Academic Discourse

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

Discourse Communities

Jargon: Professional Terminology

Any group of people who share a specialized ways of expressing and communicating information about topics of interest, is known as a discourse community.

As a student, your first task is to learn the terms used in your major and miner well enough to begin communicating well within your new communities.
Professionals share terms they use to describe and discuss concepts that most people do not need in everyday speech. For example, a pediatrician may talk to her young patient about the boo-boo on his knee, explain how to care for the cut or scrape to his mom, and chart her treatment of the patient's hematoma. If she confuses the three discourse communities she is likely to cause some raised eyebrows, or even to be accused of unprofessionalism. Happily, most people manage such communications in a way that is largely subconscious.
Every specialty and profession has its own jargon, and that is not developed in order to be obscure. The academic community is international in scope. It is for this reason that all Ph.Ds must know two languages. In order for intelligent, highly trained specialists to grow knowledge of truly international scope and import, specialists must at least agree on what is meant by the terms in their field. The professions many of you are about to enter are natural extensions of that community, employing terms that are to a large extent developed by those research specialists.
Things get more complicated when discussions must cross communities. Imagine, for example, a speech given by President McNairy to the entire university community. It is comprised of a number of widely different, and entirely important, constituencies. The needs, interests, and education of the students, for example, are quite different from that of the housekeeping staff or the professors. To be successful, the speech would need to be developed with that in mind.

Continued << < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 > >>