Blog #4 - Discourse Communities

John Swales provides six aspects that are essential to determining whether or not a group of people is a discourse community. They are:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. An example of this would be the utilization of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. 
3. A discourse community has its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.This is where members of a discourse community fully participate in voluntary actions to gain further knowledge. Swales emphasizes that neglecting the voluntary actions would mean that the member is not part of the discourse community. 
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. This pertains to the implemented standards of the discourse community for its members. 
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis (dictionary definition: the vocabulary of a language, as distinct from its grammar; the total stock of words and idiomatic combinations of them in a language). An example of this would be slang. 
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. This depicts that every discourse community needs an acceptable number of experienced and inexperienced members. Swales states that "survival of the community depends on a reasonable ratio between novices and experts."

Based off of these six characteristics of a discourse community, I believe that a discourse community is an organization, institution, or club that is unique and is separate from all other groups, while possessing all six traits of a discourse community. 

A very simple discourse community is right in front us: San Diego State University. 

San Diego State's common public goal is to further educate, enlighten, and prepare its students for the real world upon graduation. Its means of communication among its members is through a variety of methods, which include social media, newsletters through email, newspapers, bulletin boards, and of course, face-to-face interaction. San Diego State has its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide knowledge and feedback. This is simply denoted by attendance. San Diego State also has certain and strict standards for its members. For professors, they are expected to adequately teach the material to their students while maintaining protocol. Students, on the other hand, must maintain a certain GPA to be able to stay declared in their respective majors and must also abide to the campus laws and rules. The school does indeed have its own lexis. Such examples include: Leadership starts here, Aztec for life, and the Aztec fight song. Finally, San Diego State contains a reasonable level of relevant and discoursal expertise. You have the school's alumni, the faculty, and the students. 

Blog #3 - Memes

The word "meme" in the modern day is often correlated with concise and short messages pasted on pictures to create humor for its audiences. These memes currently play a significant role in our culture, because the "American" way of living is typically very simplistic and therefore we prefer to do things quickly. Memes fit in perfectly because the reading difficulty is minimal and is accompanied with a picture to create the message much more easily.

Back in high school (and still today), my friends and I loved memes and would share memes with each other on a daily basis for express humor. Taking a study break for a final in my second year of college, I decided to create a meme, using a screenshot from a popular childhood TV show "Tom and Jerry."

One will notice how easy it is to connect with this meme, as it is an experience that every student and former student has encountered at one point in their lives. The popularity of "Tom and Jerry" also makes the meme much easier to become emotionally connected to.


Prior to being introduced to this assignment, I've always believed that memes were solely used for comedy that allows peers connect with one another based on the similar interests that memes project. However, I have learned that memes do not always come in the form of humor. At times, memes are also used for propaganda or subliminal messages to aid recruitment. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear in "Memes and Affinities" describe memes as "contagious patterns of cultural information that are passed from mind to mind and that directly shape and generate key actions and mindsets of a social group." In other words, memes can be used to market (advertising). This has been a concept that the government and media have been using since the early-mid 1900's, and most likely even earlier. To exemplify, let's analyze this United States Marine Corps recruitment poster for World War II on the right.

It was at the time of war, and the United States needed soldiers. To solve this issue, the officials needed a way to attract its citizens to enlist in the armed forces. Right away, you can assert that the marine has a cheerful expression, implying that the Marine Corps is a happy organization to be a part of. The way that the marine holds out his hand is also making the recruitment poster very inviting. A much more subtle and subconscious characteristic of this poster is how the colors reinforce a patriotic mindset. Notice how the words are red and blue, and are accompanied by white clouds in the background. The blend of these colors thus create a psychological effect on its audiences to further persuade them into joining the armed forces.

In my opinion, memes have the potential to be much more effective advertisement tools than the standard 30-second commercial seen on TV. As explained before, this is because of how much quicker a message can be delivered through a meme than a video clip. A very small amount of words can also have much more meaning, because words are very subtle, yet powerful tools.

Blog #2 - Genre Awareness

I believe that Devitt's version of genre pertains to the goals of pieces of writing, and in order to reach those goals, the writer must write in a particular style or voice. For instance, a salesman or saleswoman's goal is to find a way to persuade a consumer into buying a product. Although literal writing wouldn't necessarily take place, the salesman or saleswoman is required to behave and act in a certain manner that will attract and retain the consumer's interest, so that the consumer's probability of purchasing the product is maximized. One type of writing genre that is most commonly used in academics is rhetoric writing, or persuasion. To write persuasively, one should aim to utilize the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos (credibility, emotion, and logic). Something as simple as writing a Christmas card to a family member or friend is also a writing genre. The goal is to wish the recipient a merry Christmas, as well as to check up on their well-being. The writing genre for Christmas cards requires cheerful diction and preferably presentable handwriting. As I have explained before, it is evident that every piece of writing or action has a goal. To achieve the goal, a certain way of writing must also take place accordingly.

