A discourse community is basically a group of people that share mutual interests and beliefs. “It establishes limits and regularities...who may speak, what may be spoken, and how it is to be said; in addition prescribe what is true and false, what is reasonable and what foolish, and what is meant and what not.” (Porter, 39). For most writers, success will come only if their writing falls into the approved guidelines of their discourse community.
People are generally involved in a variety of discourse communities within their private, social, and professional lives. Some discourse communities are very formal with well established boundaries, while others may have a looser construction with greater freedom. Examples of discourse communities may include:
- Medicine
- Law
- Psychology
- Films (Movies)
- General Forums
- Technology
- Sociology
- Philosophy
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Mathematics
- Writing
- Rhetoric and Composition
Read more about this topic: Academic Writing
Famous quotes containing the words discourse and/or community:
“In my experience, persons, when they are made the subject of conversation, though with a Friend, are commonly the most prosaic and trivial of facts. The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the character of individuals. Our discourse all runs to slander, and our limits grow narrower as we advance. How is it that we are impelled to treat our old Friends so ill when we obtain new ones?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)