Dangond 1

Ricardo J Dangond
Professor Pierson
ENC 1101
11/27/17

Genre Analysis & Application

In this paper, Ill be looking at how writing studies concepts work outside of writing

studies. The writing assignment being analyzed is from a general anthropology class. The

assignment, was to give two examples of words or phrases that [show how] language

systems influence the way people think .

Community

The community is the anthropology class. The community is a part of several Discourses.

These Discourses, include the UCF academic Discourse, anthropology Discourse, and the class

specific Discourse. Discourse here is being used as defined by James Paul Gee, as saying

(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations (Gee, 1989), not to be confused with

discourse. The UCF Academic Discourse, is a secondary Discourse you enter with acceptance to

the university. You enter both the anthropology and the class Discourses upon being in the class,

you cannot mushfake your way into them.

The communitys literacy sponsors include the professor and TA. The main literacy

sponsor is the professor. By assigning reading assignments, this writing assignment being

analyzed, and engaging in class discussions, he creates a positive learning environment that

revolves around literacy. The TA does her part as literacy sponsor by conducting polls off of our

input from written attendance questions.

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The exigencies, motives, and public shared goals of the community are simple. The main

one, is to pass the class, as its a prerequisite and many students arent interested in much else.

The rest are to learn anthropology and apply it to different majors and careers.

Literate activities for the community are taking notes, written responses on tests, and

response papers like the one being analyzed. Notes are a part of the daily routine in class, taking

notes off of what we see on the PowerPoints and what the professor discusses out loud. The

response papers are done on my own time with about a weeks time to write.

The communitys members are mostly students with one TA and one professor. There are

about 250 students in the auditorium sized class.

The community is a Discourse community. Ann M. Johns defines discourse communities

with the focus is on text and language while a community of practice are seen as complex

collections of individuals who share genres, language, value concepts, and ways of being

(Johns, 1997). In this community, the focus is on text and language more than practices.

Audience

The intended audience for this analysis is my English professor along with English

scholars. As such I write with lexes and an improved vocabulary. Yet, the actual audience is

simply my English professor as it is far too unlikely anybody will actually read my work.

Exigence

For the audience of the original assignment, the intended audience is just my professor or

TA. This is because it was written without needing citations and to topic covered in class, thus it

didnt require ethos, and wouldnt be suitable for another audience. The professors exigence in
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assigning the written response was to collect examples from over 250 students on how language

systems influence the way people think. The actual audience in this case is the same as the

intended audience, as such the exigence is the same.

My exigence was more than just getting a good grade. I intended on using the assignment

as I chance to look into the prompt, and see what words I use and how they affect my thinking of

the world around me.

Rhetorical Strategies

For the written response, there were a few rhetorical strategies I used. The first was

understanding my audience. For such, I had to figure out who was the intended audience and

who would be the intended audience. This allowed me to understand how to frame my response,

which lexis to use, and provide embodied rhetoric.

Embodied rhetoric is a key part of any rhetoric, that aims to improve the experience and

understanding of the audience (Downs,). As such I focused on providing a clean and easily

legible paper with headings, and separation of ideas with paragraphs.

Another rhetorical strategy is describing/defining. This allows those who are an

unintentional audience to understand the terms being used, while as showing credibility at the

same time.

The other pieces of rhetorical strategy were ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos, is the

credibility. Something I established as student of his, but more importantly, I highlighted it

through research and lexis. Logos, the logical, was established through my arguments, using

research and information to appeal to the logic. Pathos, the emotional. I used pathos as a way to
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appeal to my audience where research wasnt available, and my first-person perspective was

used to appeal.

The last piece of rhetorical strategy was the use of lexis.

Lexis

Lexis is the term for specific vocabulary used by a group or field of study. For my written

response, the lexes that where being discussed where: linguistics, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,

anthropology, socio-linguistics, and meta-language. These lexes are just a few of the ones in the

class and in anthropology. The lexis used here are particular to the sub-division of anthropology,

socio-linguistics. They pertain to this Discourse and as such they create a sense of ethos towards

those who use them and can understand one another. If not for these words it would be difficult

to address to prompt properly as the evidence wouldnt be a solid enough argument.

Analysis Summary & Conclusion

In this paper, I analyzed the community and assignment from another subject, and

identified the audience and exigence, and stated the rhetorical strategies and lexis used in the

assignment. I was able to apply and analyze class concepts on the other assignment.
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Citations

Gee, J.P. (1989). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics: introduction. In E. Wardle & D. Downs

(Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 274-297). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Johns, A.M. (1997). Discourse communities and communities of practice. In E. Wardle & D.

Downs (Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 319-341). Boston: Bedford/St.

Martins.

Downs, D. (2017). Rhetoric: Making sense of human interaction and meaning-making. In E.

Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 457-481). Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins.