MICROSOFT CORP.
Discourse Community
Ethnography
Alex Martinez
RWS MWF 12:30
Paul LaPrade
This paper will analyze how a high school meets the criteria for a discourse community. This will be
accomplished by comparing it to the several pertinent criteria as well as breaking down what a discourse
community is.
If you are the typical human being, then you have a few hobbies. If you are an atypical human,
you have many hobbies that you focus on. Within these hobbies, you probably have experts and a
certain language that you use that would sound foreign to an outsider. This is what a discourse
community is. A discourse community is a community in which people gather around a common goal, or
idea, or interest, and discuss it with their own specialized jargon, forms of communication and etc.
Anyone in the workplace has entered a discourse community, whether they fully realize it or not. I chose
to analyze a high school, as this is a rather unique form of a discourse community and one in which I will
soon be re-entering. I will explain what makes a high school such a unique discourse community, as well
as how it functions and what its express purpose is.
I chose to focus primarily on Swales Six Criteria for a discourse community. In essence, to be a
discourse community it must meet the following criteria; they must share a common goal or goals, have
forms on intercommunication, use these forms to encourage discussion and learning among the
members, possess several forms of communication, have a specialized language and finally have a ratio
of experts to beginners. {Insert Porter here}
In studying my former high school, I came to the conclusion that, although it is a huge group, it
can be broken down into several smaller discourse communities. One discourse community consists of
students and teachers. The second consists of teachers and their supervisors. Another discourse
community would be the several extracurricular groups in a school. Essentially, high school is a huge
group of discourse communities in one localized area.
The common goals of a high school are simple. Educate youth so that they can prepare to enter
the real world and engage in further communication with their peers. This is the goal regardless of what
position you maintain, be it principal, counselor, teacher or etc. This common goal unites the discourse
communities previously mentioned. In this way, a high school meets the first criteria for being part of a
discourse community.
The next criteria focuses on meeting some form of intercommunication among the community.
For teachers and staff, this focuses on emails and staff meetings. Departments will often have special
meetings in which they discuss the current goals and processes to be implemented during the school
year. The teachers will then communicate this to the students via homework, syllabi and take home
letters. This keeps the channels of communication open between the students, teachers, and there
department heads and supervisors. Similarly, students will often form study groups to discuss the
material, furthering the notion of intercommunication.
This allows us to move on to the next criteria. Communication between members is heavily
encouraged in discourse communities. This allows for collaboration as well as forming relationships that
will be beneficial moving forward. Teachers in the same respective field will be more likely to
communicate with one another, as they have similar interests and goals as well as things which to
discuss. For example, English teachers will get together to discuss the forms of literature being used, as
well as discuss alternative methods of teaching English. This can apply to any teacher in any field.
Secondly, students are encouraged early on to get to know one another and to form study groups. The
hope there is that these students will get together and discuss the material which will lead to new ideas
and a better understanding of whatever is being taught to them. This in turn creates a discourse as the
students begin to discuss their class work and leads to new ideas, which is a purpose of any discourse
community.
Many forms of communication occur in a high school. Teachers are constantly exchanging
emails with one another, superintendents and principals. This is the primary form of communication in a
high school, as it is quick and efficient. Teachers can also send letters and memos, as well as agendas
that communicate their intentions. The most common form of communication is a course syllabus.
Teachers can easily relay their course syllabus for the year to one another, leading to communication
and questions amongst one another. Students are encouraged to communicate with their teachers via
either email or in person, and to communicate with one another through text messaging and during
class, when the time is made available. Teachers also have access to a wide array of specialized forums
and pages on the internet, where they communicate with teachers from all over the world and see new
alternative teaching methods.
In any discourse community, there will be a set of specialized language and words that, to an
outsider, might seem like gibberish. It takes time in these discourse communities to be able to
understand and use this specialized language. During the course of my study, I took note of several
words that seemed. DBQ’s, FRQ’s, “opportunities”, etc. DBQ, I learned, stood for Data Based Questions
while RFQ’s were Frequently Referenced Questions. Opportunities were a code word for tests and etc. I
attempted to gather more information on the specialized language of a school but was told that I could
not be provided with “sensitive” materials. Students also develop their own specialized language when
discussing course work, as I learned while watching them. They were using several abbreviations while
talking that, for a short time, confused me. However, after sitting in for a while, I was able to pick up on
these words and figure them out for myself.
Finally, we meet the last parameter. In a discourse community, there are several members. In
order for a discourse community to succeed, there must be a comfortable ratio of beginners to
experienced veterans. This is where I met a slight issue. I found that, in a high school there are either
three sets of individuals or two sets of two. In the set of three, it plays out like this. Students are the
beginners, teachers are the experts and their superintendents are more qualified experts. Tricky, I know.
The alternative is this. In one set, students are the beginners whilst their teachers are the experts. In the
second set, the teachers are the beginners and the superintendents are the experts. So to say, the
teachers have to learn as much from their bosses as the students have to learn from the teachers. A
typical student will not try to prove their teacher incorrect, or claim to know more about them in a
subject. A teacher will not tell a superintendent that they know more about their job than they do. I saw
an example of this in the class I was sitting in on. My former teacher, who I revere, was answering
questions from an assignment. A student, who I know fairly well, attempted to make his bones on the
teachers back and corrected him in front of the entire class. The teacher calmly explained why the
student’s assertion was incorrect by providing legitimate facts and the student, embarrassed,
apologized. This is where I see that there may be a difference between this discourse community and
the traditional discourse community. However, for the most part, I still believe that a high school meets
the criteria for a discourse community.
High schools are an example of a rather unique discourse community. They meet all the criteria
except for one, and it can be argued that the final criteria is met in a variety of ways. After having visited
the high school and seeing the ways they communicate and etc., I believe that I have a better outlook on
how to approach this future career of mine. I’m also highly excited and ready to contribute to this
discourse community.