Discourse Community Analysis: Students at a University
complete the workflow document before 2022/10/19 24:00. Then Send me The draft before 23, 24:00. The Final essay will due at 2022/10/27. The information is in the document.
Discourse Community Analysis
Draft Due: October 24th – Reader Response Workshop on October 25th
Final Copy Due: October 27th (originally proposed) but October 29th 11:59pm (amended deadline)
Discourse Community Options:
You may select one of the following discourse communities (or a subsection of these communities) for your discussion:
1. Medical Practitioners
2. Politicians
3. Baristas
4. Gamers
5. Teachers
6. Grocery Store Workers
7. Students at University
8. Professors at University
9. Factory workers
10. You may also write about a discourse community of your choice, but you will need to clear it with me in order to ensure that your choice will work well for the assignment. Topic choice is very important for this assignment since you will extend this analysis as you complete the next assignment.
Assignment Description:
The parameters of this paper are more complicated than the first one because there are more components that you must consider. We have discussed discourse communities extensively so far, and we’ve discussed the smaller subcommunities that exist. This paper gives you a chance to discuss one of those communities and how people demonstrate authority within this discourse community (in other words, how someone might become integrated in that community). Your analysis will be between 750 and 1000 words (think 3-4 pages, double-spaced). You do not need external sources for this assignment, but you may venture into some light research or examples (images, memes, etc.) that can help you develop or present your idea. If you do select this route, please ensure that you cite everything, using APA style.
Basically, this paper needs to do two jobs:
1. On the more general level, it needs to provide a definition of what it means to have authority within a discourse community.
2. Moving to a specific level, it needs to analyze your chosen discourse community and apply the general principles that you identified to this specific example.
Think of it this way: you start out by describing how people become authorities within a discourse community. You then use a specific discourse community as a sample to demonstrate how this definition works in a real-life situation. For both sections, be sure to draw on whatever course readings or course concepts seem applicable!
Thinking about the following questions might help you organize your definition and discussion:
1. How do people become integrated in their discourse communities?
2. What steps/experiences/lengths of time do people require to achieve authority within a discourse community?
3. How do people communicate in your chosen discourse community? How do new people adjust to these communications?
4. What are the specific steps that people encounter to enter your discourse community?
5. What resources may be available to facilitate the way people communicate in a discourse community? How do people learn?
6. What discourse communities have you belonged to, and how did you know when you’d become an “insider”?
The goal is not to answer all of these prompts; the goal is to find a clear thread and tell your story on your terms.
Rationale for the assignment:
This assignment sets the stage for the next assignment where you will analyze genre within this discourse community. Analyzing how people may become authorities and integrate within discourse communities will allow you to understand the various means through which you may become fluid when you join your own disciplines. You will become more aware of the strategies and approaches necessary to join and participate in the various communities that you are a part of, making the process to becoming fluid and integrated more overt and natural. Everyone struggles in new environments, but, if we know what we can do to mitigate this, we can communicate more confidently and promptly in our initial experiences. Knowing this process will be particularly useful.
What makes it good?
1.) Offering a clear, concise, and accurate definitions. 2.) Using those definitions to present a detailed analysis of a specific discourse community.
Some tips:
• Do not begin with a definition of authority within a discourse community. First, set up your paper and establish the reader’s focus with a strong introduction
• Spend a paragraph or two establishing your definition and criteria for becoming an authority within a discourse community.
• Use this definition to scaffold you into your discussion of your specific discourse community.
• Your discourse community should be the focus of the paper. It should be front and center in the introduction, then you might move away from it to set up the definition, but after that you will return to it and focus on it. Any examples you draw upon should focus on this community or subcommunity
• Avoid making things too big. In 1,000 words, you cannot explain everything about your discourse community. That means you must focus the discussion—you need to make sure your definition is specific, and you need to choose just a few key examples to focus your discussion.
• Anticipate counterpoints and engage directly with your reader. Think about how your reader might understand what you’re writing.
• Integrate and analyze your examples precisely and concisely.
I will be evaluating you on:
1. The way you focus your argument right from the start and sustain that focus to the end
2. The precision and comprehensiveness of your definition.
3. Your ability to analyze your discourse community in relation to that definition.
4. The way you integrate your examples
5. Your analysis of those examples
6. The quality of your paragraph structures
7. A bit of grammar, formatting, and syntax
Other Important Notes
• Please follow APA format (generally) to set up a title page, running header, and font choices for your writing. If you decide to integrate a bit of outside material (be it from the textbook or elsewhere) to support your point, ensure that you cite it using APA.
• Note that research is not a mandatory component of the assignment, but some of you may have a great example that you’d like to include from elsewhere.
Discourse Community Analysis
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Discourse Community Analysis
To join the university, students become integrated at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). The school admits students from different parts of the world who aim to gain knowledge. Once the students get admitted into UTM, they become community members. The senior students assist the first-year students in integrating into the community. They show them around and help them settle down. Once members are oriented, they get the opportunity to learn how the community works. New members usually understand the community by interacting with the senior students. Here, new members understand the community's values and how to benefit.
Once in the UTM student community, any student can raise to gain authority. However, being in a position of authority usually takes about two years. According to Wardle (2004), new individuals in a system, like recent employees, lack authority and hence have problems communicating. The same happens to first-year students who want to rise to positions of authority. They may experience resistance from the other learners at the beginning. Most of the students with authority tend to be third-years and above. There are two significant ways of gaining authority in UTM. Firstly, students who demonstrate academic prowess are elevated to a higher level. Such learners tend to develop innovations that the university can use to market itself to the outside world. Such learners attend major conferences where they represent the university on various issues. The second is becoming a student leader. Getting into student politics is an effective way of gaining power at UTM. Student leaders are respected because they advocate for the students. The university regards the opinion of student leaders and often consults them on important issues. However, there are often divisions, especially in the political space. Since UTM encompasses learners from different parts of the world, ideological differences exist among the leaders. It is common to have factions among students is common (Johns, 1997). The existence of such conflicts tends to weaken the power of the students. As a result, when a section organizes a mass action, it is common for another group to refuse to join such a cause. Such factions are welcome because they bring divergent views to the community, which helps the members appreciate the contribution of every member.
The students discuss educational and current issues. The mode of communication is through digital technologies. In the classroom, communication with the instructors is formal. The learners use formal platforms like Blackboard to communicate with the lecturers. Outside the classroom, communication is mainly formal. The community communicates through social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram groups. According to Gee (1989), individuals collaborate to have things...