Dialectical Journal for Swales

"We need then to clarify, for procedural purposes, what is to be understood by discourse community and, perhaps in the present circumstances, it is better to offer a set of criteria sufficiently narrow that it will eliminate many of the marginal, blurred and controversial contenders."

-This quote is simply forcing us to understand what a discourse community is.  We need to recognize that the definition can be confused and this passage is trying to explain that to us.  It sets the guidelines that we need to know to choose a discourse community for project three.

"A 'strong' list of crieria will also avoid the circularity problem, because in consequence it will certainly follow that not all communities-as defined on other criteria-will be discourse communities, just as it will follow that not all discourse activity is relevant to discourse community consolidation."

-This tells us the importance of having criteria for discourse communities.  By having a list, we have something to help us determine if a group is a discourse community or not.  Also, some things within a discourse community may not fit the criteria so we must be able to decide what is and what isn't.

"A speech community is defined, then, tautologically but radically, as a community sharing knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech.  Such sharing comprises knowledge of at least one form of speech, and knowledge also of its patterns of use.  Both conditions are necessary."

-A speech community is when as a group you mutually have the same understanding of speech.