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Jared Rodriguez

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102

12 September 2020

Reading Response 2

After reading the text, Intertextuality and the Discourse Community, by James Porter, I

acquired my own understanding on the concept of intertextuality, as well as the concept of

discourse community. To begin, what my understanding of intertextuality is the relationship and

connection that texts have within each other, and that every text is derived and influenced from

another source. There are two types of intertextuality, the first being iterability. Iterability is

basically the citations in pieces of work that consist of quotations, references, and etc. Also,

iterability includes pieces of work that is unannounced, such as phrases, influences, traditions,

and etc. The second type of intertextuality is presupposition. Presupposition is the text making

assumptions toward the reader as well as the context of the text. My understanding of discourse

community consists of a group of people that are grouped together because they hold similar

beliefs, interests, careers, and etc. These groups come together with hopes of reaching certain

goals that they share. Some examples of discourse communities that the article lists are, “… the

community of engineers whose research area is fluid mechanics; alumni of the University of

Michigan; Magnavox employees; the members of the Porter family; and members of the Indiana

Teachers of Writing.” (Porter 39) All of these groups are examples of a discourse community

because they hold common interests and goals.

I realized while reading the text that although intertextuality and discourse communities

are different concepts, they still play a role within each other and are related to each other. The
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connection I made between intertextuality and discourse community is that discourse

communities have intertextuality involved in their groups because the sources that they use

aren’t necessarily original. The information that they come up with and use are influenced from

previous, older works that they have viewed. Also, porter explains that, “Intertextuality suggests

that our goal should be to help students learn to write for the discourse communities they choose

to join.” (Porter 42) What Porter means in this excerpt is that intertextuality is related to

discourse communities because it suggests that our objective is to aid students on how to write

for discourse communities.

I personally believe that Porter is correct about what he has to say about intertextuality,

and I believe that his article falls in the category of it as well. It’s inevitable that writers will run

into intertextuality because everyone uses previous knowledge when writing, and this previous

knowledge derives from a single network. With that being said, technically, Porter’s article is

technically not original, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is untrustworthy. I would still

consider Porter as writing as an autonomous individual as he can’t help but use previous

knowledge to form his ideas. I believe if he were to plagiarize his work, then he would be

considered not an autonomous writer as he is using others work as his own.

Porter’s work most definitely reflects on the principles he is writing about because he is

partaking in them. For instance, he talks about intertextuality, and how all work is technically not

original and is derived from other sources. The work that I indulged in of Porter’s was an

example of that. His article is derived from previous works that he has experienced and learned

from. With that, I would believe that Porter agrees with the fact that his work is derived from

other sources.
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With being in an artistic discourse community, you are surrounded by intertextual

elements involved with TV, movies, music, visual art, etc. The Harry Potter films are an example

of a work that consists of intertextual elements. To begin, all of the Harry Potter films are taken

place in a very old looking magical world. These films weren’t the first films that were to include

an old and magical world, therefor it was derived from a source somewhere else. To be specific,

“Hogwarts owes much to the cliff-top Roslyn in Dean Farrer’s classic Eric, or Little by

Little (1858) as well as to Blyton’s altogether jollier ‘Malory Towers’ stories.” (Caselli) This

backs up the fact that the place Harry Potter is taken in a made-up world influenced from other

sources. Even certain scenes in Harry potter involve intertextual elements, such as when Ron

and Harry see each other for the first time, they instantly become friends. This is derived from

Anthony Buckerige’s Jennings Goes to School when Jennings and Darbishire become friends

instantly when they arrive at school. (Caselli)

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Works cited

Porter, James. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Taylor & Francis, 2012,

williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Porter-Intertextuality-and-Discourse-

Community.pdf.

Caselli, Daniela. “Reading Intertextuality. The Natural and the Legitimate: Intertextuality in

'Harry Potter'.” SpringerLink, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1 Jan. 1970,

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230523777_8.
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