Devitt states that the "genre awareness I argue for is a type of rhetorical awareness" (337). This statement makes me believe that she is pertaining to the awareness of when a person is attempting to persuade the reader. By retaining this skill, one can avoid being manipulated by another individual's diction.

Devitt's claim that "when writers take up a genre, they take up that genre's ideology" means that writing in a particular genre would require the writer to adapt and embrace the genre's advantages and burdens. An example that Devitt gives is that "using five-paragraph themes or analysis papers reinforces apparent objectivity and distance from the subject and Western logic, and it minimizes personal engagement with the subject, emotional appeals, and an understanding of subjects having complexity that's irreducible to parts" (339).

When Devitt stated how genres are associated with existing power structures and dynamics, she means that different styles of writing have their own ways of power and/or force. In other words, every genre of writing is unique in their own way in terms of strength, whether it be persuasion, inducing emotional feelings, etc. I think that Devitt believes that genres have so much power because words are powerful. If words are manipulated properly, words will be able to manipulate people's minds, as well.

There is a goal and method of reaching the goal in every piece of writing. For instance, the goal of writing a research paper is to surface new concepts and ideas to support or contradict another idea. This goal is reached by extensive study and a substantial amount of evidence to further support the new concepts. The goal of a lab report is to report what series of events have occurred as results from various actions. The goal of a lab report is achieved through a number of experiments and observation.

Blog #1

Hello, everyone! My name is Eric Ma, and this is my second semester at San Diego State. I am in my junior year in college, majoring in Marketing. I chose to major in Marketing because I think it can be an exciting career path, and it is a great match for my personality (love to work in teams, extremely detail-oriented).

I transferred to SDSU from Las Positas College in Livermore (Bay Area). I applied to nine colleges to transfer: Cal Poly Pomona and SLO, SDSU, Fullerton State, Monterey Bay State, Long Beach State, San Jose State, and Sonoma State. Cal Poly SLO was my number one choice by a landslide, however I got rejected. Having being accepted to every other college I have applied to, I eventually had a very difficult decision between SDSU, San Jose State, and Long Beach State. I chose to accept SDSU for its superior reputation, opportunity, amazing weather, and the change in scenery.

Once in a while, I enjoy a nice vacation to some foreign countries with my family. This past summer, my family and several family friends went on a Mediterranean cruise (Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Sadly I cannot post every single picture I've taken on the vacation, so I carefully selected three of my favorite pictures from my favorite destination: Italy. If I was to be asked what were my favorite things about Italy, It'd be the history, culture, weather, and most of all (and by far), the food. In my opinion, one does not experience true Italian food until he or she visits Italy. I've also traveled  to Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, France, China, and Japan. If I had to choose, I would definitely say that Japan was my favorite vacation getaway. In Japan, I got to experience the mineral bath, with steaming hot water provided by geysers. The people in Japan were also amazingly kind, as they would bow to visitors and customers and do everything in their power to make sure that the visitor is comfortable and satisfied. I am also obsessed with sushi and Japanese cuisine; this makes it even easier to make Japan my favorite vacation spot.

I love football (go Baltimore Ravens). I don't think my life would be complete without it. I own two Ravens jerseys: Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis. If anyone is wondering, I am rooting for the Broncos this Super Bowl because I want Peyton Manning to retire with one more ring on his finger.

Back home, I have seven pets: one dog (German Shepherd), two cats (both tabbies), and four chickens. Yes, four chickens. Although dirty, chickens make amazing pets because they provide endless fun when you raise them as baby chicks, and start giving free eggs approximately six months later. If you do end up owning chickens, give them corn and they will go ballistic. My dog's name is Trip. I decided to name him Trip because one of the main characters from the movie "Glory" was fearless and loved to fight. Conveniently enough, my dog does not mingle well with other dogs and will never submit once challenged. Despite this, he is one of the most loyal companions a man could ask for.

I only have one sibling, who graduated from UC Irvine with a Bachelor's in astrophysics last year. He is now working as a software engineer for a startup financial firm in Irvine. As for myself, I am hoping to become employed in the marketing field with a good livable wage upon graduation (at the very least). I would love to become employed in the Bay Area, so I could be as close to my family as possible for both convenience and emergency purposes.

Thank you very much for reading. I am looking forward to a great semester with all of you!