Why Discourse?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "discourse" as the following:

1. a. Onward course, process or succession of time, events, actions, etc.
2. a. The act of understanding, by which it passes from premises to consequences; reasoning, thought, ratiocination; the faculty of reasoning, reason, rationality.
    b. Phr. discourse of reason: process or faculty of reasoning.

So what exactly do we (and here I get into a tangled web of who "we" really is...though for the purposes of this blog, I'll say rhetoricians or writing instructors), mean by "discourse" and should we bother teaching it at all?

For James P. Gee, Discourse (capital D inclusive) is more than just the language that is used in a given circumstance; it is also the thoughts, world views, and practices that engender that language. For example, when teachers lament that their students are incapable of writing academically or that they fall prey to the ever infamous "academese," they often are referring to the specific language that gets used in academic genres. Gee's point, however, is that writing doesn't occur in a vacuum. Our students are not unable to write "academically" because of some in-set failing. Our students are unable to write "academically" because they have not been allowed into the very community that uses that form of communication. Language, separated from its true context, becomes forced, false, and little more than an exercise in futility.

This isn't to say that practice doesn't serve a purpose. Of course it does. It's by practicing that we improve in any skill. But viewing language as a discourse is to rhetoric what the whole language approach is to grammar. When we try to separate genres, skill sets, or practices from an appropriate discourse community, we are effectively teaching writing as "prescriptive grammar" (which, for many 'in the know' compositionists has come to be seen as a cardinal sin, as condemnable as murder, thievery, and talking in the theater*). Those assignments have a purpose. They have value. But if our students are incapable of discerning that purpose, it becomes much harder for them to achieve it or to apply it in future situations.

So why discourse? Why do we fight to categorize language and itemize it and contextualize it, knowing that it is amorphous and intrinsically tied to our cultures, our time, and our self-perception?

Writing is communication. With ourselves. With others. It's discovery and thought and our way of seeking to understand and be understood. We study discourse in order to hear and be heard. Inevitably, we will participate in the conversation. We can't not. But we become more effective as we seek to understand the larger picture.

*Yes, it's a bad attempt at a Firefly reference. Please don't sue me.