Discursive communities are groups of people who use a common language or discourse, such as scientists or fans of a celebrity. They can be analyzed by linguists and anthropologists to understand how language reflects the structure of a community. Idiomatic words like “jargon” or “geek speak” describe the language used within these communities. “Inside baseball” is an idiom used to describe language used by insiders in a particular industry or field.
A discursive community is generally defined as a community of people who use a particular type of language or discourse. Many different examples of discursive communities illustrate how versatile this term is. It can describe a group of people who have common interests or a group of highly qualified scientists or technicians. Any group of people who use a common language can be described as a discursive community.
The idea of the community of discourse provides something of an intersection between linguistics and anthropology or related social sciences. In academic programs, instructors may assign students tasks related to analyzing these communities, both to research actual discourse for linguistics and to analyze how language reflects the structure of a community. Students often begin by identifying the community that uses a type of speech, then move on to understanding what that common language means and why it is used.
Certain idiomatic words help define the type of common language used in a discursive community. Words like “slang” or “jargon” accurately describe sets of words used within one of these common communities. Other more specific idiomatic terms, such as “techno-babble” or “geek speak,” provide examples of how people informally analyze a discursive community that revolves around information technology.
Another example of a community that uses discourse is a set of readers of a particular scientific or academic journal. Some other types of words can be used to describe people involved in these professional or intellectual communities. In some cases, examples of these words in English are borrowed from other languages such as Italian or Latin, for example: cognoscenti or literati.
Where discursive communities are less formal, it may be more difficult to define the common language that distinguishes them as a cohesive unit. A common example is a set of fans of a certain celebrity, be it an athlete, musician or actor. Outsiders can often identify some of this common language as related to “inside knowledge” or uncommon familiarity with details of the celebrity’s life, family, or immediate environment.
English speakers have even coined words for cases where some kind of inside knowledge is shared between people. For example, when those involved in a certain industry or field use specific types of language based on an elite understanding of that field, it is often referred to by others as “inside baseball.” This idiom basically means that speakers are communicating with each other from a specific insider perspective that may not be shared by outsiders.
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