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Skyler Maynard

Professor Gardiakos

ENC 1101

27 July 2021

Reading Response for Ann Johns

The term discourse community refers to a group of people that use texts and language,

specifically the genres and lexis used, to enable the members to maintain the community’s goals.

Discourse communities have six characteristics that define them, according to Ann Johns, these

being: a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among

its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback,

owning specific genres and lexis, and a level of expertise and content among its members. Many

different forms of discourse communities (recreational, academic, or professional, for example)

exhibit these characteristics. Johns’ claims on conflict and authority suggest that conflict has

both negative and positive effects on a given community. Conflict occurs when factors that

separate the individuals that make up the group become prevalent within the community, causing

a rebellion. A successful rebellion can lead to the rules of a discourse community changing, or a

new group being created. Many rebellions occur because of issues with authority figures within a

community. For instance, some of the “lower” members might disagree with the higherups in the

community, creating a rebellion against this authority.

Nonacademic communities usually focus on some form of interest, hobby, or belief.

Meaning, many members become a part of these communities due to individual interest, and may

eventually become inactive in these communities. Some of these groups may centralize around
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political beliefs. In which, members are connected through their similar views on how the

government should operate. While others may centralize around a common hobby, in which

members discuss that instead. Everyone joins these types of communities, and, may even join

multiple at a given time. Nonacademic communities usually communicate through common

means, like social media or newsletters, without the use of formal language. Personally, I’ve

joined many of these communities. For a long time, I was a part of my school’s band, which acts

similarly to a nonacademic discourse community. Everyone is united through their love of

music, but each person differs in involvement and dedication to the program. Similarly, some

members eventually become inactivate altogether, despite receiving the group’s newsletters and

e-mails. Within our band, there is student leadership as well, which creates authority issues.

Some members of the band might rebel against authority out of anger for not receiving an

authoritative position.

Aside from communities created through interest, professional communities exist as well.

In these communities, active members are able to carry on informal exchanges as well as formal

ones when the environment requires it. For example, conferences, e-mails, office meetings, and

other business-related environments would allow for a formal tone. These communities are more

so created with the purpose to share knowledge on a given subject, rather than connect based on

interest. This is also seen in academic communities, in which the members may share interests,

beliefs, or values, but their first allegiance is to the broader community. In these types of

communities, there are conflicts on how the community should run. For example, within

academic communities, many argue on how scholars should write and what should be written.

When I was a part of IB during high school, I experienced some of this. Many of my teachers

would tell me to use a different form of writing, like MLA, Chicago, or APA, creating a difficult
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learning environment for the students. Along with this, occasionally students’ ideas would be

rejected because it wasn’t considered worthy of academic writing or research efforts. Due to this,

all of the students in this community were connected through our academic efforts. Despite this,

we would often have similar views, hobbies, and ideologies, even though that was not the main

goal of the community.

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Works Cited

Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice.” Writing about

Writing, by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford Books St. Martin's, 2020,

pp. 560–583.