Discourse Community

Based off of my observations of the classroom setting, interview with a senior student in biomedical engineering, and research on the field, I have concluded that the biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State University is indeed a discourse community. This conclusion is heavily based off of the writings of Gee and Swales. Their discussions and descriptions of discourse and discourse communities provided me with an accurate idea on how to determine if a community is indeed a discourse community.

 

To determine whether or not the biomedical engineering field at North Carolina State University was indeed a discourse community, I relied heavily on the characteristics provided by Swales. The first of these characteristics is “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” (Swales, 1990, p. 471). One of the most compelling bits of evidence that proves that the biomedical engineering community is indeed a discourse community is that those within the field strive to create solutions to the grand challenges of engineering. Most all work within the field and all material studied pertains to one of these grand challenges, specifically the three specific to biomedical engineering. However, even more compelling is biomedical engineering’s focus on health care and biology. While there are many ways to go about improving health, the broad goal is to improve the health or lifestyle of someone.

 

The next of Swales’ characteristics that heavily influenced my decision is “In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis,” (1990, p. 473). During my observation of Dr. Feducia’s organic chemistry class, I was bombarded with terminology and jargon that, for the most part, I had no clue what was being described. However, the students and Dr. Feducia himself were all versed in the specific lexis and communicated freely. In addition to the terminology that I observed, Brinnae furthered this point when she mentioned that there was a large amount of jargon. She said there was a lot of medical terminology, and then listed devices such as EKGs, EMGs, etc. Furthermore, when explaining the research she has been conducting, she used specific terminology that was a blend of terms from many different disciplines all at once. Therefore, because the biomedical engineering community has to learn the terminologies of many different communities at once and then apply this jargon in context, the biomedical engineering field has its own lexis.

 

The last of Swales’ characteristics that I used when analyzing by observations was that “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise,” (1990, p. 473). In the classroom I observed a teacher student relationship. This shows that there are definite novices and experts within the field. This is shown again in terms of biomedical engineering research. The sponsor is knowledgeable in the field, while students, such as Brinae, learn from the sponsor and become more well versed in the discourse community as a result. The novices will eventually become the experts, and the cycle will continue.

 

I also utilized several of Gee’s concepts such as the acquisition of a discourse, his definition of literacy, apprenticeships, and membership. Acquiring a discourse is very similar to Swales’ sixth characteristic in that discourses are acquired through apprenticeship. You must interact with someone who has mastered the discourse themselves in order to gain it for yourself (Gee, 1989, p. 7). Gee defines literacy as “the mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse,” (1989, p. 9). Much like what I observed, in order for one to communicate within the field, you must know the language, such as in the classroom setting with the particular jargon constantly being presented. Apprenticeship is how one learns a new discourse. One must learn from experience, and therefore aspects of biomedical engineering, such as research, represent apprenticeship in the discourse community (Gee, 1989, p.13). Finally, the concept of membership is very similar to Swales’ sixth characteristic as well. There are different tiers of membership, with apprentices being at the bottom and those who have mastered the discourse at the top (Gee, 1989, p. 14).