I also attached my syllabus below.

Reflective Response #1 asks you to respond to four items:

1. Provide your working definition of your academic discipline (not your program of study or your future profession)
2. Explain why you chose to specialize in that discipline at George Mason University and what you might gain from learning about its discourse community
3. Describe what you expected to learn in ENGH 302 (ADVANCED COMPOSITION)
4. Compare your expectations to the learning objectives of ENGH 302, especially its role in the Students as Scholars program (OSCAR) at Mason

TASKS for PART FOUR:

1. READ The “Discourse Community: The Production of Knowledge in a Discipline”

The discourse community of an academic discipline is a powerful thing:

• It organizes knowledge
• It shapes research conventions
• It credentials professionals and scholars
• It affects the institutional life of colleges and universities (as well as the university presses that publish research)

But the discourse community of a discipline does not restrict the knowledge its scholars can produce. New questions are always emerging in any discipline, and it is often through writing that scholars and professionals in the field try to answer those questions. Think of Darwin in the 19thC and the questions his research generated among biologists and even religious scholars. Those questions generated lots of ink and heated words, and people are still debating the theory of evolution today. Disciplines and their discourse communities are powerful, but they can’t always answer the thorny questions that arise. Answering those questions, however, is what drives the production of knowledge in any discipline.

Attempts to answer those questions are easiest to locate in the writing and research done by scholars and professionals in the discipline, and that writing usually conforms to conventions common to the field. People affiliated with a discipline tend to write in similar ways:

• write in the same genres
• use similar research methods
• employ the same documentation style
• comply with a similar code of ethics when doing their research and writing

For example, scientists write scientific research reports, and social scientists (such as academics in business) write observation and analytical reports, both of which rely on empirical data and thus contain a fair amount of quantitative analysis. You can almost always distinguish a researched business report from a literary analysis just by looking at it. The writing genres are that different.

2. READ “What Is a Discourse Community?”

A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. According to “The Concept of Discourse Community” (see this and a related article below) by educator and researcher John Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. This is pretty easy to explain because it’s easy to conceptualize. A group of teachers has goals—to teach students and help them move forward in life. A group of cheerleaders has goals—to entertain spectators and encourage them to support the team for which they cheer. A group of pilots has goals—to fly planes safely from one place to the next and get passengers safely from one destination to the next. A group of vacationers has common goals—to get away from everyday responsibilities, to have fun, experience new things, and/or to relax.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among their members. Again, this is pretty easy to define because the concept of “intercommunication” is something we do. We talk on the phone (phone being the mechanism of intercommunication), we text, we write blogs or papers, we send and reply to emails for everyone in a community, we have meetings and gatherings—in short, every form of communication that facilitates the “inter” part of intercommunication fits the bill here.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. Most of the things that are listed in “mechanisms” above are also part of this aspect of a discourse community. For example, a blog is often used for feedback, as is email, meetings, etc. Other writings, like a newsletter or FAQs webpage, would also be used for information.
4. A discourse community utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. “Genre” is the word that might cause confusion here, but it simply refers to a text—any text. Thus, it is possible that the genre of a discourse community might be chalk drawings on a sidewalk or graffiti. More commonly, though, discourse communities, like the ones you’ll be researching, possess and employ more traditional genres in the communication of their aims—websites, magazine articles, journal articles, blogs, etc.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. This simply refers to the jargon specific and often unique to a community but also required by the members of that community for intercommunication. Artists, for example, have a specific lexis used to explain tools, techniques, and mediums. Cyclists have a specific lexis that refers to riding techniques, bicycle parts, and equipment. Biologists have a different lexis from Marine Biologists, but each community has its own lexis.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. In a discourse community, members often come into the community as novices and “leave by death or other less involuntary ways” (Swales 27). I’m not sure of Swales limited methods for leaving a community, but it is true that they change and evolve. It is also true that a community takes in beginners; thus, there has to be a ratio of beginners to experts for the community to exist and continue. When there are no longer enough experts to inform novices or not enough novices to carry on, the community will cease to exist What that ratio is depends on the community—though functionality is reduced, a community like our class can exist with two members; a football team, on the other hand, can’t survive with fewer than eleven members.

With these characteristics in mind, it is obvious that all major fields of study offered on this campus are discourse communities. Our class also forms a discourse community. The people at your place of employment, your circle of friends, your family, and many other groups to which you belong constitute a discourse community.

3. READ “Discourse Communities in Brief” ( I attached in the drop box below)

4. COMPLETE your first Reflective Response

Do you need a similar assignment done for you from scratch? We have qualified writers to help you. We assure you an A+ quality paper that is free from plagiarism. Order now for an Amazing Discount!
Use Discount Code "Newclient" for a 15% Discount!

NB: We do not resell papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.