An academic discourse community has some features in common with other discourse communities, but it also has some distinctive characteristics.

As we’ve seen, we engage in research every day—yet not all research is academic research. By bringing the idea of research as systematic investigation together with the concept of discourse communities, we can begin to define academic research. Academic research is asking questions and investigating problems using the tools (and within the limits) of the academic discourse community.

The Academic Discourse Community

As you’ll recall, a discourse community is a group of people who share common goals and interests and communicate about these goals and interests in ways that are specific to the group. This is certainly the case with academics, who use specialized language toward a shared goal: the pursuit, exchange, and validation of knowledge. 

What are the features of academic discourse? How is academic discourse different from other discourse communities? Researcher Teresa Thonney analyzed articles in a number of peer-reviewed academic journals and identified a list of six shared characteristics of academic writing. These six characteristics (adapted here) provide a useful starting-point for thinking about the distinctive characteristics of academic discourse more broadly.

1. Academic writers build on what others have said about a topic. (Thonney 349)
   • In writing, academics frequently quote other experts (a process called “citation”). Academics usually expect claims to be anchored in (or at least in dialogue with) what other experts have said about the subject, rather than one’s own feelings or experience alone. Even the groundbreaking scholar Isaac Newton once wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
   • In spoken academic discourse—for instance, class discussion—claims are usually grounded in some reference to a shared text or data set. If your class were discussing Haruki Murakami’s short story “Birthday Girl,” for instance, and you told a long story about something unrelated that happened on your birthday, it would be considered a distraction from, rather than a contribution to, the discussion. Likewise, if you said “birthdays are depressing!”, it wouldn’t be relevant to the discussion unless you showed how Murakami’s story portrays birthdays as depressing.
2. Academic writers consider the value of their work, but don’t overstate the importance of their individual contribution. (Thonney 350)
   • The question of “what difference does this make?” or “who cares?” can be a tricky one for academics to answer. Many academic research projects are so specialized and focused that they can seem trivial or pointless to those outside the field. However, all academic writing needs to address the question of value and relevance. Academic writers do so within the terms and values of the academic discourse community—which may or may not overlap with the values of other communities. No matter how obviously useful and pressing or seemingly esoteric and trivial an academic work might be, its core value proposition is always the same: “How does this enhance our understanding of _______?” This, then, relates to the central value shared by all of the academic discourse community: to pursue and exchange knowledge.
   • Consider a scientific journal article with the intimidating title “Transcriptome Analysis of Melocactus glaucescens (Cactaceae) Reveals Metabolic Changes During in vitro Shoot Organogenesis Induction.” The authors state the broader value of their research clearly and directly in the article abstract:
     • “Melocactus glaucescens is an endangered cactus highly valued for its ornamental properties. In vitro shoot production of this species provides a sustainable alternative to overharvesting from the wild; however, its propagation could be improved if the genetic regulation underlying its developmental processes were known.”
   • In other words, this research helps us to understand how this cactus regrows itself, which in turn could help protect the cactus. Note that unlike, for instance, a non-profit organization devoted to protecting endangered cacti, this academic paper does not claim to help solve the problem directly. It does not offer a solution, but contributes to our understanding of the problem and thus, perhaps, to our ability to envision solutions.
3. Academic discourse assumes disagreement about any particular claim or position. (Thonney 352)
   • In some discourse communities, disagreement can lead to conflict or even violence. In academic discourse, disagreement is not only accepted; it’s encouraged. The scientific method, one of the foundational concepts of Western academic discourse, assumes that truth is found not in the theory that the most people agree with, but rather in the theory that hasn’t (yet) been disproven. It is said that there are no proven “facts” in science, just hypotheses that haven’t been disproven.
   • Both in spoken and written academic discourse, this awareness and encouragement of disagreement leads to a striking number of “qualifier” words. Words like “it seems,” “appears to indicate,” “suggests that,” or “might lead us to conclude” are examples of “qualified” claims. This linguistic pattern, which acknowledges disagreement within the sentence itself, is a key feature of academic discourse. Where the trial lawyer would say: “The evidence proves without a doubt…” the academic would say “Existing evidence suggests…”
4. Academic discourse often assumes a voice of conviction and authority. (Thonney 353)
   • The frequent use of qualifying language in academic discourse should not be mistaken for a lack of authority or conviction. Academic writers use a number of language patterns to write and speak with authority, even if they’re still learning about a subject. For instance, you may have been told not to use the first-person “I” form in academic writing. This advice isn’t really accurate, since many scholars use “I” or “we” in their writing, but the reasoning has to do with the tone of authority in academic writing. Although academic writers do use the first-person “I” and “we,” they rarely give up the tone of authority by saying “I believe,” “we think,” or “in my opinion.”  This isn’t about what “I think,” it’s about what “the evidence suggests”—the presumption, in other words, is that anyone with the same set of evidence should agree with the author’s conclusions (though of course they won’t, since disagreement is assumed).
     • By way of comparison, consider this version of the first sentence of the paragraph above: “I do not think that the frequent use of qualifying language in academic discourse means a lack of authority. I have noticed that academic writers use a number of language patterns to write and speak with authority…” In this version, the phrases “I do not think” and “I have noticed” mark the claim as the author’s opinion or personal experience. In the original version, however, the claim is made with authority: “The frequent use of qualifying language in academic discourse should not be mistaken for a lack of authority or conviction…” This is the kind of authority that tends to be adopted by academic writers.
5. Academic discourse uses specialized vocabulary. (Thonney 355)
   • Given the characterization of academics as a discourse community, we’d expect a certain amount of specific vocabulary. As any first-year college student can tell you, there are a lot of new words and ideas to take in! The glossary of any biology, economics, or physics textbook is pages and pages long. Academics also have a habit of using familiar words in unfamiliar ways. Words like “reading,” “formal,” “significant,” and “criticism” may be used quite differently in academic discourse than in everyday speech.
6. Academic discourse foregrounds evidence. (Thonney 356)
   • As we have seen, the voice of academic authority rests on the idea that the author or speaker is presenting a set of evidence, and that a reasonable person should agree with their conclusions. Thus it’s never enough to just confidently state an argument; the confidence must proceed from the evidence, which is presented in the body of the argument. We’ll cover this in more detail in the section on evidence.

