What am I doing in Discourse?

In James Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics,” he heavily describes the concept of “discourse communities.” He describes discourses as “identity kits” which comes with instructions on how to talk, act, write, etc. He argues that we can study discourse much like languages and that we can lose and acquire discourses over the course of our lives.

When asked “how does one acquire a discourse?” Gee responds with it is very similar to acquiring a second language. By being part of a culture, one develops a discourse. While everyone has a primary discourse, Gee argues that we can all acquire many secondary discourses, and they affect one another. For example, your household and close community make up a discourse. However, your church, school, place of employment, and the town a couple miles down the road each have their own discourse, which you are a part of as well. By engaging in the discourse’s culture, you gain that discourse as one of your secondary discourses.

This isn’t to say that discourses interact equally with one another and that there isn’t conflict between discourses. There is a tension present between discourses and this can lead to conflict. Gee brings up the argument of women in academia feeling conflict between ceratin feminist discourses and certain standard academic discourses. Often, dominant discourses apply constant “tests” of fluency in their discourse to those who are not members. This shows their power and can distinguish who is part of the discourse and who is not. This can be used to embrace new members, or to exclude “non-natives” in the discourse.

Finally, Gee argues that primary and secondary discourses can be studied in ways very similar to languages. Discourses can interfere with one another like languages do, aspects can be transferred from one discourse to another, and grammatical features from one discourse can be observed in other discourses. It is from here that Gee defines literacy as “the mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse.” Much like becoming literate in another language, one must master a discourse and become fluent to be literate.