John Swales Discourse Communities

John Swales and the concept of a Discourse Community

A discourse community is a group of people that frequently take part in discourse. The members of a discourse community are often thought to have things in common such as values, judgements and forms of communication. Shared communication could be things like using the same language or dialect, or using specific forms of communication such as emailing or Snapchatting.

In 1988, John Swales published a paper on discourse communities, discussing the theory and characteristics.

John Swales Discourse Community: theory

Swales theorised that a discourse community is a group of people that communicate for a purpose. People within a discourse community also tend to share goals or aims they wish to achieve through their communication. For example, think of a group of solicitors - they will share the same goal of catering to their clients' needs and will communicate using legal jargon that is unlikely to be used in other aspects of their life.

Swales' discourse community theory states there are six characteristics of discourse communities. We'll look at what these are next.

John Swales Discourse Community: 6 characteristics

John Swales' theory on Discourse Communities is a foundational concept in the study of discourse analysis. According to Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics:

• it has a broadly agreed set of common public goals
• mechanisms of internal among its members
• levels of memberships
• provides information and feedback
• it utilises multiple genres to further its aims
• it has a specialist lexis or texts

John Swales stated these 6 characteristics in 'Discourse communities, genres and English as an international language':

These six characteristics allow us to know if we're looking at a discourse community rather than a speech community. Let's have a look at each of these characteristics in turn.

1. Common goals

Members of a discourse community share common goals. This means that they wish to reach the same outcomes from their interactions. These goals or desired outcomes may be the same generic ones each time an interaction takes place, or they may differ and be more specific to each situation.

An example of a more generic goal may be something as simple as gaining feedback for an idea.

Common goals example

2. Communicate internally

Within a discourse community, the members will use a shared set of mechanisms to communicate with each other. This may include either spoken or written modes of communication or more specific types of interaction such as emails or letters.

The forms of internal communication may also be specific to a discourse community in regards to the type of language used. For example, a group of friends may communicate primarily through a Whatsapp group chat and use personal jokes and coined (made-up) abbreviations that wouldn't be understood by outsiders.

Communicate internally example

3. Specialist lexis

Discourse communities will use a set of lexis specific to them.

This may include accent or dialect features, slang features, jargon or even specific neologisms to that discourse community.

For example, a group of doctors would use medical jargon such as idiopathic (a condition without a clear cause) when conversing with each other within their discourse community. They would not however use medical jargon when speaking to people not in this community as they would be unlikely to understand.

Specialist lexis example

4. Multiple genres

According to Swales, communication within a discourse community is carried out across different genres.

A linguistically distinct activity can be any event that has specific language habits that accompany it. For example, a discourse community of academics may communicate through journal articles and through emails. Both of these genres have specific language characteristics - journal articles have a formal tone, a clear structure and use technical language. On the other hand, emails may be less formal and follow a structure of their own.

Multiple genres example

5. Information and feedback

A discourse community's main purpose is to exchange information and gain feedback. When this occurs among its members, the communication is successful. If a group of people communicate without the aim to share information and gain feedback, they may not be considered as being a discourse community.

6. Levels of membership

The members of a discourse community are measured in relation to their knowledge or experience within that particular community. Those with more relevant knowledge or more experience are generally considered more central members of the discourse community. There is also a set amount of knowledge a person must need to be considered or accepted into a specific discourse community. This can lead to new members feeling excluded or inferior.

Fig. 3 - New members of a discourse community may feel excluded if they do not share the same level of knowledge or experience as other members.

Discourse Community: examples

Now that we're familiar with Swales' six characteristics of discourse communities, let's look at a group of students studying art and how each characteristic potentially applies to their discourse community.

Common goals in a discourse community

The discourse community of art students will have two main common goals - to learn about art and to pass their final exams. As well as this, their aim will be to gain feedback from their peers and teachers.

Communicate internally in a discourse community

Intercommunication will occur in this community in a couple of different ways. During lessons or workshops, the members will communicate through face-to-face conversation. When they are not in lessons, they will communicate through social media and group chats via Whatsapp etc. Here they will likely also share and comment on pieces of artwork either by themselves or by others.

Specialist lexis in a discourse community

Specialist lexis will be apparent in this discourse community as they will use terminology surrounding art. Some examples of the possible specialist lexis used are:

• Abstract (a style of art)
• Impressionist (a style of art)
• Renaissance (a notable period in art history)
• Filbert (a type of watercolour painting brush)
• Acrylic (a type of paint)
• Stippling (a method of creating art by using small dots)
• Study (a preparation sketch or drawing before a final piece is created)

Multiple genres in a discourse community

The genres used within a discourse community of art students might include Q&As during the creation of a piece - where opinions will be requested and given. Another genre would arise in the environment of an exhibition of artwork. In this scenario, the participants in a conversation have their attention focussed on the same piece of art while they discuss the aspects of the piece in a descriptive way.

Information and feedback in a discourse community

As with any discourse community, this group of like-minded members will share the practice of giving each other feedback and information. As the members of this community are all students, they will aim to gain feedback for their pieces of art so that they may improve or discuss their reasons for making a particular artistic decision.

Levels of membership in a discourse community

Different levels of membership will become apparent within this discourse community as aspects such as age and experience will set some members as more central to the group than others. The older members of the group might be treated as being more experienced and knowledgeable and will be who the newer members of the group will go to for help or advice. Newer members of the group may feel excluded from the group membership if they do not share the same experiences as others (such as trips to galleries and museums). This could lead to divides in the community.

John Swales Discourse Communities: quotes

When discussing a theory, it's always useful to have some quotes or key points handy. Here are some relevant to Swales' discourse communities theory.

Here, Swales is stating the difference between a discourse community and a speech community. These two communities differ in their characteristics and purposes. Where a discourse community has six specific characteristics, a speech community instead only requires a shared language or dialect.

As we have discussed, Swales states that a discourse community has six characteristics. If all of the six characteristics are not present, a communicative group of people will not truly be a discourse community.

As membership in a discourse community is dependent on knowledge and experience, personal relationships between the members are not necessary.

Within the concept of discourse communities, the genre is not only written or spoken but refers to any form of communication.

According to Swales, any event where communication takes place can be considered a genre. A way to conceptualise this is to think of a debate. A debate has a set of linguistic characteristics such as declarative statements, equal turn-taking and two or more parties. A debate, therefore, is a communicative event and is a genre.

¹John Swales. Discourse communities, genres and English as an international language. World Englishes. 1988.

² David Crystal. How Language Works. 2006.

³John Swales. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. 1990.