Alec Inanoglu

999831788

2/28/17

The Wildlife Biology Discourse Community

Introduction

The term discourse community was first coined by Martin Nystrad (1982) in his piece

titled What Writers Know: The Language, Process, and Structure of Written Discourse and later

expanded upon by John Swales (1990) in his piece titled The Concept of Discourse Community.

The concept of discourse community within this paper will refer to the ideas presented by John

Swales. As mentioned in Borg (2003), Swales refers to discourse communities as groups that

have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals (p. 398) (Borg, 2003, p.

398). The research within this article will be testing to see if the group, wildlife biologists, meet

the six criteria proposed by Swales (1990) that are in his words necessaryfor identifying a

group of individuals as a discourse community (Swales, 1990). These criteria require a

discourse community to: 1). Have a general goal or goals in mind shared by all members of the

community (Swales, 1990) 2). Have a direct means of discussion and interaction amongst

members of the group (Swales 1990) 3). Have a direct exchange of information and knowledge

relevant to the community (Swales 1990) 4). Features certain genres to which discourse can be

presented and shown to other members (Swales 1990) 5). Have a set of language and vocabulary

used specifically amongst members of the community (Swales 1990) 6). Have a variety of
members specifically in the ratios of novices to experts. A parameter is now setup when

discussing the identity of a discourse community.

Research done in this paper includes an interview with a member of the wildlife biologist

group, in depth analysis of two genres used by members of this group, as well as analysis of

articles published by organizations that are relevant to the group. The goal of this research paper

is to determine whether or not the group known as wildlife biologists fits the role of a discourse

community. Using data gathered from interviewing a member of the group as well as writing

analysis of genres used by the group for discourse, it is safe to say that wildlife biologists meet

most if not all criteria proposed by Swales (1990) and thus can be labeled as a discourse

community.

Methods

Data was collected using multiple different sources and types of media. A rating system

has been incorporated when discussing each member of the group to determine their status and

social ranking within the community. The rankings include novice, intermediate, and expert. The

ratings where created to establish generic value to the combination of how long a member has

been within the field as well as their background knowledge of wildlife biology. An example of a

novice would be a high school student or college freshman that has little background knowledge

and experience in the field. An example of an intermediate would be an upperclassman taking

that has taken prerequisite courses and has begun developing study experience within the field.

An example of an expert would be a graduate student or published researcher.

 The first study occurred within an interview of a member of the wildlife biology field.

The interviewee, Emir Gokce, is a fourth-year undergraduate in the Wildlife, Fish, and

Conservation Biology major and has had a basic background in studying wildlife biology.

(personal communication, February 17, 2017) As a classification within the group, Emir would

be labeled as an intermediate level member of the wildlife biologist group. The interview was

conducted online using a messaging system. The questions were created to reveal if the

interviewee could provide any information that would fulfil the criteria Swales provides for a

discourse community as mentioned previously. No context was given to the interviewee as far as

what the objective of the interview was.

The next study focused on an analysis of a science article written by Caro et al. (2014),

which discussed the function to the coloration of the black and white stripes present in zebras.

Tim Caro and colleagues would be classified as experts within the group, due to their vast

background in the field as well as their tenure as researchers and or professors. The analysis of

the article includes looking for keywords present throughout the article and then comparing it to

another article written by Lehman et al., (2017) discussing characteristics of successful puma kill

sites of elk in South Dakota. Chadwick P. Lehman and colleagues would also have the expert

classification for the same reasons mention for Tim Caro and colleagues. Both articles were

written in the standard format each containing an introduction, methods, results, and

analysis/discussion. A total of fifty words were picked from the Caro et al. (2014) article. The

words chosen were picked based of a predetermined set of criteria. These criteria suggested that

the words have an innate scientific meaning, were terms that could be relevant to more than just

this article, and were not names. After selecting all 50 words they were then searched within the

Lehman et al. (2017) article. If a word was found in both articles it was counted. Differences in
tense were counted as well as differences in parts of speech as long as the words root word and

meaning were the same. For example, if in one article the word reproduction was picked, the

word reproduce would count if present in the second article. The words were picked before the

selection of the second article to avoid a bias in selection of words. The first article (Caro et al.

2014) was chosen due to one of the authors being a professor of the at the same university as the

previous member of the wildlife biology group (E. Gokce) and was thought to be able to share in

some similarities of opinion involving the group. The second article (Lehman et al., 2017) was

chosen at random to ensure that an unbiased comparison could be conducted as well as providing

some data from a source outside the state of California. A general analysis of both articles was

also conducted. In this case the tone and structure were analyzed and compared amongst each

other.

The final study within this research paper involves the analysis of a World Wildlife Fund

(WWF) non-scholarly publication. The publication is a report titled Marine Protected Areas:

Smart Investments in Ocean Health, written by Emilie Reuchlin-Hugenholtz and Emily

McKenzie (2015). The article discusses the value of marine protected areas and the benefits they

provide to both fisheries and the global ecosystem. The article also includes case studies. The

analysis of the article involves taking information provided by the previous studies to test

whether this subcategory (wildlife organization) of group is included within the possible

discourse community of wildlife biology. The same word selection occurred in this study

including the set of criteria used, but instead the words were gathered from the WWF article.

Thirty words were chosen this time. There were three different pieces of data being collected:

words present in all three sources, words present in Caro et al. (2014) only, and words present in
Lehman et al. (2017) only. The same general analysis occurred with this article where both the

tone and structure of the article was compared to the previous two articles.

