Free Essay

Engineering Discourse Community

In:

Submitted By awnalisa
Words 930
Pages 4
Awnalisa Walker

Discourse Community

The ability to communicate effectively is important in many aspects of live. From social lives to professional lives, conveying information within groups of people or communities serves several purposes. The different groups one communicates with to achieve these goals are called discourse communities. In a discourse community, the communication between its members is vital because it causes them to have shared knowledge and similar interests. Due to the different communities having distinct interests, the way they converse can be altered to best suit each group. For example, a group of doctors would talk about medical subjects unlike sport fans would talk about a sport. I am a mechanical engineering student and therefore identify with the engineering discourse community. In this field, the community use different platforms of communication to reach its members. The internet is an effective way of communicating with engineers and the website Engineering.com is a useful resource to share information. Engineering.com is a site used by engineering professionals or companies to communicate ideas and information with other people in the engineering community. I came across this website while searching for engineering websites on the internet. I would expect other people to find this site by the same means I did. What drew me into the site was what was said in the ‘About Us’ section. The site prides itself on bringing, “…the most influential voices in engineering to a worldwide audience of engineers.” This statement help make the site more professional and credible because it is telling the users that not just anyone can put information on the site and that the contents are created by people who know what they are talking about. On the site it also says, “Our goals are to work with content creators in every discipline and to build the most engaged audience across every distribution channel.” This shows that the site wants to keep its users interested in its contents and make sure that there is something for every type of engineer. Keeping users interested is important in a discourse community because it gives the community a chance to grow. The website is setup so that the site’s contributors or content creators publish articles about all of the different disciplines of engineering and other users communicate their thoughts and notions about the articles. The contributors to the site range for college professors to engineers working in the industry. The articles cover a whole spectrum of engineering topics and are for users with different experience levels. The language or vocabulary used in the articles can hint to the different types of users of the site. For example, the article titled “Diamond Nanothreads Push the Potential of Carbons” would require a user to have some knowledge about nanothreads and material structure which beginners in the engineering community might not have. Within the articles there are also some words that are specialized to this discourse community and would not be as useful in other communities. The vocabulary specialized for the community is the communities’ lexis. The lexis for this website is comprised of scientific words such as prototyping, nanotube, superconductor, etc. The lexis of a discourse community is important for the overall functioning of the group. It helps connect the users with each other and brings them together because they can relate to the vocabulary being used. Even though the words in the lexis may be more complex, the language for the website is otherwise casual. The layout for the website is organized in a way to draw in its users. The homepage is arranged with multiple pictures with their affiliated article titles in the center of the page. The pictures for the articles are colorful and lure people into choosing the article. Even though the pictures are there to be inviting, they are also informative and help the reader understand what the article is talking about. They are informative because some of the images are layouts to how things are put together or the results to an experiment. Other graphics on the page are the advertisements. The advertisements are all academic. The ads are either for engineering/design software like AutoCAD or colleges and universities. The advertisements for the site show that the community is focused on learning and furthering your engineering knowledge. On the top of the page there are tabs which lead the users to other pages like videos, games, jobs, and other engineering based subjects. Along with the tabs, there is a search box that will help the users go to the specific topic they are looking for. On the right side of the site there are sections for job postings and other resources that can be downloaded by the site’s users. These sections further the fact that the site is aimed to help members expand their knowledge and with their careers. The other graphics are ones used to promote the website. There are graphics to try and get the members to download the Engineering.com app. Also there are icons of the different social media sites to get people to subscribe to the websites social media pages like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. All of the graphics are consistent throughout the website to persuade the members to stay on the site or subscribe to the site’s social sites. Engineering.com and other websites provide a great platform to communicate with discourse communities. The websites ensure that most of its member will be capable of receiving the information on it. In a discourse community, communication is key to a better and well educated community.

.

