What is Discourse Community?
A discourse community is a group of people who share the common goals and objectives in their lifes. They speak the same language, and they share the same interest in a given topic. These groups of people try to achieve this goal through intercommunication amongst the group of people. They also have a common vocabulary to communicate amongst themselves.
We already belong to a discourse community, as we live with our families, and the ethnic groups we belong to. When you go to your colleges and university, you enter a new discourse group that includes other fellow students and college faculties. The discourse group in college can also include different types of clubs, organizations, and classrooms.
When you pass out of college, you enter another discourse group that includes your colleagues and other people in your office. The size of the discourse group in your workplace can depend on the type of organization, and the form of employment you get. Discourse groups are the basic criteria where you get the accurate narrative of people that you can use on several occasions.
Discourse groups are studied by different writers and philosophers as they want to know about the perception, type of speech, way of thinking, and several other goals and objectives of different communities. Anyone who wants to become a good writer, a storyteller, or even a better communicator should have proper knowledge about different discourse communities.
Characteristics of Discourse Communities:
Discourse communities have the following characteristics:
- Most discourse communities have commonly shared goals towards which they work
- A discourse community have a different mechanism set up, that helps them to communicate amongst themselves
- A discourse community uses a participatory mechanism and process to get an idea about information and feedback from the people in the community
- Many discourse communities may have one or more communication processes in place so that they can get quicker solutions towards the problem.
- A discourse community also has particular lexis.
- Most members of a discourse community have a particular level of discoursal expertise.
Examples of Discourse Communities
One of the best examples of discourse in the community is religion. In this example, we are talking about a specific religion called Christianity. This religion has common goals, common objectives, and they also communicate with the church members in a particular way and particular vocabulary. You can’t expect people who are sitting in a church to talk about movies and recent rap songs. Thus, they have a list of common goals that include prayer, Sunday services, and participating in festivals like Christmas.
Importance of the Discourse Community
Understanding of discourse communities is especially important in case you are a writer. If, as a writer, you will ask where narrative writing is used, the answer is it will be used in understanding the discourse communities. Following are some of the importance of the discourse community:
- It will help you to write in a situation where communities have a specific goal in mind.
- It will also help you to determine what the best approach towards a rhetorical situation is.
- A discourse community also provides a guide in writing.
- Knowing a discourse community can help you in addressing what you are writing is helping the community and audience you are writing about. It will also help you in connecting to the audience in a better way.
- Discourse community will enable you to understand the community in a better way so that you can write about their culture and other phenomena in a better way.
- With the Discourse community, you will understand your presupposition, community-specific terms, and sayings. Once you understand the basics of discourse community and use it in your writing, you will witness a rise in your reader, and your audience will understand your writings in a better way. Thus, for all the writers out there, it is very important to have a proper understanding of the discourse community and to use the concept in their writing.
No matter what you are writing, and on which platform you are writing, have an idea about your target audience and the discourse community for whom you are writing. Having proper understanding and knowledge about the discourse community will help you to make an informed decision about your writing style, the vocabulary to be used, and the way you want to cater to the needs of your audience.
To begin to write for a discourse community, start visualizing, and start communicating with diverse groups. No matter if you have a subject in your mind or not, staying in a discourse community and understanding their narratives and goals will definitely help you in becoming a better writer. Even for storytellers, Leaders, and communicators, knowledge about discourse communities can be quite beneficial. Thus, pay attention to your surroundings and get better at understanding different discourse communities.