Running Head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY

Discourse Community
Lorenzo Ramirez
University of Texas El Paso
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 2



Abstract
This paper will discuss what a discourse community is and what characteristics make it a
discourse community. According to Porter (1986) author of the article Intertextuality and the
Discourse Community (1986). Mr. Porter defines a discourse community as a group of
individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and
whose discourse is regulated. In my research for writing this paper I observed for about 2 hours
the Academic Technologies (AT) Dept. for the University of Texas at El Paso. In my observation
I noticed several characteristics that defines what a discourse community is, what forums or
mechanisms are used to communicate within that particular community and also when they
communicate outside of that same community. I also discuss the type of language (jargon) that is
used within that community and when speaking to someone that is considered an outsider that
does not quite belong to that community. At the end of this paper I will determine if the AT
community falls under Porters definition of what a discourse community is.

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In order to decipher what exactly a discourse community is you have to find certain
characteristics that define what a discourse community is. In Swales (1990) article The Concept
of Discourse Community (1990), he gives us 6 characteristics that he says make up a discourse
community. (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 possesses 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. (Swales, 1990, p. 471-473). As part of my research for this paper I had
to go and find a community, particularly one I would soon be a part of as a career, and apply this
6 characteristics to this community. So I choose a community that is part of the Information
Technology community, a community I would like to choose as a career path. I choose the
Academic Technologies Department at UTEP. This particular community deals with online
issues and not the actual network infrastructure of the school, in other words if youre having
issues with Blackboard or some other website that belongs to the school or you cant login to
my.utep these are the guys that fix and design these websites.
Part of my research method was to observe this community and then speak with one of
the heads of this department, I spoke with Mr. Steve Varela, and try to get an insight as to how
this community of IT professionals function., how they function as a whole and how they
communicate with each other and by what mechanisms they use to accomplish this. I was able to
observe for about 2 hours by observing a department meeting and then speaking with Mr. Varela
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and then finally taking a small tour of the department. The second part of my research was to
obtain some artifacts that help support the AT department as a discourse community. Whether it
might be some email, memos, websites etc. I was able to obtain some brochures and some links
to a couple of websites that the AT department uses. While observing I also needed to think
about Swales 6 characteristics of what makes a discourse community and try to apply them to the
AT dept. and come to the conclusion to see if they actually do fit all these characteristics and can
be called a discourse community.
To begin we look first at Swales first characteristic, to paraphrase it he basically states
what are the shared goals of the community? As I interviewed Mr. Varela one of the questions he
answered was what was the beliefs or philosophy of the AT community. Their belief or mantra
as he put it was Dream, Learn, Create and Share --we are exploring and expanding the use of
technology in higher education particularly in teaching and learning. Mr. Varela explained to me that
not only do they exist to help the UTEP community with technological issues, but they also are
trying to find new ways to introduce technology into the teaching community at UTEP and find
new ways to make learning fun but at the same time incorporate technology into the classroom as
well. This particular community deals with online issues and not the actual network
infrastructure of the school, in other words if youre having issues with Blackboard or some
other website that belongs to the school or you cant login to my.utep these are the guys that
fix and design these websites. They also offer training for faculty and staff on different platforms
to improve the overall teaching experience. For example they offer what they call an online
academy to help faculty to transition from their face-to-face course to a fully online environment.
As another example while Mr. Varela was giving me a tour of the AT dept. he was showing me
some of the projects his dept. was working on. One of the students working there was using what
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they called 3D printer. It wasnt your usual one dimensional printout but an actual 3 dimensional
object. His dept. wants to incorporate it into some of the engineering course to help students with
their design concepts.
Swales second characteristic focuses on what mechanisms are used to accomplish
communication. The AT dept. uses a variety of ways to communicate with each other as well as
outside of their community. Mr. Varela mentioned the use of email which was one of the primary
mechanisms used to reach people inside and outside of their community. Some of the other
mechanisms used for communication were a lot of the major social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, were some of the more familiar tools. Mr. Varela also mentioned
the use of two websites, Trello and Inside.at.utep.edu that were used for his dept. in terms of
communicating with each other and also for communicating with people outside his dept. The
website Trello (Trello.com). Trello is this website that helps organize bug projects and breaks
down who is working on what. Mr. Varela showed me this website they use and it was pretty
impressive. According to the website Trello is a collaboration tool used to keep track of big
projects, deadlines, keeps track of who is working on what, and show the progress of these
