Discourse Community

            Not all communities are discourse communities. According to Swales (1990), there is a list of six specific criteria for determining if a community is in fact a discourse community.

            In the first place, a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common goals. Every discourse community has ideas or goals set forth to be accomplished. The cohort program exemplifies this characteristic. As Putnam & Borko (2000) stated:

The program aimed to: provide teachers with the confidence to connect what they do in their classrooms to research-informed practices; immerse teachers in a collaborative culture that allowed them to learn from one another as colleagues; consider teacher input in course content and structure design. (As cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, para. 2).

Thus, they [teachers] were "a team working toward the same goal," one teacher stated (as cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, The Cohort Becomes a Collaborative Culture section, para. 3). According to Kutz (1997):

The community college can be seen as a subset of this larger discourse community and also as a discourse community in its own right. Its members have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, and similar attitudes and values. (As cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, The Community College as a Discourse Community section, para. 2).

            In the second place, there must be participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback. Teacher reflection and learning emerge in social practice. Through the use of a cohort-based program, according to Mycue (2001), “group work may be a key to meaningful, effective, sustained professional development and a necessary component of adult learning” (as cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, Teacher Learning in a Collaborative Culture section, para. 4). “One of the important aspects that the professors learned when teaching in the cohort was to be constantly in step with the teachers. […] Not only did teachers grow and learn as professionals, the professors as teachers also grew professionally” (Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, Context of the Study, para. 8). According to Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez Torres (2003), the nature of human activity in cultural contexts supports learning environments where people collaborate, provide solutions to problems, and rely on more experienced members of the activity system.  “… [T]eachers are participating in the construction of knowledge as well as crafting identities.” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez Torres, 2003, Teacher reflection and learning emerge in social practice section, para. 2).

            In the third place, the community members have to be intercommunicated, so there must be information exchange. Teachers interact with their colleagues in activities that require communication and exchange of ideas where reflection is not kept in the mind of the individual but is distributed through the social activity of the school community. (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez Torres, 2003).

            In the fourth place, the community must be defined by a genre; there must be a community-specific genre. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. As Kutz (1997) stated, “communicative competence is described as what one must know in order to use language appropriately in particular discourse communities.” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001, Communicative Competence and Boundaries section, para. 1). According to Cole (1999), “culture itself mediates human actions in the sense that it is a system of shared meanings or social inheritances embodied in the artifacts of a given social structure.” (As cited in Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez Torres, 2003, Teacher reflection and learning are culturally mediated section, para. 1).

In the fifth place, information should be exchanged through a highly specialized terminology. Every discourse community has its own specific lexis. According to Kutz (1997) “…discourse communities share understandings about how to communicate knowledge and achieve shared purposes, and they exhibit a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style.” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, The Community College as a Discourse Community section, para. 2).

            Last but not least, the community members should achieve a high general level of expertise. The community members have a suitable degree of discoursal expertise. Every community has experienced members and less experienced members. Survival of the community depends on a reasonable ration between novices and experts.

            In conclusion, a discourse community is a group of communicators with common goals. As McLaughlin & Talbert (1993) asserted, it “cannot exist in the absence of a collaborative culture and an environment that supports risk-taking and reflection.” (As cited in Wenzlaff & Wieseman, 2004, Summary and Implications section, para. 2).

References

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NQM/is_3_42/ai_108442653

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship

and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2007,     fromhttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541

Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow. Teacher

Education Quarterly. Retrieved October 2007,  fromhttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200404/ai_n9349405