Information About Discourse Conventions
Discourse
- Verbal expression in speech or writing.
- General agreement on or acceptance of certain practices or attitudes: By convention, north is at the top of most maps.
- A practice or procedure widely observed in a group, especially to facilitate social interaction; a custom: the convention of shaking hands.
Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
Have you noticed how different groups of people use the same language (English) differently, and these differences go beyond matters of word pronunciation and rate of speech? These differences are diffences among the standard practices of language "adopted" by each group. For the purposes of ENG 145.13, standard practices of language use are called discourse conventions, and discourse conventions can be used to define discourse communities.
- The term discourse conventions denotes both speech conventions and writing conventions; however, we will use the term to predominantly refer to writing conventions because of the context of ENG145.13.
In the context of discourse communities, our students' interest in discourse conventions might best be focused on two activities:
- Discovering how a particular discourse community uses written language; that is to say, discover the conventional practices of written language in that community
- Integrating the conventional practices of a particular discourse community into their (the students') own writing
Discovering all of the conventional practices of written language for a given discourse community is a HUGE task. Thankfully, ENG 145.13 does not concern itself with such an exhaustive undertaking. Our goal will be more modest---we merely wish to significantly improve our (and our students') knowledge and ability to use the discourse conventions of a specific discourse community.
More on Discovering Discourse Conventions.