Prompt one: In your opinion, how do the activities of the individuals discussed in last night’s reading match Swales’s benchmarks for a discourse community?
From last nights reading I felt that Plessy v. Ferguson’s topics matched up with a couple of the six characteristics for Swales benchmark for a discourse community. One would be the first characteristic which is “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals”. This book is very blunt and to the point, they want to spread there knowledge on the topic they are talking about and their goals. In this book it shows they want to keep things better and succeeding. The other characteristic is “A discourse community uses its parlicipatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback”. It is about improving and going up in a certain area. This is what it is all about.
Prompt two: Based on your understanding of the reading you chose to write about in the question above, how did this discourse community spread the “knowledge” they were responsible for creating?
Plessy v. Ferguson gets their point a crossed by being straight to the point. They use a type of discourse community they use is by spending the knowledge they know. It was important that “in the segregation of the races blacks as well as whites obey a natural instinct, which, always granting that they get justice and equal advantages, they obey without the slightest ill-nature or without any sense of disgrace” (Thomas, 1997, pg. 27). There knowledge is to get their point a crossed.
Prompt three: How do you think the thinking/writing/talking (the discourse) of the special interest group you chose to write about set the foundation for American Jim Crow laws?
The Jim Crow laws was designed to keep races separate. Some people could pass as white as well as prior racial mixture already being widespread.
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