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Discourse Community Ethnography

...Robert Kelly Holly Kopcha ENGL 2089 106 3/6/2016 Marching Band The marching band is a community all their own. They all speak to each other in a language that is all their own. It was always easy to spot someone in school who was a “band kid” because of the way they carried themselves or the way they talked or the people they associated with. Kids in the marching band hang out with each other during and outside of school. They are a community all their own with unique characteristics. The marching band has specific goals that they set for themselves as well as for the group. Individually the members of the marching band have their own goals that they need to accomplish for the ultimate goal of making the group better. Each member will practice their music at home or in the practice rooms during class in order to get better at memorizing and accenting their music. They do this to help the group sound better when they are at competition. Band member also have a goal to memorize their drill sheets. This helps them to where they are supposed to be on the field at a certain time. Doing this helps the group look more unified in their formations. The group’s goals are to perform well at competitions and ultimately win a trophy for their school. To obtain this goal the group will practice for 2-4 days a week. Depending on the day or what needs work they will either work on drill or their music. Drill is the position in which the person should be in a specific time during...

Words: 1127 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Discourse Community Analysis

...So what is a discourse community? When you google discourse community, you read, “It is a group of people sharing a common goal using communication to reach that common goal.”Getting more into detail what exactly is a discourse community, we have John Swales’ academic essay, ‘The Concept of Discourse Community’, which breaks it down into six characteristics: “1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. 2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. 3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. 4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 5. In addition...

Words: 1366 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Discourse Community Analysis

...2018 Dr. Gail York ASU English Department Boone, NC 28608 Dear Dr. York, The discourse communities that I chose to focus on in my paper were my involvement in Appalachian State’s Student Government Association (SGA) and my membership in Appalachian State’s Honors College. One of my main successes writing this paper was deciding on the two best discourse communities to use. SGA and the Honors College proved to be obvious choices due to amount of time I spend attending meetings for SGA and studying to stay in good academic standing with the Honors College. Another one of the successes that I had while writing this paper was reflecting on the “so what” component of my literacy in my discourse communities....

Words: 962 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Discourse Community Research Paper

...Now when reading thru the “Concept of a discourse community “ I found it a very difficult piece to write about. Really just reading thru it I found myself having to go back over it many times. So for this paper we were soppose to analize a part of the writing. So I decided to go over thse 6 chartestics that swalles talked about. Like I said swales came up with a set of guidelines that a discourse community has to meet to be actulla considered as a discourse community. The six characteristics that are to be included in a discourse community are common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genre’s, a highly specialized terminology and a high general level of expertise (Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." (1990): 119-28. Print.)....

Words: 423 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Summary Of Retail Discourse Community By Stephen Swale

...What would you say is Swales’ overall thesis for this article? What is he trying to prove? I believe Swale's overall thesis is that, the current definition for discourse community is vague and suggestive; centered around some main ideas but is still not well defined. I believe he is trying to prove that a specific set of characteristics must be present in order to define a discourse community. What discourse communities do you belong to professionally and personally? What discourse community do you hope to belong to in a future profession? Name at least one from each category. Professionally, I belong to the retail discourse community because I am currently working at Victoria's Secret. Personally, I belong to the discourse community of business...

Words: 378 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Dungeons And Dragons: A Discourse Community Analysis

...I am a part of a very specific and individualized discourse community of people who learn and play the fantasy role playing game Dungeons and Dragons. This game is a worldwide phenomenon, with players spanning the entire globe, so intern, the discourse community is very unique in being so widespread. I personally play with a select few members from my family, as well as close family friends, adding myself to a sub-discourse community. The foundation for Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, is storytelling. Your characters step into a realm unlike your own and create their story, one dice roll at a time. There are many values that remain upheld in this discourse community. The rules are expected to be followed at all times, and although it doesn't...

