Writing Resources

This site describes the six defining characteristics of John Swale's concept of a discourse community, which is defined as "a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field."

This superb set of slides (shared here with author permission) explains what a discourse community is, including the six defining characteristics of the concept (as defined by Swales) and gives examples to clarify how discourse communities are structured. The authors provide simply stated explanations of elements of discourse community concepts and the importance of discourse community."