particular projects. Mr. Varela says they use this tool mainly for communication with in the dept.
The other website he uses is called Inside AT. (inside.at.utep.edu) Mr. Valeras dept. uses this
forum to communicate with the rest of the UTEP community. Not only do they use it but they
are the ones that came up with the website and keep it up to date. If you have an idea you want to
present or want to announce something happening in the UTEP community this is the place
where you would go to present your ideas. Mr. Varela and his staff use this website to present
their projects and other things happening in the AT dept. Although they seem to use technology
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as there means of communication, they also use traditional methods such as meetings as the one I
mentioned in the beginning if this paper.
Swales third characteristic basically says what are these mechanisms used for. As stated
previously they use social networking as a forum to spread the news of whats going on in the
AT dept. but also they use these different mechanisms as a way to receive feedback, such as
email, memos, and they also have team meetings, not only from within their community but also
from outside of their community. For example the meeting I was observing between Mr. Varela
and another faculty member, they were discussing how some of the faculty thought that
Blackboard was difficult to use and how there was a need for more online learning for more
courses.
The Fourth characteristic asks the question which of these mechanisms and what are the
genres of these mechanisms? The mechanisms that the AT dept. uses, Facebook, Twitter,
Inside.AT. an example of a genre would be the status update for facebook. When the AT dept.
uses these forums it is understood within the community what they are used for. For example
when Mr. Varela was speaking to one of the staff there he had mentioned the website Inside.at
and right away it was understood what was being said between them. They both knew that the
website was used for communication for people outside their community to voice their ideas to
the AT dept.
Swales (1990) defined genre as:
Genres are types of texts that are recognizable to readers and writers, and that meet the
needs of the rhetorical situations in which they function. So, for example, we recognize
wedding invitations and understand them as very different from horoscopes. We know
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that, when we are asked to write a paper for school, our teacher does not want us to turn
in a poem instead. (p.467)
Swales fifth characteristic about specialized language in a discourse community was
very apparent with the AT community. My observation was a meeting that was taking place that
day I was to go and observe the AT dept. I sat in with Mr. Valera and another faculty member for
a meeting they were having concerning changes that they wanted to make to Blackboard and
other technological changes they wanted to implement to help with training of faculty and make
courses for students more interesting and engaging. As I sat in the meeting I noticed right away
the language was not your usual, typical, normal language that you would use in a general
conversation. The language used was language you would probably hear in this particular setting
or community. Terms like OL, ISS, shell modules, and black Fridays are just a few of the terms I
heard. They use these terms to make the conversation easier and a lot quicker to get to the point.
For example instead of saying Information Security Systems, you would just say ISS.
For the last characteristic based on Swales list that makes up a discourse community, who
has expertise? Who are the newcomers? How do newcomers learn appropriate language, genres,
knowledge? The AT community is made up of all levels of expertise. When I asked Mr. Varela
what kind of people work in his dept. Mr. Varela said Academics like me, specialized skills like
programming and graphic design--backgrounds vary depending on area they work in. It was
pretty amazing to see such am diverse group of people with different backgrounds, but because
of their shared interest in technology their communication between each other seemed flawless.
When talking about projects or technology itself they spoke with a great understanding among
each other. His dept. is made up of not only regular staff but also faculty and students as well. I
met a student who was working there as a programmer, he was a freshman and he seemed to fit
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right in with his environment. What makes new comers fit in right away is that many of the new
guys already come into this community with some knowledge and jargon for this community
because they already have a passion and interest for the IT field. So its not like they are entering
a brand new community but they already have some idea of what they are going into. I asked Mr.
Varela what he looks for when he is looking to hire new people, he basically said depending on
what position they need to fill in his dept. they look for specialized skills for that particular
position. If they need a programmer they need someone with programming skills, or if they need
a webmaster, someone with web designing skills. One thing he said was that they are always
looking for people that can contribute new ideas to make the AT dept. and UTEP more
technologically savvy. They are always looking for ways to integrate technology into the UTEP
environment.
I found through my observations and interview with Mr. Valera that the Academic
Technologies department is in fact a discourse community. The balance between experts and
beginners fits well in this community. You have experts guiding the beginners teaching them the
rules and more importantly the communication style of their particular community. The way the
AT department communicates between themselves is very different than the way they
communicate outside of their community which is a distinct characteristic of a discourse
community.

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References
Porter, J. E. (1986) Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.
Rhetoric Review 5(1), 38
Swales, J. (1990) The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in
Academic and Research Settings. 471-473