Words: 310 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Safety at Work

...Micro-Ethnography discourse communities exist worldwide from communities who represent single mothers, to employees working within the workforce, to those who commute to work every day where they may be involved in either leadership or support roles, to those who participate in sports, or those who simply participate in extracurricular activities such as a church group or simply groups of people whom share the same goals, language, interests, or practices, or religion. Social discourse communities encompass any group of 2 or more members which share a common set of goals or duties or simply share a similar group dynamic. Within Gee’s “What Is Literacy?” Gee identifies the broad definition of a discourse. Gee writes, A socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking and acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or “social network. (1) Most can easily identify with many separate discourses as a result from their raising such as in “Speaking in Tongues” or as a result of their education and adaptability to their environments as in “First They Changed My Name”. Human’s ability to adapt uses our “Get in where you fit in” mind set. Acting as one’s camouflage allows us as humans to avoid sticking out and instead encourages our abilities to blend in with the crowd and not be treated differently or singled out from the majority. While working within a very upstanding company, I was recently promoted to Environmental...

Words: 1720 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Sample Discourse Community Analysis: The Pyramid Of Sound

...To maintain order in a community, one must adapt to the way of life in that community. In this sample discourse community analysis, the author speaks about joining the band community, and what kind of things he/she had to adapt to, and learn in order to successfully be part of said community. The author begins to build his/her credibility by effectively using the following strategies: diction, point of view, and tone. With the use of these devices, the author is able to appeal to their classmates on a more personal rather than professional level. In this essay, the author talks about having to learn about “the pyramid of sound,” which he/she states is very important in the band community. When describing the importance of this skill, the...

Words: 368 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Business Dilemma

...template of how the instructor wanted the paper to be written. This would have word count, the format, and what the paper should be about. All throughout school we learned the fundamentals of writing starting with letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, to structures of writing like essays and poems. The thing that is learned from writing is technical. As my English education grows the technical side is less focused on while the content is the most important thing. Content is the writing that I am doing now. The content portion of writing is not learned but influenced by others. My writing becomes influenced through examples like essays. In this English class, I believe that that’s how these three previous essays worked out. The Scholarly Discourse Unit paper was a paper that had us synthesize how we thought the writers Gee, Swales, and Porter connected to each other. I used transferability to apply the knowledge that I got from each of the three sources and created an argument that I could synthesize with each other. This paper gave me the opportunity to express my ideas but what I had to write about was more about the three sources rather than using those three sources too support my ideas. Writing may be learned at first but...

Words: 1003 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Landmen Research Paper

...are three certifications that AAPL offer: registered, registered professional, and certified profession. Registered landmen (RL) are at the starting level of their career, this qualification exemplifies a fundamental knowledge of the land industry as well as an employee’s will to extend their education. The second level of certification is a Registered Professional Landman (RPL). This is the mid-level designation offered by AAPL and distinguishes a landman as knowledgeable, experienced, and professional. Members of this group are generally perceived as very accountable people and influence others to have higher standards of participation in their profession. They act upon out-groups within the same industry such as organizations in law, engineering, geology, and banking companies to efficiently initiate and complete...

Words: 501 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Pyswar

...Case Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town Abstract In this paper it is suggested that the themes of alienation and engagement offer a productive alternative perspective for characterising the student experience of learning in higher education, compared to current dominant perspectives such as that offered by approaches to learning and related concepts. A conceptual and historical background of the concept of alienation is presented, followed by an overview of some contemporary perspectives. Drawing on this literature, a framework is then developed for characterising student learning. It comprises three categories, referring to the alienation resulting from 1. entering the higher education community, 2. fitting into the higher education community, and 3. staying in the higher education community. Each category has an associated set of theoretical tools that can be drawn upon in analysing this aspect of the student experience. Keywords: alienation, engagement, student learning, tertiary education, approaches to learning Address for correspondence: Dr J Case, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa Email: jcase@chemeng.uct.ac.za Phone: +27 21 650 2751 Fax: +27 21 650 5501 Alienation and engagement: Development of an alternative theoretical framework for understanding student learning Jennifer Case Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town ...

