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Audrey Ann Laster

Professor Gary Vaughn

English 2089 Section 062

9 April 2021

Lindner Women in Business: An Evolving, Inclusive Discourse Community

Even the strongest, most established discourse communities face changes that require

them to find a way to adapt to both internal and large external influences. Discourse

communities, as defined by linguist John Swales, are “groups that have goals and purposes, and

use communication to achieve their goals (“Reflections on the Concept of Discourse

Community” 2). Lindner Women in Business, a Diversity and Inclusion organization at the

University of Cincinnati, is an example of a discourse community facing many changes recently.

Changes in membership structure and shifting to an all-virtual format in response to the COVID-

19 pandemic has made this organization a great candidate to research in efforts of adding to the

conversation of discourse communities. The concept of discourse communities has been

generally studied by many researchers including John Swales, Ann Johns, and James Gee, but

research on women in business groups as discourse communities is extremely sparse, or

potentially nonexistent, considering these types of groups are often student organizations. This

allows for much more relevant research to be done regarding how women in business groups

change and adapt since there are organizations like this on many other college campuses.

The research for this paper was conducted by attending their annual “Empowerment

Day” conference virtually on Saturday, March 6, attending their virtual meeting on Wednesday,

March 10, and interviewing a current member, Sara McBride. The format of their conference and
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general body meeting were very similar. Both were held via a Zoom call and featured breakout

rooms for discussions. Empowerment day had multiple speakers hosting different sessions for

members to choose from

while the general body

meeting featured one

speaker on the topic of “The

Ethical Dilemma of

Business.” Sara McBride

was interviewed regarding

her experiences with Lindner Women in Business and how she feels about all of the changes the

organization has been facing. Additional research was collected from their Canvas page, social

media, and newsletters.

Before beginning to look at Lindner Women in Business as a discourse community, it is

important to consider the history, mission, and values of the organization. An article from NBC

News states, “During the first quarter of 2021, 41 women will lead Fortune 500 companies.

That’s just 8.2 percent, but an improvement from the 33 companies in 2019 and 24 in 2018”

(Newcomb 2020). Lindner Women in Business is an organization that aims to increase that

number by empowering women and equipping them with tools necessary to be successful in the

workplace. The organization was formed as a small student group in 2013. It was later founded

as a Diversity and Inclusion organization within the Lindner College of Business at the

University of Cincinnati in 2018 after gaining a faculty advisor. Lindner Women in Business is

relatively large in size with around 300 members. Most of the members are women from the

Lindner College of Business. As of 2020, the organization opened its membership up to all
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students of any gender or major to further place emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Lindner

Women in Business, along with the rest of the world, has had to learn how to adapt and change

due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Different meeting formats, leader transitions, and changes in

communication are all factors in how this discourse community has changed drastically.

John Swales is known for his works on the topic of discourse communities. In 1990 he

outlined six criteria that a group must meet in order to be considered a discourse community in

his article, “The Concept of a Discourse Community.” These six criteria state that a discourse

community:

has a broadly agreed set of common public goals…has mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members…uses its participatory mechanisms to provide

information and feedback…utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the

communicative furtherance of its aims…has acquired some specific lexis… has a

threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal

expertise (24-27).

In 2016, Swales wrote another article titled “Reflections on the Concept of Discourse

Community” in which he added two more criteria for discourse communities. The additional two

criteria are that a discourse community develops “a sense of ‘silential relations’” and “horizons

of expectation” (9). Lindner Women in Business is considered to be a discourse community that

focuses on the topic of empowering women to be successful in and outside of the business world.

By looking at Lindner Women in Business through the scope of John Swales’ eight criteria to be

a discourse community, one can gain a deeper understanding of the organization and how their

continuous evolving impacts their members. Similar to how Swales revised his initial criteria for
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discourse communities as the times had changed, Lindner Women in Business had to refresh

their ideals to stay with the times.

The first criterion that must be satisfied to be considered a discourse community is that “a

discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (Swales 24). A simple

search on this organization shows that they have publicly stated their mission and vision

statements related to preparing and empowering emerging leaders. Though the organization has

changed a lot, their mission and vision statements have remained a constant theme in this

organization. This discourse community also has outlined commonly accepted and practiced

values and goals for its members. These goals are stated as:

Be confident to take initiative and amplify your voice in the workplace.

Be inspired to hear and learn from others' unique backgrounds.

Be empowered to build a personal brand that reflects your values (Canvas page).

