The concept of discourse community is discussed constantly among scholars who try to define it. While Swales talks about discourse communities that share knowledge if rules of the conduct and interpretation of speech, and defines it according six specific characteristic, Gee introduces a much broader term which is Discourse (with capital D). To Gee what's important is not language but saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations, language is just another part of the Discourse. Gee introduces the term Discourse as an identity...
When I was a kid, I had never thought about the idea of playing a sport outside of what I did in school during Physical Education hours. I had never heard about field hockey either. Anyway, when I was ten years old, my older sister started playing field hockey in a club near our house and I decided to go too. I loved it from the first moment I hold a stick in my hands. First I learned how to hold the stick, then how to move the ball and push it in the direction I wanted it to go. I learned dribbling, passing and shooting on goal. I also learn to play defense and to be part of a team. And all of the sudden I was part of it, I was part of a team, and I also was part of a new discourse community. Gee would describe it as a Secondary Discourse since my club was one of the non-home-based social institutions with which I interacted.
Along with learning how to play, I learned new words, new definitions, new uses for words that I already knew. I also learned values and acquire a new way of thinking. I started to think for the team and not just for myself.
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