RWS Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

Yolanda Moreno

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Professor Saul Hernandez

Introduction

John Swales (1990) mentioned that a discourse community there are common goals to

have in there group. For this paper the character Ill be using is Meredith Grey from Greys

Anatomy. Swales defines his six characteristics of a discourse community, to help figure out

what groups Meredith may be in from the show. There are many groups that Meredith can be

place in, but the ones Ill be focusing on more is her persons, and medical field groups she

belongs to.

Swales gives us an idea about what a discourse community is, has he describes it

testifies to the increasingly common assumption that discourse operates within conventions

defined by communities be they academic disciplines or social groups (Swales, 1990, p. 217).

There are two discourse community about Meredith that Ill be discussing about her. The first is

her person's, meaning that the people who will always be there for no matter what and having

something that represents their meaning of their friendship or relationship, and the second

discourse community would be her medical field at the hospital.

At the hospital where Meredith works is where she has all her discourse community. The

name of her hospital is Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital, named after sister Lexie Grey who had

passed away, as well as her close friend Mark Sloan who had died as well. The hospital has

different headquarters for different departments, as well as a free clinic attached to the side of the

hospital. My main focuses would be Meredith's persons and medical field groups she brings to.

Literature Review

John Swales article The Concept of Discourse Community talks about his six

characteristics of a discourse community to him, that he explains to his audience. Swales

defines everyone of his six characteristics to place each categorized in its group to if others can

relate to what hes talking about. Each characteristics has its own group it belongs to, some

might be what that group has as a common goal, commutation with the group, their feedback

towards each other, their standards for one another, terminology with each other, and everyone in

the group understanding each other in their own way (Swales, 1990).

Swales explains in great detail whats consider a discourse community and what itll

following under. How discourse community can also relate close to a speech community. That

a speech community is seen as being composed of those who share functional rules that

determine the appropriacy of utterances (Swales, 1990, p. 219). Meaning that the group has the

same lingo or understand one another. In order to have the same lingo (language) their discourse

community needs of the goals tend to predominate in the development and maintenance of its

discoursal characteristics (Swales, 1990). They all have the same goal in whatever group they

may be in, they can either help each other out to all reach their goal, or make it in a competitive

way to reach the same goal just wanting a little thrill to reaching it. According to Porter a

discourse community is a group of individuals bound interest who communicate through

approved channels and where discourse is regulated (Porter, 1986, p. 38-39). Swales and Porter

have the same idea about the discourse community, about having a group interest with something

that everyone in the group can relate to.

Discussion

As described above Meredith works at Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital where she has her

own discourse community. The two main groups that she belongs to are her persons and her

medical field. Her persons would be Cristina Yang, Derek Shepard, and Alex Karev.
RWS Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

In the beginning of the season her main person became to be Cristina Yang. Meredith and

Cristina both started off as residence at the original hospital name Seattle Grace Hospital.

Cristina was the competitive one who wanted to have cardio since the beginning. Meredith saw

how well Cristina was doing at the time, so she wanted to like her. Meredith and Cristina than

became each other persons since they knew how to help each other out. Every since that day

Meredith and Cristina would help each other to do well either at work or outside from work.

What represented them was them dancing it out, not matter what type of situation is was. That

would be how they talked and understanded one another. As Swales talked about how in a

discourse community they have their type of lingo to be able to understand each other. Meredith

and Cristina lingo would be them dancing it out in a way be a proper way of commutation to

them since they dont always know how to describe or what to talk about, they would just say

lets just dance it out. Cristina would try to help Meredith with different types of situation she

was in either a work situation or non-work related. Cristina would help Meredith most of the

time about Derek, of either understanding him or how to get him.

Which would bring in Derek being a person for Meredith. Derek became a person to

Meredith when he became romantically involved with her. Once Derek left his wife, Meredith

told Derek to pick me, choose me, love me, since then they became each other person. What

makes their lingo special is their vows to one another, which is represented by the post it.

Whenever something happens they would say post it, after that they knew what it represented

to them. How it meant so much to one another and would always have one another because of

that post it. Just with them saying post it would be their lingo to each other of what it represented

and how well they understood each other and what they meant. How Meredith and Alex have
RWS Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

their way of just being there for each other. What represents their relationship is just talking to

each other and telling the truth no matter what the outcome is.

Meredith discourse community goal is to help their patients and help each other out to be

able to focus on their career. Which is where her persons come together to her rock to her her

throw anything. Meredith goes through different challenges all throughout the seasons . Each

character or friends help Meredith in different ways, even having their own meaning why to have

done what they have done. Also theyre commutation towards one another is different since they

all have there own way of situation of helping and dealing with each other. The response she gets

back from her group is a good thing was always looking out for her. Even when she gets in

trouble or if someone in her group gets in trouble since theyll have each others back to try get

them out of trouble or an situation they're in. They even support each other to reach their goal, to

get awards or just for their job.

Meredith comes with a lot of baggage you can say, but there is a lot of reasons why it is

that happens. She has to find out she has two sisters, trusting people has they come and go,

losing love ones, and going through so much drama. Dealing with all this stuff and situation, she

needs her discourse community. Meredith had to deal with so much drama and crisis of things,

that she needs her people to be there for her. Meredith has done so many crazy things, like put

her hand on a bomb in order for not to kill everyone in the room or part of the hospital. She

doesnt like to express her emotions that often but when she does she explode like a bomb. That

she would need her right person for the job to be her rock, to let her just let her vent out.

Everyone needs some sort of community to go to for any kind of situation. Swales

explains different kinds of discourse community can apply to anyone if they recognize their

group they belong to. He also explains at longest you have a common goal with a group of
RWS Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

people that can be their discourse community. He tries to relate all these six characteristics of

discourse community to everyone. Swales also understand that people leave the group. Just like

how in Merediths group of people, Cristina leaves after she gets a new job position somewhere

else. But before she leaves Cristina and Meredith do their one last dance with each other as their

way of communication. Meredith also losing Derek from her group, but because he had died in

season 11 due to a car crash. Meredith took this hard, she didnt want to talk to anyone at all.

This is when Alex came in the picture to help her out, she saw it has an opportunity to stick

together since they were the only two felt from their starting group as residence. Ever since then

Alex and Meredith had each other backs no matter what happens to them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Swales point of view as discourse community is to relate to any group you

can belong in this category. Meredith discourse community helps her with her medical field and

having her people there to help her out with her situations. Everyone in a way need a discourse

community to just have them their for one another. Its never bad to have a group of people to go

to for anything, either to have a shoulder to cry on, have your back, with you get out of trouble,

or just want advice on anything you need. All these types of these stuff Meredith has people to

go to for anything.
RWS Discourse Community: Meredith Grey

Work Cited

Swales, J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),

Writing about writing: A college reader (p. 212-227). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.

Porter, J. (1986). Intertextually and the Discourse Community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),

Writing about writing: A college reader (p. 395-405). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.