Reflections on the concept of discourse community

Abstract

Cet article présente une réflexion sur le concept de communauté de discours, dont, en tant que chercheur, je me préoccupe de manière épisodique depuis trente ans. Il retrace tout d’abord le point de départ de mon intérêt personnel pour cette notion, en rappelant les résultats d’une étude qui portait sur des communautés au sein d’un petit bâtiment universitaire. Il explore ensuite la façon dont ce concept a été repris par ceux qui enseignent les techniques d’écriture universitaire dans le supérieur aux États-Unis. Trois types de communauté de discours sont ensuite proposés : les communautés locales, focales et « folocales », ces dernières présentant des caractéristiques communes aux deux premières. Les universitaires particulièrement actifs appartiennent typiquement aux communautés « folocales » car ils s’efforcent de maintenir un équilibre entre les exigences qui émanent du contexte local (enseignement, tâches administratives) et celles qui sont liées à la production savante intensive (communications, publications). Dans la seconde partie de l’article, les critères dans Genre Analysis (1990) sont amendés, étoffés et mis à jour, puis sont suivis de remarques conclusives.

Improving Requirement Boilerplates Using Sequential Pattern Mining

“…the minimal number for the pattern to be considered "recurring" (as noted by Sinclair and TogniniBonelli, quoted in [19])). Given that both subcorpora are rather small, we were forced to perform the extractions on lemmas 7 , not on word forms -therefore this is not a strict corpus-driven approach, according to Biber [19].…”

“…For example, thanks to this replacement, the sentences "The system must provide ORAMIC with all the data…" and "The system must provide GAZMIC with all the data…" would be considered the same pattern. 7 SDMC relies on the results of TreeTagger [20] for lemmatization.…”

“…To achieve this, we propose a methodology for creating CNLs for technical writing that takes into account (1) existing CNL rules and principles -as they may be viewed as the state of the art in the field -and (2) actual samples of writing used by the members of the discourse community [7] (in our case, requirements written in unconstrained natural language for past projects) that will serve as a basis for a corpus analysis [8]. This methodology combines a corpus-based and a corpus-driven approach [9][10]: in the former case, our linguistic hypotheses (based in particular on recurring prescriptions found in other CNLs) are tested on the corpus, whereas in the latter case, linguistic regularities themselves emerge from the corpus.…”

Textos autênticos, adaptados e semi-autênticos no ensino de alemão como língua estrangeira: reflexões sob a perspectiva da pedagogia pós-método e da aprendizagem como participação

“…Assim, a pesquisa visa problematizar as diferenças entre textos autênticos, adaptados e semi-autênticos presentes em livros didáticos internacionais de alemão como língua estrangeira, e refletir sobre alguns possíveis efeitos decorrentes do uso de cada um desses materiais para as perspectivas citadas. Tomando por base os parâmetros da Pedagogia Pós-Método elaborados por Kumaravadivelu (2006) e o conceito de aprendizagem como participação baseado em Lave & Wenger (1991), somado ao conceito de comunidade discursiva de Swales (1990), foram realizadas análises comparativas entre textos autênticos e adaptados dos gêneros textuais entrevista e notícia de jornal, observando que elementos foram mantidos ou omitidos na adaptação, e como eles poderiam contribuir ou dificultar a realização de um ensino crítico e a participação periférica legítima do aprendiz nas comunidades discursivas da língua-alvo.…”

“…Hence, this work expects to problematize the differences between authentic, adapted and semi-authentic texts included in international textbooks of German as a foreign language, and speculate on some possible effects resulting from the use of each of these materials for the mentioned perspectives. Based on the parameters of the post-method pedagogy elaborated by Kumaravadivelu (2006) and the concept of learning as changing participation by Lave & Wenger (1991), combined with the concept of discourse community from Swales (1990), comparative analyses between authentic and adapted texts from the genres "interview" and "newspaper article" were carried out, noticing which elements of the authentic text were retained or omitted in the adaptation, and how they could support or hinder the realization of a critical teaching and learners' legitimate peripheral participation in discourse communities of the target language. The analyses results reveal that adapted texts usually convey a positive message about the country and culture of the target language, related mostly to professional success, and the same does not occur in authentic texts, which bring more realistic and diversified points of view of the culture of the target language.…”