'Discourse community' is a term used in linguistics to describe the users of a particular style of language, such as an academic journal or an email list for Madonna fans (see online discourse environment). Each discourse community has its own unwritten rules about what can be said and how it can be said. Most people move within and between different discourse communities every day. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Style may refer to genre, design, format, or appearance, including: Clothing: fashion Flower part: flower Music: music genre Sundial part: Gnomon Titles or honorifics: Style (manner of address) including Chinese courtesy names Web design: Cascading Style Sheets Writing: style guide and literary genre Linguistics: Variation in language use of an... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, etc. ... Online discourse environments are online spaces where people interact with one another by some means of discourse. ...

The language used by discourse communities can be described as a register or diatype, and members generally join a discourse community through training or personal persuasion. This is in contrast to the speech community or the native discourse community, to use Pat Bizzell's term, who speak a language or dialect that is inherited by birth or adoption. Historically, a register was a sign or chalkboard onto which people would write cash transactions for later bookkeeping, often with chalk. ... Diatype is a term first used by the linguist Michael Gregory to describe a type of language variation which is determined by its social purpose. ... Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ...

The term was first used by sociolinguist Martin Nystrand in 1982^[1], and further developed by American linguist John Swales^[2]. Writing about the acquisition of academic writing styles of those who are learning English as an additional language, Swales presents six defining characteristics of a discourse community: Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ... John Swales is a linguist known known for his work on genre analysis in applied linguistics and ESL. He is a Professor of Linguistics and former Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan. ... English as an additional language is used to refer to the learning of English by speakers of other languages. ...

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. A discourse community in addition to owning genres, it has acquired some specific lexicon.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

"Producing text within a discourse community," according to Pat Bizzell, "cannot take place unless the writer can define her goals in terms of the community's interpretive conventions." In other words, one cannot simply produce any text--it must fit the standards of the discourse community to which it is appealing. If one wants to become a member of a certain discourse community, it requires more than learning the lingo. It requires understanding concepts and expectations set up within that community. A lexicon is a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ...

References

1. ⇧ Nystrand, M. (1982) What Writers Know: The Language, Process, and Structure of Written Discourse. New York: Academic

2. ⇧ Swales, J. M. (1990) Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.