Minch 1

Audrey Minch
John Chrisman
ENC 1102
26 January 2015
Unit 1 Paper
There are countless amounts of discourse communities, and all different types, all over
the world and wherever you go. One that I am apart of and would like to study is the University
of Central Florida.
I chose the University of Central Florida as my discourse community for multiple
reasons. Im new here, its a big part of my life, Im incredibly proud and honored to be a part of
this community, and I really enjoy it. I want to study UCF as my discourse community because
its such a big role in my life. I want to understand it more than I already do to become even
more acquainted, find new reasons to enjoy it and appreciate it, and be able to express to people
why Im proud to be a member.
I have little past involvement in this discourse community. Im only in my third semester
so I havent spent much time here yet. My current involvement is more than it was. Im taking
more classes this semester, looking into leadership opportunities and positions, getting closer to
declaring a major, possibly a minor, and Im participating in other clubs and activities. I see a lot
ahead for me in my future involvement. With more time, I will be much more involved at UCF.
The University of Central Florida meets John Swales definition of a discourse
community and his six criteria perfectly. Swales is a linguistics professor, earned his Ph.D. from
Cambridge University and has many publications including English in Todays Research World,
Academic Writing for Graduate Students, and Genre Analysis where his six criteria can be found.

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They are 1) a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (220), 2)
a discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members (221), 3)
a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and
feedback (221), 4) a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in
the communicative furtherance of is aims (221), 5) in addition to owning genres, a discourse
community has acquired some specific lexis (222), and 6) a discourse community has a
threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise
(222) .
An agreed set of common goals at UCF is for all students to graduate, be successful, and
value excellence, integrity, scholarship, creativity, and community. Our mechanism of
intercommunication is our school email, Knightsmail, and our online class website, Webcourses.
Participatory mechanisms that provide information and feedback would be our wide variety of
classes, clubs, and activities. UCF has and utilizes plenty of genres and different ways to further
our aim of student success. This includes All Knight Study, the Writing Center, tutors, and
academic advisors. We do have some specific lexis as well. At UCF, we have chants and gestures
we use at our sporting events. We also have a serious necessity to spell the word night k-n-i-gh-t any time the opportunity presents itself. Putting all these together, the result is a group of
people who do, in fact, have a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
After analyzing the University of Central Florida, I find that it, in fact, is a discourse
community and a great one at that. I would recommend being a member to anyone.

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Works Cited
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Writing about Writing: A College
Reader. 2nd eds. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston/St Martins, 2014. 215-229.
Print.