Discourse Communities

August 21 was my first ENC 1102 class. I enjoyed my first class very much and I found my professor to be very interesting. All college students know that the first class is usually a class that's pointless because the professor just goes over the syllabus and students zone out. Surprisingly, I learned a lot during this class. The topic that interested me the most was "discourse communities". This was a term I had never had never heard of before. According to an unknown site “a discourse community is a group of communicators with a common goal or interest that adopts certain preferred ways of participating in public discussion.” In simpler terms a discourse community is a way a group of people, doctors, teachers, musicians, etc., communicate with each other. To me it’s when a group of friends have “inside jokes” that other people don’t understand or have to learn to understand. Another example  that came to mind during class is how my Trinidadian family communicates with each other. For example , when my mom asks someone “you put on weight?” or “you gettin’ fat?” that might seem offensive to someone of another culture but to her some people look better with more weight on and she is just making a friendly observation. There are many different types of discourse communities, and I’m learning to understand those of law, medicine, and pedagogy (teaching). I’m very excited to learn the different ways these professionals communicate through text. I truly hope that my understanding of discourse community is correct or else I’m going to be really confused while I’m reading this article. lol