Military Discourse Community Analysis
Throughout American history, our military has been made up of very diverse people. From rich to poor, strong to weak, with all sorts of race and religions, we see this organization that fights and wins wars. They hold the frontlines, protecting this country, and can arguably be seen as the muscle of the United States. The people in the military are also seen as heroes, murderers and many things, but with politics and opinions set aside, I want to take this time to analyze the military with a literary viewpoint. I plan to break down the logistics of military communication, and show how they form a discourse community.
According to Bizzel, a discourse community “is a group of people who share certain language using practices.” To put it in simple …show more content…
“A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members”. John Swales, in “The Concept of a Discourse Community”, explains that these groups of people must have communication within to qualify as a community. People who communicate in the same genre with the same type of goal may have no connections to each other, so how could they be considered as part of the same community if there is no collaboration of spread of information? When it comes to the military, there are several mechanisms of intercommunication. Orders usually start from atop the chain of command and work their way down to the privates. These commands are passed down by email, paper, telecommunication, verbally and in some cases hand signals may be used to give commands. Radio has also been a vital form of intercommunication in the past that greatly impacted the “common goal” mentioned …show more content…
Another definition on the subject, given by literary expert Patricia Bizzel, is that a discourse community is a “group of people who share certain language- using practices.” (Bizzel, 1992.1) She then goes on to describe the styles in which these communities can fit, but regardless of whose definition or list of requirements are used to compare, it should now be clear that the military has formed a discourse community. They meet every characteristic needed, and contain the necessary uses of lexis and
According to Bizzel, a discourse community “is a group of people who share certain language using practices.” To put it in simple …show more content…
“A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members”. John Swales, in “The Concept of a Discourse Community”, explains that these groups of people must have communication within to qualify as a community. People who communicate in the same genre with the same type of goal may have no connections to each other, so how could they be considered as part of the same community if there is no collaboration of spread of information? When it comes to the military, there are several mechanisms of intercommunication. Orders usually start from atop the chain of command and work their way down to the privates. These commands are passed down by email, paper, telecommunication, verbally and in some cases hand signals may be used to give commands. Radio has also been a vital form of intercommunication in the past that greatly impacted the “common goal” mentioned …show more content…
Another definition on the subject, given by literary expert Patricia Bizzel, is that a discourse community is a “group of people who share certain language- using practices.” (Bizzel, 1992.1) She then goes on to describe the styles in which these communities can fit, but regardless of whose definition or list of requirements are used to compare, it should now be clear that the military has formed a discourse community. They meet every characteristic needed, and contain the necessary uses of lexis and