Hello, everyone-
I thought we had a great discussion the other day with
regards to the Swales’ excerpt, and the concept of discourse communities. I was
hoping to expand upon the ‘Café Owner Problem’ in our discussion here.
Three
individuals, three solitary entities, are what Swales begins to describe in the
second criterion for what comprises his definition of a discourse community. These
individuals exist in a vacuum, all operating identical business, “[interacting]
with the same clienteles…[originating, receiving, and responding] to the same
kind of messages for the same purposes.” Thus, the tools, or genres, available
to them are equivalent. However, Swales goes on to say that they never actually
interact with one another. The café owners could, in fact, be practicing any
craft, anywhere, but he assumes that they are all connected through some means
of communication, and that they have presumably gained membership to their
respective discourse community via training. But does this situation
successfully fulfill his definition of one? If all the hardware of the
community is in place, but the only interaction with it is on a singular level,
are these individuals actually a part of a community? The external expression
of awareness of the community is a
required element of a discourse community, without which it would be impossible
to meet any of the other criteria.
Take, for
example, the act of agreeing broadly on a set of common public goals. Though
the three owners may very well have had the same training or experience, they
must interact with one another in order for anything to be broadly agreed upon.
In Swales’ scenario, mechanisms for communication are already in place. But, laying
the groundwork to facilitate communication requires communicating in and of
itself, which clearly could not have originated with these café owners. Additionally,
engagement remains fundamental to improvement. As Swales writes, “…discoursal
expectations are created by the genres that articulate the operations of the
discourse community.” If café owner A is not interacting with Café owner B and C,
there is no feasible way for them to utilize the genres within the Café Owner
community, or to improve them in anyway. The same rules apply for developing a
specific lexis. There is no evidence that members are even aware of the community itself without employment of these tools. Lastly, comes the issue of membership. How can one be a member
of a group with which they do not actively connect? Self-awareness proceeded by
mutual awareness is what actually founds a group.
The most basic of the six characteristics
that illustrates the earlier mentioned requirement is that the discourse
community must use the mechanisms it puts into place to provide information and
harbor feedback. This activity alone demands that members exchange thoughts and
ideas, as if they fail to do so, the purpose of continuing to define their
craft through language is lost entirely. Despite the magnitude of their joint experience,
knowledge, and independent growth, the discourse community is for naught if
they cannot combine the sum of their parts. Thus, the greater discourse community of cafe owners may be communicating, expanding, or even competing, but these three have no way to prove their connection to any of that activity.
Ultimately,
the ‘Café Owner Problem’ comes down the concept of community; any shared quality,
experience, or stance could qualify as a means to form one, but without the
physical or verbal admittance of the quality, experience, or stance, cohesion
never occurs. Discourse requires externalization, active and constant. Because
the discussion never ends.
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