These six characteristics of academic discourse form the basis of many of the lessons and advice in this course. From evidence and argument to citation to subject-specific vocabulary, learning about research writing is really about learning to attune your writing to the expectations of the academic discourse community.

Objections

Here, it is necessary to raise a few objections that may have already jumped out at you (especially if you’re thinking in terms of the spirit of disagreement):

• There is no single, monolithic academic discourse community. There are lots of different discourse communities within academic fields, institutions, and groups. Discourse communities will vary from school to school and from class to class—not to mention from country to country.
• Discourse communities change over time, and academics is no different. Things that were expected fifty years ago may not be expected now— and things that were accepted fifty years ago are unacceptable now. As people within and outside the community continue to put pressure on it to change and grow, it will keep changing!

So all of the information on this page needs to be read with the understanding that these are oversimplifications designed to help place academic discourse within the context of other discourse communities.

Though it is in no way unified or monolithic, academic discourse is certainly defined enough to be the object of important—and often justified—critique. In some cases, academic discourse is criticized for the way it excludes voices, ideas, experiences, and convictions that aren’t easily assimilated to its value system or patterns of thought.

What’s Left Out of the Academic Discourse Community?

In short, a lot. In an essay on going to college as a first-generation, working-class student, David Engen points out that the modes of expression expected within the academic discourse community were quite different from the ones he had grown up with:

Many students from working-class backgrounds strongly sense that their typical methods of expression and language use are not valued in the world of higher education. Verbal styles that at home allow the student to insert him or herself into conversation might have just the opposite effect at school. Being especially direct and to the point, for example, is not always valued in a collegiate environment. (Engen 256)

Here, Engen calls attention to the fact that the academic indirectness—the tendency to carefully qualify claims and statements—did not come naturally to someone used to speaking to the point. Nor did he find any validation for his natural directness: it was excluded from the values of this new discourse community.

In her essay “Language,” bell hooks makes a similar point about the exclusion of the communication styles with which she had grown up from academic discourse communities:

In academic circles, both in the sphere of teaching and that of writing, there has been little effort made to utilize black vernacular—or, for that matter, any language other than standard English. When I asked an ethnically diverse group of students in a course I was teaching on black women writers why we only heard standard English spoken in the classroom, they were momentarily rendered speechless. Though many of them were individuals for whom standard English was a second or third language, it had simply never occurred to them that it was possible to say something in another language, in another way. (hooks 171)

Importantly, the point of hooks’s essay is to suggest ways to bring a broader range of discourse communities and linguistic backgrounds into academic practice. Her goal is to change the academic discourse community, and not simply to accept the status quo: “We take the oppressor’s language and turn it against itself. We make our words a counter-hegemonic speech, liberating ourselves in language.” (175)

At various points in your academic journey, you may feel frustrated by the limitations—and even inequities—of the academic discourse community. You may feel like your authentic voice is being squashed by the insistence on a certain kind of neutral, indecisive language. Or you may feel that your life experience, political convictions, or religious faith are undervalued by the academic insistence on a certain kind of argument and evidence. You may be saying to yourself: “why am I learning MLA citation style when I want to be a dental hygienist?” or “Bad things are happening all over the world and instead of doing something about it I’m here writing a five page paper about Pablo Neruda’s ‘Ode to My Socks.'”

Faced with the intense demands of academic discourse, you may also be having doubts about yourself: “am I good enough,” or “am I smart enough” to participate in this particular academic discourse community?

Feelings of frustration and doubt are not only natural and valid, but also extremely common.

When you get frustrated, just remember: academic discourse isn’t the only game in town. It’s just one discourse community among many. Certainly not the most powerful, or the most expressive, or the most creative, or the most lucrative. The good news is, it can be learned! That’s what this course is about. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to bring your own values and experience, your own voice, into dialogue with the many perspectives of the academic discourse community. One of the ways you can do that, as we’ll see, is by thinking about the questions that are most important to you.