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Running Head: Online Food Discourse Community

Online Food Discourse Community

Karen Garcia
The University of Texas at El Paso
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Renee Malooly

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Online Food Discourse Community
Introduction

Being able to communicate with workers through social media is an efficient method for
Online Discourse Communities. A discourse community in Swales (1990) is defined as A
community that has a broadly agreed set of common goals (p. 471). Relating to my Online
Community, their goals are public, and people are able to interact by sharing that same objective,
and working together to accomplish it. We will also cover what is known as Swales 6 key
characteristics, which make up a Discourse community in general. My choice of community is
an Online Food Discourse community; they work together to achieve culinary excellence. I dont
have much personal experience on food online communities, however I plan to expand my
knowledge and be engaged in this community by observing the various tasks being performed.
This community, also known as Food52, is composed of people who love food, and
cooks who enjoy making it. In this website there are many useful resources such as: vet recipes,
cookbooks, and apps. Viewers can input questions they may have concerning recipes amongst
other things. This community would draw cooks from anywhere and everywhere, with the sole
purpose of exchanging recipes, and sharing the ideas with each other. That way, they give
constructive input for cookbooks or projects. There are approximately 57 members actively
involved in this community, who constantly communicate to each other to achieve that common
goal. One particular person that stands out, when it comes to the change in the Online Food
Community is Amanda Hesser. She created the site Food52, she has made over 750 stories for
the New York Times. In this community they not only give cooking tips and skills, they go as far
as to share some personal fun stories and social media hacks.

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Literature Review

According to his text John Swales got his PhD at the University of Michigan, but mostly
concentrated on linguistics, while working with English speakers to help them be successful in
reading and writing at their university. Genre is a word Swales puts emphasis on, One of the
most important- and complex of Swales characteristics is genre (Swales, 1990, p. 467). In
this article, Swales defines the six characteristics of a discourse community, in detail, giving
readers the opportunity to analyze communities they are currently involved in. The six
characteristics are: A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has
mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms
primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres
in the communicative furtherance of its aims, a discourse community has acquired some specific
lexis, has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursed
expertise (Swales, 1990).
Porter says that Intertextuality, is the principle that all writing and speech-indeed, all
signs-arise from a single network... (Porter 1986, p. 35). A discourse community is a group of
individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and
whose discourse is regulated (Porter, 1986, p.37). One of the goals for Intertextuality is to help
students in their education, by improving their writing skills for the discourse community they
are involved in. Intertextual theory suggests that the key criteria for evaluating writing should
be acceptability within some discourse community. Acceptability includes, but goes well beyond,
adherence to formal conventions (Porter, 1986, p. 43).

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Both Swales and Porters articles give a clear and brief understanding of the meaning of
Discourse communities and the way they work.
Discussion
As previously said, Food52, is a community that concentrates solely on providing
recipes, and bringing cooks from elsewhere to share their cookbooks and skills. The Swales Test
is used to provide more detailed information about what kind of system they use. We will be
discussing the six characteristics, and how this community meets them all.
The first one is a Discourse Community has a set of common goals. One common goal of
this community is to persuade people to cook. They believe that, If you want to eat better, and
you want to help change our food system, you need to cook (Hesser, 2016). Our goal was to
create a social hub for cooks, a place where they can not only connect with each other but
collectively create a wonderful food site (Hesser, 2016). They also have contests, amongst each
other, to see who has the best recipe. As stated before, their main goal is to bring cooks from
different places, to share information that will benefit the community, which will eventually lead
to its growth.
In a discourse community there are methods of intercommunication amongst them. They
communicate through blogs, where they post their recipes and ideas. They can also comment on
each others cooking methods, and give each other tips and advice. It is similar to Instagram,
because they can follow their pages, and keep up with everything they post. Having
communication amongst each other is key for success.

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They give each other feedback on things they can improve on. However, BlogHer does
not provide professional advice, diagnosis or treatment of any kind medical, legal, professional
or personal (Hesser, 2016). However, you are free to express yourself freely, on your page or
blog. The comments you share on other peoples blogs have to be appropriate, and non-offensive.
This community in regards to genres utilizes, cookbooks, recipes, and journals. In regards
to specific lexis or language it mostly consists of culinary fancy words. They are usually in a
different language than English, mostly French or Italian. Each food plate has its own name, and
some are named after the chef that created it.
Lastly, the discourse community has some Discoursal expertise, but it is not as notable.
There are contributing writers, head recipe tester, books editors and stylist, videographers,
volunteer recipe testers, agents, and advisors, however the leader or the Co- Founder is Amanda
Hesser.
Conclusion
This community of Food52, that I observed, perfectly fits the mold of a discourse
community. Communication in any community is essential for its growth, for without it, no one
is able to accomplish their goals efficiently. Working together to achieve a common goal is not an
easy task, but can be achieved with hard work, and communication. The six characteristics in
Swales articles, only proved with more certainty that this community certainly qualifies as a
discourse community. It is composed of key elements, that make up a discourse community.

References
Porter, J. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),
Writing about writing: A college reader (p. 395-405). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.
Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),
Writing about writing: A college reader (p. 212-227). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.