Thinking over the Swales' definition of a discourse community, I began to wonder how one "officially" joins one -and specifically at what point a line between members and non-members is drawn. Even after taking liberties with some of his points and adjusting the specificities of his definition, one still needs to decide what constitutes membership into that defined group. For many communities, a novice would never be able to understand an expert - or even a member with an intermediate understanding. They might never achieve that level of understanding, but they would still be much more knowledgable than the average person and be apart of a community of novices(within the community as a whole.) While it may be true in some more than others, I think almost all discourse communities will have a hierarchy of some sort and form offshoot communities.
When studying evolution, a tree diagram can be created to classify species by how related they are. In discourse communities, a tree could be created representing common knowledge between parties within the community. In government regulated professions, like medicine or military service, there are clear points where a person is taught information and then evaluated for their understanding of it. While it's not clear at exactly what point a freshman in college studying to become a doctor becomes a lower level member of the medical discourse community, it is certain they are one after they begin their residency. But there's no true way to classify the student who has a moderate understanding of the field after taking just a few medical classes using an "in or out, member or not" model. That's not even considering a hypothetical person who never goes to medical school, but watches every related program on television, does research, and buys related text out of personal interest. In the military, completing boot camp, gaining security clearance, and being read into assignments are all specific points of initiation. But just like the student who has only taken so many credits, there are grey areas.
When analyzing a discourse community, especially complex ones, subsets will be formed. These subsets can't exist outside the overarching discourse community, as that general knowledge is needed to understand anything going on in the subset (a dermatologist would still be in the medical community, but someone outside medicine can't be a dermatologist.) They should be singled out as unique because members within the larger community don't know the details associated with the subset, even though their knowledge is prerequisite. All doctors should understand what blood pressure and the different parts of the human anatomy. Even after several years, everyone in the community will at least know the basics. A brain surgeon and a cardiac specialists will have a lot to talk about if you forced them too. If they were confined to discussing their day to day jobs, there wouldn't be the same ease of conversations. They both may know all the basic parts of the organs, what they do, and how their supposed to work but they would each know a lot more about their field of study. That's why there are conferences for such specifics parts or medicine, there's so much to talk about that the medical student and the specialist from a different field would not be able to keep up with.
While there's still grey areas, it's easiest to classify people within a community where there's a clear ladder to ascend within said community. With a defined structure, you can see where the grey areas are. Where the definites are. Where the specificity is. When talking about more universal communities, ones that aren't societally or governmentally regulated (or are, but extensively) there's much more grey and more importantly it's harder to see where the grey areas fall. For example, when does one enter the discourse community of artists? There's entire fields of studies with definitions describing genres, tools, methods, mediums, etc. But there's also people making art that would have no way of discussing it at a higher level. Are all people artists, but only some are members of the discourse community? Or is everyone who engages in art a lower level member, and there are simply many subsets? What about people who can talk and analyze art but never tries to make something themself? Allowing subsets creates more fluid barriers when defining entry for the general public, but still rightfully separates armchair doctors from brain surgeons and French Art History professors from graffiti artists.
It's interesting to think about, because no matter how broadly or specifically a discourse community is defined, I don't see there being a way to get around these ambiguities.
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