..."If I enter my neighborhood bar and say to my tattooed drinking buddy, as I sit down, 'May I have a match please?' my grammar is perfect, but what I have said is wrong nonetheless. It is less often remarked that a person could be able to use a language perfectly and still not make sense" (Gee, 1989, p.5).

What does Gee mean here? How could

using language perfectly in this situation

not work? Was there a time like

this when your language

didn't match the situation?

Opening Scenario from James Paul Gee

Discourse Community, so far...

• Speech vs. Discourse com.
• Public goals
• Participatory mechanisms for communication
• Genres of communication
• Conventions and rules
• Acquires a lexis
• Threshold level of members; hierarchy, expertise
• Socialization; literacies; levels of discourse

Tremain & Gee's discussions bring...

• Forming and participating in the group - My Identity
• Memes & textual genres of the group; communication genres; group's branding
• Language and literacy: how a group socializes
• Trans-languaging
• Code-meshing
• Performing membership

- Their form/medium of writing...

- Their form/medium of communication...

- Serves the rhetorical needs of the group...

- Responds to the situations of the writer...

- Genres are action-oriented, they accomplish tasks...

- Genres have formulas (repeated similarities) but can be adapted by the discourse community...

- Rules of Genre are decided by the discourse community...

- Genres can be more CONTEXT-centered than always CONTENT-centered. In other words, the HOW things get done rather than WHAT gets done...

How do Discourse Communities use Genres?

Tremain discusses how Internet Memes are a type of "textual genre" that can express language of a culture or a particular group. Thinking about your discourse community, how can you apply Tremain's conversation about memes and relate it to the language, behavior, attitudes of your group. Spend some time searching for a couple of memes connected to your group by doing a Google Image search. Or, how might you create a meme that shows aspects of your discourse community (e.g. goals, lexis, behaviors, levels of members, communication?) In other words, what qualities or features of your group would need to be obvious in a visual you create?

"Red" Activity

We are concentrating on how we can "write with sources" this week using our readings on discourse community: Swales, Melzer, Gee, Tremain - Spend some time selecting a critical quote from at least TWO authors that you may want to use for your upcoming essay on discourse community. How might you take the quotes and apply it to YOU? (e.g. Tremain talks about... "quotes" This connects to my discourse community because...)

• Show an example of how your selected quotes could be applied via a social media post, website, artifact, news story, or example you might write about.

"Green" Activity

Both the Gee and Tremain articles talk a lot about the use of language, identity, and behavior that a group uses to demonstrate Discourse. Using the discourse community you are using for your topic proposal, write about an experience (tell a story) that you've recently had or in the past that demonstrates having to "switch" the way you talk from one situation to the next. In other words, you may speak one way in class to your professors but then with your group how do things change? Write about the lexis and communication style (specialized language) that makes the group unique.

"Purple" Activity

Some topics that are important for a researcher are: the ways a person gains membership within the community; how participation works in the group; or what is the focus of the writing and research on this discourse community. What do I have to add to the conversation? Using your background, experiences, knowledge or even something you've accomplished, explore the question: What can I add to my discourse Community? Using Tremain, how does she help you think about answering these questions about discourse community? Look back through your notes or the reading to consider this question.

"Orange" Activity

-What was your color-coded slide prompt? Discuss in groups what you started working on in these slides.

- What feedback did you get from the Topic Proposal?

• Post your comment and submit the Color-Coded Activity for today before we focus on A.I. Forum.

Share with your Classmates