A few weeks ago, an article titled "The Concept of
Discourse Community" by John Swales was assigned as our reading assignment.
The article provided six defining characteristics for identifying a group of
individuals as a discourse community which the Purdue LOL club has:
1. A discourse community has broadly agreed set of common
public goals.
The goal of the Purdue LOL club is to meet and interact with
other Purdue students who share an interest and passion in playing LOL and to
meet up with these people to play the game together.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of
intercommunication among its members.
The Purdue LOL club has its own page on Facebook called
"Purdue Boilermakers League of Legends" and is their "base" where members
can communicate.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms
primarily to provide information and feedback.
Members receive information about meeting times, upcoming
tournaments and anything that is relevant or related to the LOL game on their
Facebook page.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possess one or
more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aim.
The club mainly uses their Facebook page but also send text
messages and print posters about their club.
5. In addition to owning genre, a discourse community has
acquired some specific lexis.
These include: LOL, pot, gg, buff, tank, AP and other which
are used by members.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members
with a suitable degree of relevant content and expertise.
All members are required to have a certain degree of knowledge
regarding LOL before they are allowed to join.
As the Purdue LOL club satisfies all 6 requirements stated
by Swales, they can be officially classified as a discourse community.
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