopes and other equipment to help our understanding. In UWRT, we use pdf files and writings, both our own and others, to help facilitate discussion and understanding about different types of writing and literacy.

The fourth characteristic talked about having more than one genre within a discourse community. This is the one that confused me the most at first. A more general definition of genre could be used to describe certain categories of art of literature. Swales says that genres are “how things get done, when language is used to describe them”. After a lot of thinking about this one I decided that the way we communicate is a good example of genres within our classrooms. For example, in UWRT, we use a lot of discussion types of things within the class, but we do this both verbally and through our blogs and writings, therefore providing to different mediums and genres to do so. In biology, we use lab reports and notes, both informal and formal writing styles to describe the information presented to us.

The fifth characteristic Swales describes is the acquiring of specific lexis. This one made sense, because every subject is going to have is differences in language and vocabulary. The words used in my biology lab are not going to apply to concepts of literacy we are learning in UWRT most likely.

The final characteristic is all about members with a degree of discourse expertise. After many years of education, restricted as it may be at times, I think we are all pretty much experts in the area of discussion and elaboration on a particular subject.

So how does this all relate to inquiry and literacy? After reading Swales article, I think that the foundation for inquiry based learning and true literacy lie within a discourse community, for it is in these communities that we should be able to foster our growth in a particular subject of discourse and become literate in the things that we are being taught. Here at UNCC, I have experience a much different learning environment than one that I have ever gotten in both my Biology class and in University Writing. Coming from a small town, we didn’t have the resources for biology equipment like I have gotten to use, and there was a lack of what characteristic three describes. As for UWRT, as my previous posts discuss, I experienced restriction in most of my writing throughout high school, so there really was no variety when it came to genre. Being at an institute that encourages discourse communities is what is fostering diversity and ingenuity within students, but it is also what is creating such a thriving and successful community here on campus.