Discourse Communities Annotated Bibliography

Discourse Communities Annotated Bibliography

 

Faigley, Lester. “Non-Academic Writing: The Social Perspective.” Professional Writing and Rhetoric. Ed. Tim Peeples. 47-58.

This article explores discourse communities from a social perspective, discussing the best possible research methods, and different types of discourse communities.

Gunawardena, Charlotte N. “A theoretical framework for building online communities of practice with social networking tool.” Educational Media International 46.1 (2009): 3-16. Web. 23 Apr. 2003.

While this article proposes a theoretical model for building online communities, it draws heavily on research from online communities of practice and theories of learning. The author also includes personal experience with the Web 2.0 tool, and indicates that a learning community moves through a spiraling process of discourse, action, reflection, and reorganization toward socially mediated “enlightenment.”

Holmes, Richard. “Genre analysis, and the social sciences: An investigation of the structure of research article discussion sections in three disciplines.” English For Specific Purposes16.4 (1997): 321-337. Web. 23 Apr. 2010

This is a specific study of discourse communities from the disciplines of political science, history, and sociology. While all of these disciplines are related, the study shows that there are marked differences between each subject. According to the abstract, “It is suggested that this distinctiveness is sufficient to justify the idea of a social science subgenre of the Research Article genre and that data of this kind are needed if academic reading and writing materials are to be developed that are sensitive to the structural features of academic texts.”

Johnson, Christopher M. “A survey of research on online communities of practice.” The Internet and Higher Education 4.1 (2001): 45-60. Web. 23 Apr. 2010

In “A Survey of Current Research of Online Communities of Practice,” Johnson indicates the different research methods employed to indicate differences between interpersonal and online communities. He cites specific other studies which are pertinent to discourse community research, including research done by Ricketts, Borthick and Jones, and among others. These studies seek to answer if online discourse communities are more or less effective and why.

Ritter, Kelly. “E-Valuating Learning: Rate My Professors and Public Rhetorics of Pedagogy” Rhetoric Review 27.3 (2008). 23 Apr. 2010 <http://www.informaworld.com/<wbr></wbr>10.1080/07350190802126177>

This source examines the online discourse community of RateMyProfessor.com., and how a cultural phenomenon reveals the recent connection between consumer culture and academic culture.  We though this would be an interesting article to include because it is so relevant to many of our discussions in class about the power of technology to transform pedagogy and writing as a social activity.  Through the web, students communicate and exchange ideas with each other regarding the classes they take and professors then have the opportunity to view criticisms–a process that exemplifies how technology influences the student discourse community.