In Ann Johns, “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity”, she defines discourse communities as a group that has an agreed set of common goals, shares mechanisms of intercommunications, uses multiple genres, uses the communication mechanisms to give information, has specific lexis, has different level members. She explains that these qualities are what define a discourse community. Johns explains that discourse communities can be all throughout our life whether it is professional, political, religious, social, recreational, or academic and they vary within each. As Johns references the figure of “Levels of Community”, she demonstrates that discourse communities can be a multitude of different things. For example, one discourse community that she mentions in the figure is that of Academics. Below academics, there are subcategories and even below that, there are subcategories. No matter what discourse community that you may be a part of these categories and subcategories help you to find the best fitting discourse community for you. Between the broad and specific discourse communities, each discourse community will have its own set of goals and practices, but no matter what community you are apart of the purpose of the group is so that like-minded individuals may come together and share ideas or interests.
FASTrack Learning Community
University of Mississippi
Alpha Delta Pi
College of Liberal Arts
Biology major