A noted from the goals above, this organization exists to uplift its members and equip them with

the personal skills needed to be successful in their careers. The Lindner Women in Business

community serves as a diverse and inclusive space to learn and grow as professionals but also as

strong women, though men are allowed to participate as well. Even as the time has gone on and

the organization has had to adapt to major changes majorly due to COVID-19 the commonly

shared goals, values, mission, and vision of the organization has been left unchanged.

One of the first minor changes that Lindner Women and Business has gone through is

how they have had to adapt how they communicate within the community. In his “Reflections on

the Concept of Discourse Communities” article, John Swales presents further information on his

second criterion by saying, “[W]e now need to emphasize the roles of new digital channels, such

as emails, blogs, tweets, etc., and we also need to stress that without any means of
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intercommunication of any kind, there is no real community” (8). Swales saw and acknowledged

that the shift to be more heavily reliant on technology affects the type of communication

channels used. Similarly, since Lindner Women in Business has not been able to have in person

meetings, the organization has had to rely solely on digital means of communication. These

methods of communication include GroupMe, a group messaging app, their Sunday newsletter,

social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn), and now a Canvas page that

members can join. Previously, the organization also used physical flyers and handouts to

communicate, but that had to be eliminated as the organization had to adapt to new

circumstances.

In addition to the communication channels mentioned above, Lindner Women in

Business often utilizes surveys to get feedback from its members about the state of the

organization. To track attendance at meetings, the leaders in Lindner Women in Business create

surveys that members must take after every virtual meeting that allows members to show that

they were present and to give feedback and critic that meeting. Another way the organization has

gathered feedback is with their end of the semester surveys and onboarding surveys at the

beginning of the year. Members are required to take the surveys to remain members in the

organization which causes a very high rate of feedback.

Meetings for Lindner Women in Business typically fall into one of three genres:

professional, social, or volunteer. The topics of the meetings tend to vary but the meetings are

consistent in a sense that they regularly occur every other Wednesday with the occasion of a

separate meeting on a different day of the week. This is an example of Swales’ fourth criterion

that requires discourse communities to use one or more genres to further communicate its aims.

Swales explains that the expectations of the discourse community “may involve appropriacy of
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topics, the form, function and positioning of discoursal elements, and the roles texts play in the

operation of the discourse community” (“The Concept of Discourse Community” 26). The topics

of Lindner Women in Business, though relevant to many people, have been appropriated to fit

the needs of the members of this discourse community. Professional events are geared towards

facilitating professional development through workshops, networking, and speakers, social

events are considered to be fun, casual activities to bring the group together, and volunteer

events are focused on bettering the Cincinnati community. These three meeting genres have

served as the backbone of the organizations goals and aims.

The lexis of Lindner Women in Business is unique of most other organizations and very

specific to this organization. Looking at past newsletters, various acronyms, terms, and phrases

are used that resonate with the members reading the article. The most common of these is the

acronym for the organization, “LWiB,” or the phrase “LWiB’ers” which members call

themselves or other members. They also use the term “Girl Boss” frequently as an endearing

term describing a powerful businesswoman. Additionally, “Sunday Cup O’ Joe” has been

adapted to this group to describe their newsletter rather than a hot cup of coffee as most people

would think of. These terms have been around almost the entirety of this discourse community’s

existence.

The biggest change Lindner Women in Business is facing as a discourse community

relates to Swales’ sixth criterion, “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with

a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (“The Concept of Discourse

Community” 27). Previously, it was required that members be female students in the Lindner

College of Business but as of 2020, all genders and students of any major are allowed to join this
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community. One might say that there is no required degree of discoursal expertise, but it merely

adapted as the organization matured.

Another major change has been the new ways that members communicate without having

to explicitly say anything. When talking about his seventh criterion, Swales explains, “A DC

develops a sense of “silential relations” (Becker 1995), whereby there is a sense of things that do

not need to be said or to be spelt out in detail in either words or writing” (“Reflections on the

Concept of Discourse Community” 9). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, members were able to

attend in person meetings in which they could non-verbally communicate via body language.

Now since moving to all virtual meetings and communications, silential relations among

members have evolved. When entering Zoom meetings, members automatically enter with their

mikes muted and cameras on. Rather than raising their hands physically to signal a question,

members now use a “raise hand” button on the Zoom app. Additionally, within the GroupMe

conversations, members tap a heart button to signal that they like or agree with a message that

was sent.

