Swales Criteria

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of

common public goals.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members.

3. A discourse community uses its participatory

mechanisms primarily to provide information and
feedback.

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses

one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of
its aims.

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community

has acquired a specific lexis.

How Your Community Fits/Doesnt Fit the Criteria

Starbucks goals are to provide good customer service and
provide good drinks.

-talking
-texting
-leaving notes
-phone calls
-writing on the cups
Training. They learn how to do a certain job first and then
gradually they will learn more jobs. Once they have learned
everything, they are put on anything. If something changes about
the drinks, then they receive a note. They write the customers
name on a cup and what drink, and then thats how they
communicate what the customer wants.
This community has posters put up against the walls to get
across what is happening that month, and they also talk to their
customers. Starbucks (in general) has a website. The starbucks
on campus is run by Chartwells so you can go on the UNCC
website and see the nutritional value of items and the times they
are open.
They use the words : Tall, Grande, Venti are used to describe the
sizes. People who are new to the coffee world will also ask
questions about what a latte is or what a Frappuccino is.

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of

members with a suitable degree of relevant content and
discoursal expertise

Baristas: make the drinks and run the cash register. They are the
people who mainly work with customers. They hang out with
each other outside of work.
Supervisors: monitors what they do in the store but are also
qualified to make drinks so they can help out when the line gets
busy
Managers: run the whole store and have a separate office in the
Union