Post 11

Through the six defining characteristics of a discourse community that Swale provides, I evaluated my sorority, Tau Beta Sigma. The first of the six defining characteristics according to Swale, is that a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. A set of common public goals that my sorority follows, is to help better the community through volunteer work and to better Ohio University’s bands, such as the Marching 110 and various concert bands. The second defining characteristic is that a discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. The ways we communicate in the sorority are through chapter meetings. In the chapter meetings the Executive Board members and the President mostly talk about current or future service work that we could partake in and fundraising opportunities. The third characteristic is that a discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. We do this through having yearly dues to belong to our sorority, as well as having prospective members receive bids to join. The fourth characteristic utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. Tau Beta Sigma does this by having agendas at each chapter meeting to discuss current and future ideas, problems, and solutions to keep the meetings on track. The fifth defining characteristic is a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis, which we have achieved this through having a secret language and signs to acknowledge your membership in Tau Beta Sigma. Finally the sixth defining characteristic is that a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. To join Tau Beta Sigma, one must first receive a bid to join the sorority and then once the perspective member accepts the bid they have to complete three degrees to officially become an active member of Tau Beta Sigma. I believe that my sorority meets all of the six requirements that Swale has stated to be a discourse community.