Davis 1 Summary Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings.

Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print. Analysis 28 January 2013

This article is about Discourse communities. John Swales establishes the difference between a speech community and a discourse community. Then he goes on to explain the 6 characteristics of discourse communities. The characteristics are: common goals, hierarchal system of members, network of communication,

The thoughts of Swales on what makes a discourse community is not what everyones opinion of what a discourse community is. I think he tries to give specific characteristics for not only just academic discourse communities but discourse communities of all types. He says you need these 6 characteristics but then he says you dont have to have all of them. That you can have

specific lexis, information and feedback, and a discourse community of people that follow most genres. of the rules but maybe they dont all talk to each other and keep in contact. I think thats what he was trying to say.