Hamad Hadeed

To P. Thomas
Class 1101-103
12/5/2014

Third Draft

My Discourse Community
Before reading swales article, I did not have a clear concept of what a discourse community
was; and to be honest I do not think many people do. After reading his article I now know that a
Discourse Community is a powerful and useful specific community inside a much larger
community. The members of the group have common goals and they look for ways to achieve
them. After reading my curiosity about these types of communities was awaken and even help me
find one that would further help me. The community I chose was the Saudi Students Organization
(SSO), the SSO is an organization that helps international Saudi students get through the shock of
the cultural change and provides the members with the tools to feel comfortable in the Unites
States and alleviate the homesick feeling
According to Swales a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public
goals. The SSO has three main goals. Helping the Saudi students is the most important one. They
usually take care of new students who come form Saudi Arabia without any experience of the
eeriness or the new culture they are facing. This group helps them in the first few weeks in the U.S.,
reducing the chances of being homesick by providing a place where they can go and spend time,
and by telling them there is someone who can help them any time they want. For example, in one
occasion they help one of the members with the process of renting an apartment. Most of us,
coming to the country for the first time, do not know the rules and regulations to rent an
apartment, also all the proof of income and insurance you have to show.
The second goal is to represent the Saudi Arabia culture by creating events where the
general public can come and learn about their community and the culture they represent. All
Arabian students share the events and represent the culture side by side with Saudi students.this
also helps a lot with the feeling of homesick of most students, because even though we are
thousands of miles away, we can represent our countries and cultures.
Celebrating famous Islamic events like festival days, national Saudi day and Ramadan is the
third goal of the SSO. As an example, Saad Alamri claimed I want to make the students who are
away from their home during festival days to celebrate and feel that they are in home (Alamri).
This community celebrates a lot of events inside the university and in different parts of Charlotte;
one of the main events is Eid Aladha, which is a holiday that all Muslims celebrate. They also

celebrate Eid Alfater, Ramadan and last but not least the Festival day that the UNCC does each
October.
On Friday November 14, 2014 I attended one of their meetings at the student union room at
UNCC, they made me feel welcomed and they were very nice to me as a new member. I explained
my project and Saad was very happy I chose them to write about. During the meeting I saw
different genre. Genre is an important side of the community, and according to Swales Genres are
types of texts that are recognizable to readers and writers, and that meet the needs of the
rhetorical situations in which they function. Since I attended their meeting I focused in genre and
tried to distinguish all materials they use, and even the genre between themselves. There is a lot of
genre in their community. For instance, they have some genre because each one of the groups came
from a deferent part of Saudi Arabia; also their accents showed me the genre between them. Also
speaking two languages while meeting is considered as a genre, I noticed that they spoke Arabic
and English in meeting and also I noticed a big diversity within the group. Some members are
graduate and others undergraduate students from allover Charlotte, some from UNCC, others assist
to Queens or CPCC, and this is also considered a kind of genre. One of the students, Majed Alowais
said every day, during our meetings, I learn something new about my culture because I learn more
about six other different parts of my country. (Alowais) One of the most important things I was
interested in knowing was if this community had written anything, so I asked Alamri. He answered
yes and he proceeded to introduce me to Yasmin, she is a writer whom writes invitations and short
poems in both languages.
Using different methods to communicate is one of the most significant tools in their group.
Most of them are on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and they call each other by phone. One of
them claimed If we dont have a group in Whatsapp we will meet each day on the weekdays that
is to show how much they rely on the social network. Their use of social network created a genre
because they are using deferent methods of social networks each method has a reason. Facebook is
used if they want to ask one of the 500 students in charlotte to help them in any case or event, they
use to communicate with all students in their facebook account. Instagram is used to post any
photo about this group and all the festival days that they worked on, this helps to broadcast the
activities and share details with other members who are not able to assist certain events.
Whatsapp is used for the group members to communicate with each other and if they want to
know who can help a student at a certain time or to reschedule one of their meetings if they cannot
meet at a specific day. Phone calls are usually used if they are missing a member while meetings or
big events, and also if there is an emergency situation, for example, last January there was a big
snow storm and they made sure that they texted every member in Arabic, so that everyone knew
what was going to happen and they were all prepared.

In the meeting I remembered a lot of things that they do while someone is giving a speech
like nobody is allowed to interrupt while someone else is speaking. Moreover, if the prayer time
has come they pause the meeting for a while and go to pray, after they finish praying they continue
with the meeting materials. Asslam Alikom is one of the words that we usually say when they meet
each other, it means, peace be upon you. They use it and some other tradition words as part of a
tradition but also to help people feel closer to home. This discourse community is one of the perfect
and interesting examples that UNCC students participates in. They are careful, honesty, humble
and try to represent their culture in the best possible way they can.
Then I asked Alamri why is he engaged in this discourse community he said I have been in
the Unites States for 2 years and I experienced and felt how hard it is to live in a new country with
a different culture and a different language, so I decided to help the new students to surpass those
challenges (Alamri). For instance, they help many people get in the English Institute, but also
make sure they know that before they can apply to any university they have to enroll and pass the
IELTS (International English Language Test System) which not many of the students knew before
becoming a member of this community. Then I continued asking him about who could be a
member of the community and who could not, he answered saying that anybody who needs helps
and is new to this country can become a member, however, they focus more on Saudi students.
During the meeting I watched them talked about some mistakes in previous events, and try to
figure out how to solve it and improve it for the next event.
After all I saw in that meeting and during the interview I made to Alamri and Majed I
realized they are experts of teamwork and they are improving their performance for future events.
They are a very close community with doors open to all the people who need help, especially the
Saudi students whom had just arrive to this wonderful country that we all now call home.
Discourse communities like this one are important to help society to improve together, and people
should participate more.

Works Cited

Alamri, Saad. Personal Interview. 17 Nov. 2014

Alowais, Majed. Personal Interview. 17 Nov. 2014

Swales, John. "The Concept of a Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in