Words: 6385 - Pages: 26

Premium Essay

Technology and Isolation

...TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL ISOLATION It is too hard to imagine a world without the Internet. It has revolutionized the way our culture treats almost everything from watching television to socializing. It has affected the globe economy & has been a boon for corporations & independent entrepreneurs alike. Technology and human life can't be differentiated; society has a staggering reliance on innovation. We utilize innovation, rely on upon engineering in our everyday life and our needs and requests continue climbing. The age old tenet has been overlooked since our reliance on engineering, "with incredible force comes extraordinary obligation" (Stan Lee "Stunning Spiderman"). We have disregarded the cautioning signs, the mental wellbeing issue that have raised their terrible heads as a consequence of our reliance. The contention for innovation is the increment of criminal arraignment in light of social networking; long range interpersonal communication makes new social associations. Understudies are improving in school, better personal satisfaction, online networking as a wellspring of work, yet the negatives are difficult to simply clear under a carpet. Understudies who are investing a lot of time on online networking destinations have lower scholastic evaluations, social networking is the reason for less eye to eye correspondence, social average locales in charge of the ascent in tormenting that has gone digital and the suicides from that new manifestation...

Words: 1894 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Critically Examine the Eap Debate

...to university students. This is an important issue as there is widespread debate as to what constitutes effective EAP instruction within the academic sphere. The conflicting perspectives are that a critical approach to pedagogy, with its challenge of current ‘implicit and explicit standards’ (Cherryholmes: 1988) is most effective. Other academics argue the case of a vulgar pragmatic approach that relies on structure and ‘the notions of theory and practice’ (Williams: 1983). There is also support for a hybrid approach to EAP learning, known as critical pragmatism. This method encourages the characteristic critical pedagogical challenge of the status quo, while still requiring ideas to be translated and conveyed by means of structured ‘discourse practices’ (Cherryholmes: 1988). Finally, upon examining the aforementioned approaches to EAP by review of scholarly literature, I intend to argue affirmatively that vulgar-pragmatic based pedagogy is the best and most effective method of teaching EAP to university students. The concept of critical pedagogical learning relies on the principle that ‘the classroom needs to be continually interrogated for the ideologies it fosters and reproduces’ (McLaren: 2011). This means that ‘criticalists’ (those who support a critical approach) prefer a system of education that challenges students to think beyond what is taught and form their own opinions; to broaden their thoughts and to construct their own voice (Palmer, Emmon: 2004). Burbules and...

Words: 2060 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Peer Tutoring and the Conversation of Mankind.Doc

...87 .,~. Peer Tutoring and the "Conversation of Mankind" by Kenneth A. Bruffee The beginnings of peer tutoring lie in practice, not in theory. A decade or so ago, faculty and administrators in a few institutions around the country became aware that, increasingly, students entering college had difficulty doing as well in academic studies as their abilities suggested they should be able to do. Some of these students were in many ways poorly prepared academically. Many more of them, however, had on paper excellent secondary preparation. The common denominator among the poorly prepared and the apparently well prepared seemed to be that, for cultural reasons we may not yet fully under­ stand, all these students had difficulty adapting to the traditional or "normal" conventions of the college classroom. One symptom of the difficulty was that many of these students refuSed .help when it was offered. Mainly, colleges offered ancillary programs staffed by professionals. Students avoided them in droves. Many solutions to this problem were suggested and tried, from mandated programs to sink-or-swim. One idea that seemed at the time among the most exotic and unlikely (that is, in the jargon of the Sixties, among the most "radical") turned out to work rather well. Some of us had guessed that students were refusing the help we were providing because it seemed to them merely an extension of the work, the expectations, and above all the social structure of traditional classroom learning. And...

Words: 5727 - Pages: 23

Premium Essay

Institutional Diversity Statement

...person, and as a scholar. As a person who has lived her life at the intersection of being a woman and a person of color, I am committed to having an impact on academia that benefits all people, specifically those who are situated at the intersection of socially constructed factors. As a result, I have crafted my program of research to understand the complexities of identity and how those complexities present themselves within, and are related to, academic pursuits. I believe my program of research, coupled with my desire to improve academia for all people, will contribute to the National Center for Institutional Diversity’s scholarly agenda of demography, democracy, and discourse. This contribution is represented in my proposed research statement, which focuses on exposing the experiences of engineering students of both genders and various racial and ethnic backgrounds....

Words: 452 - Pages: 2