Exploring Discourse Communities Within the Nursing Field
Everytime a person hears “discourse community” they think it’s a difficult concept to explain or process, but in reality every single one of us belong to one. According to John Swales (1990), a discourse community is a group of people that are involved in and communicate in order to accomplish the same goals, ideas and issues. This linguistic analyst also states that a discourse community has 6 characteristics that make up a community which means there can be many different groups that fall in just one.
Everyday we go through certain situations that require text and language in order to communicate. I am a student who is majoring in nursing but one specific community that I am mostly interested in is the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital nursing care. This organization has countless of goals such as curing, treating patients and do further research on pediatric cancer and diseases. Many doctors and nurses come together in order to treat a patient who is critically ill. First of all, as a registered nurse you have to be able to help a patients health, help manage illnesses and also be the patients support and to the families as well. These nurses are big help when a patient is going through chemotherapy or after the treatment. Also when a patient is very ill depending on their illness there has to be surgeons, doctors and nurses in order to help a patient get better. This group has to share the same goal and vision in order to accomplish that. These nurses go through countless of situations every single day, while they become more skilled, the role they play in the discourse community becomes more crucial. The nurses have to learn how to specifically treat cancer patients who are kids which can make it more challenging and difficult.
Discourse communities take place anywhere and they play a role in the way we communicate, the way we share our thoughts and they way we work. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with our professional life but it can also be our social life. A person can belong to many communities and one advantage about that is the fact that you can learn such things. A discourse community like I said, is characterized by 6 components that define such group. Swales describes these six characteristics along with his opinion on what a community is. The first characteristic Swales mentions is that the group must shared a common goal. These goals can be said in person or be written down depending on what group you belong to. The second characteristic is that their must be a way to communicate along with the other members or individuals, such as conversations, group studies or meetings. The third characteristic is that the community must use mechanisms to give out the information needed or feedback so that the members can be able to comprehend everything that is being shared. The fourth characteristic is that the community must have genres in order for the members to learn and have more expectations. The fifth one would be that the discourse community must have some sort of lexis, which can be abbreviations or words used to communicate with one another. The last but not least characteristic that Swales mentions in order to complete the community would be that the members have to be expertise and have relevant content. This means that members die, some leave but there will always be those who join the community. According to Swales’ the six characteristics must be present in the community in order to be considered one.
In the medical field we see many communities happening all at once even if they are in the same environment. For example a nurse at an emergency room can communicate different than a nurse who is just looking after patients who are suffering from cancer. They both share the same goal which is to promote the patients health but they are both totally different scenarios. Also, they can have different rules and they can vary depending on what they are asked to do. The nursing care at the St. Jude's Children’s Research Hospital provide the patients and family care need during difficult times. They also provide the excellence and hope in order to meets the patients/families needs.
This nursing care at the research hospital defines Swales’ six characteristics of a discourse community by sharing the goal for fighting cancer, and as well as striving for the best when treating or seeing a patient. A mechanism they have is that they are bringing cancer awareness and learning about the many different diseases, which means that they are continuing with their education and they’re expanding their knowledge. One of the main characteristics this community has it’s the lexis they use in order to communicate. These nurses do not have all the time in the world to be explaining word by word to the doctors, surgeons and nurse practitioners that are also treating the patient so they have to create abbreviations in order for the process to be quicker if any complication would occur. These nurses also use different types of text such as creating a patient's file to creating charts about the medication and the treatment the patient is receiving. It can be such as the body temperature, the blood pressure the pain levels.
Another type of communication these nurses use are a computer or a cellphone, at this cancer research hospital it can be really unexpected when a child goes through some complication so the nurse has to be able to call or text the doctor above her, surgeon etc. depending on what situation may be. This technology can be a very useful genre for these nurses. Depending on what career path you choose, there can be different discourse communities. The nurses play such a big role in the St. Jude’s Research Hospital because they try their best to promote a child's health and also give them hope. In my opinion being a nurse there can be such a challenge because you have to be strong minded and be aware that cancer is a deadly diseases and can affect a young individuals life tremendously. It can be a challenging environment and job but it can also be very rewarding. Nursing is a complicated and complex discourse community that many people won’t probably ever understand and that is due to the fact that every community is different.
Discourse communities are very important to our everyday life and it does not have to necessarily belong to a work environment but it can also be with our families, friends and social groups. Every single community helps us communicate with one another and it helps us accomplish the goals desired for that specific group. In the nursing field, the discourse community helps each nurse connect to one another, understand certain language used, and shared goals. These nurses connect with each other by using computers, cellphones and also the charts they have to draw for each patient they treat or see. Ever since Swales (1990) research of a discourse community, there’s been more understanding about how each community impact our lives with either communication, using technology, being able to hold meetings and understand a concept more. It is crazy to think that in order for a community to be considered an actual one, is the fact that we live and die so for example there is new people joining the nursing programs as the years progress. For this cancer research hospital is is expected for the nursing care program to grow because of the new diseases being discovered and treated.
Not so many individuals are related or interested in discourse communities because it’s not something you hear often but as mentioned above we all belong to one. It’s either a little kids football game, a cheerleading team or even working at the emergency room as a nurse, they all share some goals, have strict rules and have different types of way to communicate but a discourse community will always be considered one as long as all the six characteristics of John Swales rules apply.
