Final Thoughts on Writing - Unit 3

Unit 3

1) The main theme is discourse communities. Title = Aspects of a Discourse Community

2) Swales – 6 characteristics of DC

Gee – Discourse; Language; Primary, secondary, dominant and nondominant

Wardle – Authority and identity within activity systems

Devitt et al. – Communication errors & barriers; genres; introduced ethnographical research

3) We were introduced to the term discourse community early on in the semester, but this section discusses specifics of the word and conflicts that can occur with discourse communities.

4) It makes you more aware that discourse communities occur everywhere.

5) This unit should be introduced because it allows the freshmen to learn about new ways and aspects of writing that they did not learn in high school. The academic articles allow them to visually realize that everyone writes differently, but learn new ideas from other authors, students, teachers, etc.

6) The authors’ arguments gave me, as a student writer, the opportunity to take in their ideas and incorporate it into my writing.

Major Themes and Arguments

- Swales’ 6 characteristics are for a utopian DC

- The term “language” is misleading
- 3 Modes of Belonging

- Authority can be taken away by higher authority

- Miscommunication between specialists and nonspecialists

My thoughts/ relevance

- provided more in-depth explanation of the term discourse community

- helped establish different rules and conflicts within a DC