Discourse communities and peripheral participation in academic writing

Some notions of discourse communities and peripheral participation

According to Johns and Swales (1990) a discourse community is “composed of a minimum number of expert members and a frequently larger number of apprentice members and who operate on the basis of implicit and explicit public goals.” They also add that “their members develop and use systems of speech and writing that are sometimes quite specific to a particular community´s needs and goals” (as cited in Pintos and Crimi, p.12).
It is important to mention that when referring to a discourse community the peripheral participation should be considered a relevant element of it. As Flowerdew (2000) once stated, the sort of knowledge that is required in order to be accepted by the discourse community in scholarly writing is not usually acquired in the formal setting of a classroom. What is more, new members generally hold a peripheral position because they “are not central but on the margins of the activity in question” (as cited in Pintos and Crimi, p. 14).
When considering this perspective, discourse communities and peripheral participation are highly interconnected. This is because the fact that any member who wants to belong to a specific discourse community has not only to know about the specific language practices, needs and goals that community has, but also to take part in those practices responding, reflecting and participating in order to know what the target audience wants to read.
Whenever a student takes up a course of studies, one seems to hold a peripheral position and thus impeding being a member of a specific discourse community. As time goes by one tries to get involved in those practices, sharing values, implicit and explicit goals, giving up the informal writing styles we bring with us and thus becoming in active members of a discourse community.



References
Pintos, V., Crimi, Y. (2010) Unit 2 Personal narratives in teaching, Retrieved September 2010, from
http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=7214