Post 11

John Swales created a list of six general characteristics to help define a group of individuals as a discourse community. I will describe each of these six characteristics and relate them to a discourse community I am involved in, my fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon.

1. A discourse community has a broad set of common public goals.

- Tekes live by the motto "Men of Love, Charity and Esteem." Therefore, our set of common public goals is to pursue these three characteristics in and out of our Fraternal life in everyday situations.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

-Tekes have a hidden language. There is a way we communicate that is private to our organization alone. We also communicate through weekly meetings and projects, and through technology such as text messaging and our Facebook group.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

-Tekes share information and provide feedback in every meeting that is held. There is also discussions held on our Facebook page and the TKE homepage through nationals.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.

-Tekes aim to communicate both in our organization and outside our organization when looking for members to pledge. We hold ourselves to high standards so that we are presented to others as proper gentlemen, I see this as non-verbal communication.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis or terminology.

-There is numerous terminology that only members of TKE know. Some may think of these terms to be secrets, but realistically it is our history. Some terms that we use are common of the English language, but hold different meaning in our context.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise.

-TKE is the biggest Fraternity in the nation. Each member is required to know a certain amount of content regarding our history, our present, and our future as The Fraternity.