Results

Interview:

Analysis of the interview with E. Gokce shows a few examples of possibly criteria of

discourse community being fulfilled. Of the six criteria proposed by Swales (1990) four were

either fully or partially fulfilled based of Gokces responses to the questioning. The four criteria

fulfilled by the interview were numbers one, two, three and four.

Scholarly-Article Comparison:

Analysis of the articles showed that there was a greater amount of similar words used

over unique words used between both articles. Of the fifty words chosen thirty-one were present

in both articles, meaning nineteen were unique to Caro et al. (2014). Of the thirty-one shared

words, fourteen of the words were used multiple times in both articles and seventeen words were

used multiple times in one of the articles and a single time in the other. The tone of Caro et al.

(2014) was formal and followed a similar format to many other science scholarly articles. The

same is said for Lehman et al. (2017).

Non-Scholarly Article Comparison to Scholarly-Article Comparison:

 Analysis of all three articles yielded a mixture of results. Of the thirty total selected

words eighteen words were shared by at least one of the scholarly articles and the WWF article.

Of the eighteen words shared by at least one, twelve of the words were shared by all three

articles. Of the six remaining shared words, three were shared only by Caro et al. (2014) and the

WWF article and three were shared only with the Lehman et al. (2017) article and the WWF

article. This being said twelve of the words selected from the WWF article were not shared by

either of the scholarly articles. The general analysis showed an semi-formal tone with a unique

structure when compared to the two scholarly articles.

Discussion

Looking at the data presented from the Gokce interview, it seems as though wildlife

biologists have a general goal in mind that is shared amongst members of the group, have a

direct means of discussion between members, feature certain genres to which discourse can be

presented to other members, and have a exchange of information with members of the group

(Swales 1990). The first criteria, having a collective goal or goals within the group, was

answered when Gokce was asked What characteristics or type of people would you use to

describe the members of the major? Gokces responses Its a mixture of hunters and hippies,

but both are unified in a sense of loving the outdoors and wanting to study the animal world

(personal communication, February 17, 2017). Gokce was then asked if he believed that this was

a goal of the major as a whole, to which he responded in an affirmative manner (personal

communication, February 17, 2017) and providing evidence to suggest a common goal amongst

the community. Gokce mentions, Most students and professors within the major, just want to
learn about wildlife and how life connects with itself (personal communication, Febuary 17,

2017). The next two criteria, having a direct means of discussion with other members of the

group and having a direct exchange of information and knowledge within the group, were

fulfilled when Gokce was asked Do you have direct means of communication with other

members of you major (both peers and professors) and if so what are they? (personal

communication, February 17, 2017). Gokce response fulfilling the criteria was;

Yes I have constant communication with members of the major. Im in contact

with professors of the major during lecture and while out of lecture I use email to

discuss with them. As far as with peers, I generally use text messaging to keep in

contact (E. Gokce, personal communication, February 17, 2017).

This directly fulfils the discussion criteria, while indirectly suggesting an exchange of knowledge

through the student professor relationship. This criterion is further reiterated when looking at the

comparison of scholarly articles in the next section of the results. The last criterion fulfilled in

this interview is, having certain genre within the group used to present discourse. It is fulfilled

when Gokce is asked, What are the typical genres or types of writing used by you or your peers

or your superiors? (personal communication, February 17, 2017). His response was generally

research articles and essays as the main source of genre used to express discourse within the

group. (E. Gokce, personal communication, February 17, 2017) This fulfills the fourth criteria.

The language analysis of both the scholarly articles and the non-scholarly suggests that

Swales fifth criterion (Having a set of language and vocabulary used specifically of members in

the group [Swales (1990)]) is being fulfilled. By comparing common words and phrases shared

by each of the articles one can construct a list of language, which is used amongst members of

the group Wild Life Biology. Both studies (Scholarly and Non-scholarly analysis) were done to
widen the scope of language similarities amongst members of the group and show that there are

in fact language similarities in multiple types of genres.

The final criterion (six) can be found when looking at the types of members seen in the

three studies. Although the category of novice was not mentioned within this article it is

understood that these members of the community exist and are naturally growing in category as

they continue in their studies. This suggests that members are constantly joining the community

in hopes of replacing those that retire from it.

Conclusion:

Looking at the data provided by all three studies, there seems to be a general agreement

amongst all of the results, suggesting that the six criteria mentioned by Swales (1990) have been

fulfilled. This allows the conclusion that wildlife biologists are in fact a discourse community to

be made.

References

1). Borg, E. (2003). ELT Journal. Key Concepts in ELT: Discourse Community, 57(4), 398-400.

Retrieved from

http://sullivanfiles.net/WID/assignments/discourse_field/borg_discourse_community.pdf

2). Caro, T., Izzo, A., Reiner, R., Stankowich, T., & Walker, H. (2014).

The Function of Zebra Stripes Retrieved From

http://wfcb.ucdavis.edu/files/8214/1278/2606/The_function_of_zebra_stripes.pdf
3). Lehman, C., Christopher, R., Millspaugh, J., Rumble, M. (2017). BioOne. Characteristics of

successful puma kill sites of elk in the Black Hills, South Dakota, Retrieved from

http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.2981/wlb.00248

4). McKenzie, E., Reuchlin-Hugenholtz, E. (2015). World Wildlife Fund. Marine Protected

Areas: Smart Investments in Ocean Areas, Retrieved from

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/publications/?247781/Marine-

Protected-Areas-Smart-Investments-in-Ocean-Health

5). Nystard, M. (1982). What Writers Know: The Language, Process, and Structure of Written

Discourse.

6). Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Ed.), The

Concept of Discourse Community, 215-228. Retrieved from Canvas