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:
“Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)