The term discourse community has a very vague definition. In fact very few people actually have a complete thorough understanding of the term- most just have a general understanding. This was very comforting to read, because this whole time I’ve felt as if I wasn’t fully grasping the concept, when really I’ve been grasping as much as has been necessary. It is not imperative that I have a perfect definition of discourse community so long as I have a general understanding. However, I did gain a deeper understanding of the term through the six characteristics and the difference between discourse community and speech community. This was a very good clarification for Swales to make. The speech community is more centered around linguistics whereas the discourse community is more centered around rhetoric. In the first, the focus is the communicative needs, and in the second the focus is facilitating communication and…