Discourse Community Analysis
XYZ (004C)
Discourse Community Analysis
- Food Allergy Prf. Eric Walker
XYZ
November 24, 2010
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Discourse Community Analysis
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To live in the modern society, we frequently need to participate in our own discourse
communities. Housewives may have their own discourse community for doing economical
households, teenagers may have their own discourse community for computer games, and no
wonder specialists such as doctors or lawyers have their own discourse communities.
Whether the discourse communities are informal or formal, we can get more knowledge or
increase critical views in our discourse communities when we are active participants.
According to Graff and Birkenstein, “to become active participants means to enter into
conversation with others in our discourse communities; not simply to express writer’s own
ideas, but to respond to what others have said.” Then, how can we enter into the conversation
of our new academic discourse community? To join the conversation, we first have to
understand and analyze their “ways of speaking and writing.” Through this report, I would
like to prepare myself for being an active participant in my discourse community by critical
examination and evaluation of a sample text from food allergy.
To begin with, I would like to identify the shape of my text. My sample text is
exposition which is summarized the approaches to establish thresholds for major food
allergens and for gluten in food by the Threshold Working Group. This text is for consumer
groups, the food industry, trade associations, experts on food allergens and gluten, and
individual consumers. In my sample text, the preface section shows clearly these rhetorical
elements such as the main idea/purpose, audience, etc.
On the analysis of rhetorical shape, my text showed similar rhetorical shape to
Swales' and Feak's overall one; it started from general contents to specific contents in the
introduction, keep specific contents, and ended from specific contents to general contents.
However, the key organizational structure was a little different. My text has following
sections; executive summary, preface, overview, specific topics (food allergy and celiac
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disease), discussion and recommendation, acknowledgments and references. The structure
helped me to understand where they are now and they are going in the near future for the
issue of establishment of thresholds for major food allergens and for gluten in food.
Third, as Swales and Feak mentioned, the introduction sections of research papers
generally show 3 moves: establishing a research territory, establishing a niche, and occupying
the niche. Similar to Swales’ and Feak’s analysis of the introduction section, my sample text
started with the general opinions for food allergen about the importance of accurate labeling
for food allergen and the existence of threshold levels in order to establish a research territory
in the introduction. And it indicated a gap in the previous research about no consensus in the
scientific literature regarding thresholds for major food allergens or gluten. Then, it entered
the space mentioning with the identification of various approaches for establishing thresholds
by the Threshold Working Group. Finally, it discussed the significance and challenge studies
of its finding. These moves of the text leaded me to accept and recognize the authors’
intention easily.
Forth, according to Matsuda et al, “Elbow (1994) has identified 5 meanings of voice
relating with writing: audible voice or intonation, dramatic voice, recognizable or distinctive
voice, voice with authority, and resonant voice or presence.” My text has voice with authority,
the Threshold Working Group. The professional voice gave me more trust on the reading. As
Matsdua et al mentioned, the scope of voice to the author can bring readers closer to the
rhetorical processes of reading.
Fifth, my sample article, “Approaches to Establish Thresholds for Major Food
Allergens and for Gluten in Food” consists of two main topics, food allergy and Celiac
disease. It explains general definition, mechanism, adverse effects, concerned foods, and
detecting and measuring allergens in food allergy and Celiac disease each, and suggests
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general criteria for evaluating and selecting approaches to establish thresholds for both
diseases.
As foregrounded assumption, the reports identified 4 approaches (the analytical
methods-based approach, the safety assessment-based approach, the quantitative risk
assessment-based approach and the statutorily derived approach) that could be used to
establish thresholds. However, the Threshold Working Group back-groundedly assumed that
“further challenging studies are needed for establishing thresholds that would be scientifically
sound and efficacious in relation to protection of public health.”
Seventh, the article followed ACS citation style. Numerical citations were used and
references were arranged at the end of the paper numerically. The order was followed by
author names’ alphabet. And it used appropriate evidences to support its opinions such as
tables for summary, charts, statistics, and some experiment data as appendixes. Those
evidences accompanied data commentaries and those data commentaries were exercised with
the right strength of claim for this article as Swales and Feak explained.
Eighth, general grammatical voices in this article were present and active voice.
These tenses match well with Swales’ and Feak’s idea explaining that present patterns usually
refer the state of current knowledge. This sample article usually focused on what has been
found, so the majority of voices were present and active. Additionally, I found many “may”
and “can” as modalities in this article; it shows uncertainty of current findings. With these
modalities, I could understand that the current knowledge in this article is still on process.
Finally, the register of this article is food science and the Federal Register, a kind of
regulations. I could find many biological and medical terms such as threshold, dose-response,
NOAEL, LOAEL, celiac disease, risk assessment, and etymological definition as well as
legal terminologies related with food such as FALCPA(the Food Allergen Labeling and
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Consumer Protection Act, FFDCA(the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act), petition
process, etc. To analyze these linguistic features helps me to understand food allergy
discourse community.
Now, I am on the threshold of a new academic discourse community, the food allergy.
To enter the written conversation with the members of my new community, I should first
know the way they are speaking and thinking. This discourse community analysis helped me
to understand the language they use and the ideologies they have before joining my
community’s conversation. Therefore, in my near future discourse community, I think I can
be an effective persuasive writer and reader who makes well-supported claims and maps
those claims relative to the claims of others, as Graff and Birkenstein emphasized.
References.
Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, “They Say I Say” (2010)
John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, “Academic Writing for Graduate Students”
Paul Kei Matsuda and Christine M. Tardy, Voice in academic writing: The rhetorical
construction of author identity in blind manuscript review, English for Specific Purposes 26
(2007) 235–249.