Discourse Community

Examining my Community

One community I belong to is the WVU English department. Through this community I have learned to read, write, and critically examine different workers from the western world through formal instruction. The language I use changes, especially about rhetoric, from the language I use with my friends. A few of my friends are psychology majors and we find ourselves studying and reviewing the same topics. We talked about androgyny the other day and they studied it scientifically while I examined it in 19th and 20th century British literature. And we both ended up engaging in the old "Nature vs. Nurture" debate in our final paper we submitted to our teachers.

The only way to be part of a discourse comment is if there is at least one other type of discourse community. Otherwise everyone would the same.

To be part of the WVU English department, focusing on editing, I need to know if what the writer means is what the writer has writing, if its the best way to have written it, and if it will reach the target audience. This means it is more appropriate to talk about the writers style, than the writers feelings about his writing.

How does the social perspective apply to my work as a professional writer?

1) The m0st important suggestion for a professional writer in the social perspective, using the suggestion proposed by Faigley, is how to make the meaning of the writers text match the meaning the social community will take from it. I like to think back to Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and how Nazis used to show early versions in Nazi Germany to bring anti-Jewish feelings to the community. The writer can inspire action within the community, such as Karl Marx, but the community can bring in their own interpretation, like how the USSR did. The audience is in more control of what is and is not approprate than the writer.