Maryland English Institute 1
Documented Discourse Community Analysis
November 15, 2010
Assignment Description
Every community of speakers has its own ‘discourse’, that is, its own “ways of speaking”
and writing. For example, in the community of lawyers, there is a very specific, Latinate (Latinbased English), technical language; the expectations among its members of the rules of grammar
(passive voice and modals, in particularly), register, argument, and evidence are very clear and
specific to the community. Medicine is another community with similarly extreme discourse
rules. Some language scholars say that all communities purposefully create discourses that are
designed, in large part, to welcome people to “the club,” as it were, and to keep others out.
What this means for us is that a large part of our language tasks will be fulfilled
according to the norms and expectations of the academic discourse community we belong to.
The language use within this community represents an entire ethos or set of ideologies that
informs the way that its members speak and write to each other.
This assignment asks you to write 7-8 page, documented exposition and analysis
(presentation) that critically examines and evaluates (purpose) the written discourse of a
sample text from your academic community. Please include your sample text with your analysis.
Your audience is our 004C reading and writing community. Your evidence will come from
identification, exposition, and close analysis of the key pragmatic and linguistic features and
practices of your text. Your language should be appropriate for members of our community.
Your documented exposition and analysis should contain the following moves:
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Move 1: an introduction that contextualizes the analysis
Move 2: a thesis that makes a point about the discourse practices of your community and
why it is important to analyze and evaluate it
Move 3: an identification of audience, genres, and main idea/purpose of the text and an
analysis of how these rhetorical elements shape the text
Move 4: an identification of the key organizational structure of the text (e.g. introduction,
methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, etc.) and an analysis of how this
organizational structure fulfills the purposes of the text
Move 5: an identification key rhetorical moves of the text (e.g. create the space of the
conversation, enter the space, alter the space, discuss significance of the alteration) and
an analysis of how the moves fulfill the purposes of the text
Move 6: an identification of the major voices in the written “conversation” of the text and
an analysis of how these voices are used to fulfill the purposes of the text
Move 7: an identification of major topics in the text
Move 8: an identification of major frames in the text and an analysis of how the frames
shape the textual purposes
Move 9: an identification of major foregrounded assumpitions and backgrounded
assumuptions and an analysis of how these are used to fulfill the purposes of the text
Move 10: an identification of citation convention (e.g. APA, MLA, etc.) and an
exposition of appropriate evidence (e.g. charts, graphs, quotations of experts, facts,
statistics, examples, anecdotes, etc.)
Maryland English Institute 2
Documented Discourse Community Analysis
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Move 11: an identification of key grammatical structures (voice [passive v. active]),
tense, modality [degree of certainty]) and an analysis of how they are used to accomplish
the purposes of the text
Move 12: an identification register and lexis and an analysis of how these linguistic
features fulfill the purposes of the text
Move 13: part 1 of the conclusion that paraphrases your thesis and synthesizes the major
points of your analysis of the written discourse practices of your community
Move 14: part 2 of the conclusion that evaluates how the written discourse practices of
your community represent shared beliefs and ideologies of its members. This final part
of your conclusion answers the question “So what?” Why should I and my readers care
what I’ve analyzed—that is, how do I want my readers to interpret my analysis of the
written discourse practices of my academic community.
As you plan, draft, revise, and edit your exposition/analysis of the written discourse practices
of your community, remember that all writing (and all communication) is by its nature a social
act. This is part of the reason why we have emphasized that all writing is a conversation that coconstructs the values and knowledge of your community.
Maryland English Institute 3
Documented Discourse Community Analysis
Assignment Goals
Upon completion of this assignment, you will be able to
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introduce your topic (context and thesis)
state a clear thesis that grows out of the context and prepares the reader for the analysis
that follows
identify, analyze, and discuss key pragmatic features (i.e.. organization, moves, topics,
frames, and assumptions)
identify and explain citation conventions and appropriate forms of evidence (e.g. charts,
graphs, quotations of experts, facts, statistics, examples, anecdotes, etc.)
identify grammatical structures (voice [passive v. active] and modality [degree of
certainty]) and analyze how these grammatical features accomplish the purposes of the
text
identify key vocabulary features ( register and technical words) and analyze how they
achieve the purposes of the text
conclude by appropriately paraphrasing your thesis
conclude by evaluating how the written discourse practices of your community represent
shared beliefs and ideologies of the written discourse practices of your community
use appropriate citation conventions (e.g. APA, MLA, etc.) of your discourse community
to document your analysis
think critically about the writing and reading practices of your discourse community and
evaluate how these practices construct and shape the beliefs and knowledge of your
community