Applying and Exploring Ideas
Consider a nonschool discourse community that you are a member of, and answer the following questions about it:
1a.
What are the shared goals of the community; why does this group exist and what does it do?
1b.
What mechanisms do members use to communicate with each other (for example, meetings, phone calls, e-mail, text messages, newsletters, reports, evaluation forms)?
1c.
What are the purposes of each of these mechanisms of communication (for example, to improve performance, make money, grow better roses, share research)?
1d.
Which of the above mechanisms of communication can be considered genres (textual responses to recurring situations that all group members recognize and understand)?
1e.
What kinds of lexis (specialized language) do group members use? Provide some examples.
1f.
Who are the “old-timers” with expertise? Who are the newcomers with less expertise? How do newcomers learn the appropriate language, genres, and knowledge of the group?
2.
Select a discourse community or activity system in which you are interested and develop a research question about it. What would you want to know, for example, about how language works there, what it takes to enculturate, and how it differs from other discourse communities or activity systems?
Meta Moment
Have any of the readings in this chapter changed any of your views on writing? Have any made you feel more powerful as a writer, or less? Have any helped you find ways of dealing with the double-edged sword of discourse communities—the fact that they simultaneously empower and disempower their members?