Lastly, according to Swales’ eight criterion, discourse communities have developed

certain expectations (“Reflections on the Concept of Discourse Community” 9). Leadership

teams and Executive Board Members are expected to put on meetings that are centered on

valuable topics. This expectation developed from Lindner Women in Business’ history and

reputation for giving members opportunities and events that will positively impact them for the

future. Members also expect that they will be able to reach out to people leadership at any time

for professional and personal support.

As seen from the criteria above, Lindner Women in Business has faced many changes

and challenges, internally and externally, that have caused them to evolve. These changes,
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although very drastic in some cases, have not disqualified the organization from being

considered a discourse community but rather facilitated changes within the criteria. The first of

these big changes can be summarized as Lindner Women in Business further playing into their

role at the University of Cincinnati as a Diversity and Inclusion organization, a change driven

from internal factors, as seen by the analysis of criterion six above. Linguist Ann Johns looks at

diversity issues within discourse communities or communities of practice, a term she frequently

uses, in her article “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership,

Conflict, and Diversity.” She explains that “In some cases people are excluded from

communities because they lack social standing, talent, or money, or because they live in the

wrong part of town” (511). Previously, this had seemed to be the case with Lindner Women in

Business because of the application process and requirements to become a member. Now there

are very few exclusions as to who can join the organization. In the interview with current

member Sara McBride, she shared how having a more inclusive membership has affected the

organization. When asked why Lindner Women in Business opened its membership, she

explained:

Because you can't really be a D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] organization, unless you're,

like, truly inclusive of everyone. But I mean, we see this with business, too, business is

shifting more towards the diversity and inclusion and engagement aspects…business

organizations, and the college of business is going to make that shift with it (McBride

2021).

This shows the organizations commitment to being a diverse and inclusive space for not just

women in business but also men or people from other majors. The required expertise used to be

knowledge of business and the hardships of women in a male dominated field. Now as more
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attention is being brought to this subject in general, more people are wanting to become allies,

thus, causing the organization to open its doors to allow for that.

Additionally, Lindner Women in Business faces the external influences of COVID-19

that has caused changed in meetings and communications as predominately seen by the analysis

of criteria two and seven above. Discourse communities everywhere, both new and older, have

been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic whether it is shifting to meeting virtually, social

distanced, or not at all. Lindner Women in Business has maintained their sense of community as

best as they can by providing opportunities to connect virtually through mentorships, meetings,

speed dating styled socials, and more but there is still a very evident impact on its members.

Many members appear to be tired of staring at their screens from online classes all day, so they

do not feel fully engaged in meetings. Later in the interview with Sara McBride, she said “At

least seven hours of the time that I spend just dedicated to, like, the University of Cincinnati is

already spent staring at a screen. So, if I have the option to not increase that time, like, I'm going

to take that and put it somewhere else” (2021). A quote from the Ann Johns article, “Discourse

Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity,” backs her

claim by saying, “To become active academic participants, they sometimes must make major

trade-offs that can create personal and social distance between them and their families and

communities (511). One could argue that members of this discourse community may no longer

want to make the trade-offs necessary to be part of the community. This is where the changes in

communications can be beneficial. Members may now stay engaged virtually at any time by

staying up-to-date on Lindner Women in Business’ social media pages, GroupMe, Sunday Cup

O’ Joe, or meeting recaps. Advancements in technology have made it possible for organizations
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like this to adapt to the unprecedented affects of COVID-19 but little is known about the long

term affects of moving to an all-virtual format will have on the sense of community.

Discourse communities are ever evolving and changing to meet the ebbs and flows of

society. Both internal factors and external factors can be seen as drivers of change for

organizations and communities. As time goes on, more research will help to better explain and

understand shifts that organizations must make in order to continue to meet the criteria of being a

discourse community. By studying an organization affected by these factors, such as Lindner

Women in Business, one can continue to build the literacy analyzing discourse communities and

understanding the issues within them and why they exist. While Lindner Women in Business

may look very different than it did a few years ago, they simply made changed that positioned

them to be more in line with their values which is the ultimate goal of many discourse

communities.
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Works Cited

Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,

and Diversity.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug

Downs. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011, pp. 499-518.

McBride, Sara. Interview. Conducted by Audrey Ann Laster, 06 April 2021.

Newcomb, Alyssa. Record Number of Women Took over Fortune 500 Companies in 2020. 30

Dec. 2020, www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/record-number-women-took-over-

fortune-500-companies-2020-n1252491.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing About Writing: A College

Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s,

2014, pp. 215–227.

---. “Reflections on the Concept of Discourse Community.” ASp, no. 69, 2016, pp. 7–19.,

doi:10.4000/asp.4774.
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