Swales and Gee

Swales & Gee

Before You Read

There are many times that I have felt out of place, but one time that I can specifically remember is when I decided to join a sports medicine club in high school.  I decided to join this club because all of my close friends were joining and I thought if they liked it, I would like it too.  Not the case.  I ended up hating it and i felt so out of place because all the my friends and all of the other members of the club loved what they were doing.

Summary

In Swales article, "The Concept of Discourse Community", he talks a lot about genre and genre analysis.  he talks about the discourse communities and how they are different from a speech community.  He tells us how the definition of discourse communities need clarification and what framing material is.

Synthesis

 Swales article closely relates to Porter and Allen's articles.  They all talk about the discourse community and different kinds of discourse communities.  They all give examples of discourse communities. 

QD 5 and 6
5.  I cant really think of a discourse communities that I am involved with now, but in high school I was involved in cheerleading and I think that should be considered a discourse community.  Our common goal would be to strive to be a better team and make sure we all know what we are doing.  We all knew how to communicate with each other and understand what everyone had to say.  Giving each other feedback was a big part of being a team.  We all knew specialized terminology for things that only we would understand.

6.  I was forced to join the the debate team in high school.  My friends all really wanted to do it together.  I was totally against it because i thought it was going to take up way too much time and I didnt want to have one more organization to worry about, but I joined and ended up loving it.

Thoughts
This article was a very long, dense article.  It took a lot out of me to get through it.  After reading it, I have a better understanding of a discourse community and all of its characteristics.  It also showed me many examples of discourse communities.

Gee

Before You Read
When I search the term "mushfake" on google, it says the definition is like "faking it".

Summary
In Gee's article, "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", he talks about the main idea of discourses and how he thinks that Discourses should be capitalized.  He talks about dominating discourse and how you are either in or out.  He also talks about how one must find their own discourse.

Synthesis
I think that Gee's article is can closely relate to pretty much the same articles that Swales article is related to.  This is because they stay on the same subject of discourses and what discourses are.  His article is reltated to Porter's, Allen's, and Swales.

Response	Quotation
I liked this quote because it made me think about myself and my own personal discourse communities.	“Finally, and yet more importantly, we can always ask about how much tension or conflict is present between any two of a person’s Discourses.” (485)
I like this quote because it shows that you need to have discourse literacy.	“I believe that a socially useful definition of ‘literacy’ must be couched in terms of the notion of Discourse.” (486)
This the first line of the article, and I like it because it sets up the article so you know what you’re going to be reading right from the beginning.	“What I propose in the following papers, in the main, is a way of talking about literacy and linguistics.” (482)
This makes me think of many discourses that don’t involve reading or writing and how they work.	“Not all Discourses involve writing or reading, though many do.” (488)
This quote stuck out to me because he is made really understand filtering and how secondary discourses are filtered into primary discourses.	“ “Filtering” is a process whereby aspects of the language, attitude, values, and other elements of certain types of secondary Discourses are filtered into primary Discourse.” (492)

 
Meta Moment
I could use the knowledge i gained from reading Gee in many Discourse communities because now I have a better understanding of them and their different aspects.

Thoughts
This article was also very long and dense. To be honest I think I liked Swales better than I liked this one.  Both are very similar, but very different at the same time.  If I had to choose though, I would choose Swales over Gee's.