Vanessa Joseph

Stark
August 31, 2016
ENC 2135
Journal 2
Genre- The point of a discourse community seems to be function so genre is like the way in
which a discourse community can function through writing. A discourse community can have
many genres because there are many things that need to be done within that group; they are the
means of communication. Since they have common goals the different genres of writing help to
achieve those goals.
Rhetorical Situations- This is alluded to in third point where A, B and, C all talk to the same
person using the same genres, but never talk to each other. Due to the situation they are amongst
the same discourse community despite not knowing of one another. Which means that one does
not have to recognize the community to be apart of it as long as their in the situation using the
correct conventions within a genre. As long as in this situation there is functional information
being exchanged it is a discourse community. The sixth point brings up how the discourse
community changes in its membership which suggests that rhetorical situations may change and
thereby may make some people necessary and others no longer necessary for the continuation of
the community. With that being said they are not limited to intellectual paradigms or scholarly
cliques. Many communities can be considered as discourse communities.
Conventions- These subvertly demonstrate the appropriate way for people in a discourse
community to communicate with each other using the genres. No matter what the genre's
conventions are there to provide information that sustains the community. However the
conventions must always remain functional because the genre is there to fulfill a purpose. Along
with being functional they also need to be readily recognizable so that people within the
community will understand the purpose just by the context.
Social Constructions- This is a large part of a discourse/speech community as it often correlates
with the general understandings that members of the group have of each other. Even though the
shared social constructions will help bring a group together it is not the only things that makes
the group what it is. The article points out that social constructions are more significant in a
speech community because the gathering of a discourse community is more functional than
social.
As a Biology major I recognize that note journals are important for researchers to capture and
record their findings during experimentation.