A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. Linguist John Swales defined discourse communities as “groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals.” (Wikipedia)
A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of basic values and beliefs, known as discourses. Each discourse community has its own set of written or unwritten rules and uses them to pursue a common goal. Some discourse communities are more rigid than others, requiring an official membership while others are more casual. Most people move between and within discourse communities every day. Discourse communities refer to a group of people who have a broadly agreed set of common public goals and have mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. These communities use participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback between members. (Top Hat)
