Discourse communities are groups of people with goals and shared interests that communicate through various channels like language or writing. The groups of people may share similar beliefs, religion, political views, music taste, or an interest in basketball. The term discourse community is not limited to just one group of people. In Russell's essay he discusses how a modern university exists because of each discourse community that exists within the university. Each community overlaps with each and in a way share a common goal of receiving an education from the university. Although Russells' example was good, I really like how Klass explained discourse communities in her essay. In her essay, she talks about being in the medical profession and all of the abbreviations they use for long medical terms. I found it very interesting that LOL means "little old lady." If I was in the hospital and heard this I would have interpreted it as "laughing out loud" because I am part of the discourse community online AIM (instant messaging). In each community could have different meanings for words and abbreviations. Also, the language of discourse communities is not just limited to professions and internet terms. The business world, education, and religions all have different meaning for different words.
I do believe that dicouse community is a loosely defined term, but I can say that I am part of the university community, and myspace/thefacebook communities. I am also part of many more to be named in the future.
2 comments:
Well, I truly do agree with what you posted on your blog! I thought that the Klass essay was very interesting and I learned a great deal from it. Being in a medical profession is like learning a brand new language! I also agreed with your idea that discourse communities are so widespread and that we use them everyday. I also have Facebook, and I would definetely agree that such a group is a community of discourse!!
Lesley, this is such a nice summary of your understanding of discourse communities. i am so glad that you tied in the class readings to explain your points.
Nice Job!
Ruijie
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