"The Concept of Discourse Community": ...I can't think of a witty subtitle.

In “The Concept of Discourse Community”, John Swales argues six different characteristics of a discourse community:

1)”A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.”

To me, Swales is arguing that a community has a set of goals (a purpose) that is known to everyone that is in the community. To a Facebook group, these goals could be promoting an object, idea, or club (the group ANIME [promoting Japanese television cartoons] for example). To a workplace, it's the common goal to keep the business running and functioning correctly.

2)“A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.”

This seems to be that members of any particular community have a way to get a hold of each other and pass on information one way or another. It has many different forms from word of mouth to a sophisticated newsletter. Using Facebook again, it can be the messaging feature to spread information or a post on the group wall. In a work environment, it can be a list of phone numbers if you need to find someone to cover your shift.

3)”A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.”

This seems to mean that members of a community pursue different advancements in information that could be beneficial to the group, or critiques on what's already there. In a rock band, for instance: members of the band sometimes pose questions to their audience to see if they enjoy a particular style or not. The band Avenged Sevenfold, for instance, has been touring with a new drummer due to the recent loss of their former drummer and they ask the audience to tell them if they approve of him or not; to see if the new drummer keeps the spirit of what the band was before their former drummer died.

4)”A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of it's aims.”

This one is a little more difficult. I believe it's talking about how a community has different ways of meeting it's goals. In a workplace, it can be having some employees who are trained in more than one job. If service gets hectic or people don't show up to work, those who are trained in more places could go to where they are needed to keep advancing the business.

5)”In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.”

I believe this is talking about the language aspect of a group and the technical terms that it's used to make business run smoothly. In my own community of “Union Street Diner”, it can relate to how orders are called out. We have special terms meaning different things. For example: an “OM” is referring to “Over Medium” eggs, “Walkin' in” means “The next order is...”, “All Day” refers to everything a person should be working on at the time, and so on.

6)”A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expense.”

I believe Swales is talking about how membership changes over time. In a workplace, it can be when members get fired from the job. It can also refer to a senior member teaching new employees how to do their job correctly.