Post 11

       In Gee's article he explains the importance of Discourse and what it means to be a part of a certain discourse. When I read the article I associated discourse with how it feels to join a group of friends or an organization. Gee explains what is correct grammar and linguistics might not be correct in the certain discourses. I associated discourse with join an organization or a group of friends, because every group has their own way of speaking and if you can not speak that way then you feel uncomfortable and not a part of the group. I tried to be a part of a group of friends but they would talk to each other in like a code language I did not understand, in which made me uncomfortable. And then there are people that try to play the role but really does not understand the discourse. In the article Gee states " In fact, the lack of fluency may very well mark you as a pretender to the social role instantiated in the Discourse (an outsider with pretensions to be an insider)" (487). Furthermore, Gee tries to get his readers to connect social structures and literacy with considering its constant changing.
        In Swales article he introduces the belief of six defining characteristics in order to be a part of a discourse. The six characteristics include: a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common goals, a discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the community furtherance of its aims, in addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis, and discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. After understanding Swales ideas, I can apply this to a discourse community, I am familiar with and most of the characteristics fall right in place because there are many specifics that associated with one another when you are a part of a community.Lastly it is necessary to understand the tools of a discourse and utilize its information.