What is a discourse community?
A discourse community is a group of people engaged in similar activities, usually work-based or around a specialist interest, who use language in distinct and identifiable ways.
John Swales (1990) identified a discourse community as having members who……
have a shared set of common goals
communicate internally, using one or more mechanisms and genres of communication
use specialist vocabulary and discourse primarily to provide information and feedback
have a required level of knowledge and expertise to be considered eligible to participate in the community
What are some discourse features of primary school teaching?
Overt praise and politeness strategies to ‘reward’ children’s contributions and behaviour - positive face
Simplified lexis to enable student understanding of new knowledge area.
Teachers’ unconscious hedges, discourse markers and verbal fillers eg. ‘Okay’
High proportion of interrogatives in teacher’s talk
Verbal imbalance in MLU
What is the IRF structure?
Three-part conversational exchange in which a speaker starts the conversation, a second speaker responds and the first speaker then provides some feedback to what the second speaker said.
How is the IRF structure accepted in the classroom?
This structure works through the accepted status and authority of the teacher in a classroom.
How do O’ Connor and Michaels’ believe positive support teacher feedback is achieved?
‘Revoicing’, when teachers include the student’s response in the subsequent discourse. This ‘revoicing’ draws the other students’ attention to the comment, shows its importance and encourages others to contribute.
What does Norman Fairclough investigate?
Instrumental and Influential power?
What is Fairclough’s instrumental power?
explicit and imposed by a higher authority
may be imposed by the government, legal system, places of work, management etc.
sets clear expectation that people will follow the instructions and there will be penalties if they don’t
little attempt to converge with the receiver
What is Fairclough’s influential power?
tries to make people behave in a certain way, do something in particular or change opinions and attitudes
no ‘force’ is being applied and there is no penalty for not following the guidance
often found in advertising
What is jargon?
Specialist words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand.
Explain a positive aspect of jargon.
Enables fellow professionals with shared schematic knowledge to communicate information precisely and efficiently. Highly technical language prevents misunderstanding arising from ambiguity.
What can be bad about iargon?
Jargon can be confusing to non-specialists. Jargon can sometimes be used to deliberately exclude the public and may be exploited to give the false impression of high authority.
What does exclusive language allow?
Exclusive language enables people to be part of a discourse community, giving a form of overt prestige.
What are ‘communities of practice’ according to Holmes and Stubbe?
‘groups who regularly engage with each other in the service of a joint enterprise and who share a repertoire which enables them to communicate in a kind of verbal shorthand which is often difficult for outsiders to engage with’.
What does Spolsky say about specialised jargon?
Serves not just to label new and needed concepts, but to establish bonds between members of the in-group and enforce boundaries for outsiders.
What is a quote from Spolsky?
If you cannot understand my jargon, you don’t belong to my group.’
What has happened since 1999 in courts?
Since 1999 some of the language used in civil courts has been changed to make it easier for non-specialists to understand.
What is an example of language which has been changed in courts?
This includes Latin terms such ‘subpoena’, which has been replaced by ‘witness summons’.
How does using plainer language promote equality?
Everyone has more chance of understanding what’s being said, and specialists can’t use jargon to intimidate non-specialists.
When and why was the ‘Plain English Campaign’ set up?
The ‘Plain English Campaign’ was set up in 1979 to combat the use of confusing and unnecessary jargon.
What does the ‘Plain English Campaign’ do for organisations?
It advises organisations on how they can use plainer language.
What can organisations apply for?
Organisations can apply for the Crystal Mark, which shows that the ‘Plain English Campaign’ has approved their documents.
What did Drew and Heritage identify?
Some key differences between everyday conversation and talk at work.
How did Koester summarise Drew and Heritage’s findings in ‘The Language of Work’?
Goal orientation
Turn taking restrictions
Allowable contributions
Professional lexis
Structure
Asymmetry (eg boss having more power)
