Assignment 15: Missed it by...that much

To be so close together, and yet so far apart at the same time, Gee and Swales seems do be able to do it all the time. I bet if these two writers had teamed up they would have been one of the great duos. They could’ve have been like Batman and Robin, the Wonder Twins, or Rocky and Bullwinkle. Alas they didn’t really see eye to eye so let’s just scratch that idea out of our minds right now. Swales was really pushing for a huge of community of discourses that one could float between and help out which ever community one would see fit at the time. There wasn’t really any conflict in Swales’ theory of discourse communities. This is where Gee says no. He finds that the only reality is that only the perfect people for the communities can join in. Those who aren’t good enough either has to “mushfake” their ways in, or keep on looking for a lower standard group. But to Gee, there is no way a happy community could exist.

            Johns goes on to talk about what some of the expected things are in the academic discourse communities. She brings in this idea that perhaps those who are new to the groups and not fully aware of the rules could actually take leadership over the community for that fact alone. People look to other people who are willing to risk things for the better results, even if that means breaking some of the discourse community rules. The newer recruits may not know all of the old rules, but they’re going off of the rules they know. Rules change, so it could very well be that 2 members separated by some years were brought up with different interpretations of that certain discourse community. And while people are used to the old ideas, the new ones may just look shiny enough that people will want to try them out and see what happens. I think this bit of thinking is an example of what it would look like. This idea that things don’t have to stay the same looks pretty good compared to Gee and Swales. They’re too busy being convinced they’re right to look at other ideas for the discourse communities. That’s a good way to kill your community. The world is ever changing, adapt or get out. This even applies to the literary world too.