Sean Demme
11/9/12
DC synthesis and outline
Our
human instinct is family. Family is something that varies with different
people. To some family isn’t so special and they’re not a huge part of their
lives. And on the other hand, family for some people means the world – they are
their everything. Now taking a look at a family as a discourse community also
holds a varying response. All families are different. No two families are so
similar – so how can we define whether or not they really are a discourse community. John Swales (writer in our Writing About Writing college reader
book) gives us six characteristics of a discourse community – but will a family
follow these six guidelines? And If a family isn’t defined as one then who’s to
say Swales is right?
My first
source is from another student from University of Toledo of El Paso who seemed
to have been doing a similar project to mine. She made a website that gives
three examples of a four tiered definition of a discourse community. The categories
are goals and values, typical genres, norms for genres, and writers’ task and
roles. She goes on to explain an example each category. Under these four rules,
then, a family is most certainly a discourse community. They hold all the right
requirements, but, are those really all of the requirements?
Next I’ll
take a look at my book Writing About Writing
where Swales tells us that there are, in fact, six characteristics that makes a
discourse community what it is. Not ALL families have some of the six characteristics
including “having goals” or having “Mechanisms of intercommunication.” So, what
then, is the medium to describe a family – if not ALL families are discourse
communities then can you say that families, in general, are?
This is what I plan to look into in my DC paper. I have a
couple more sources. Thanks!
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