The Vegetarian Discourse Community
The Vegetarian Discourse Community
“Talk lives in a man’s head, but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of many men there is nothing to keep it company - and so talk goes out through the lips.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night Roughly ten years ago, I was an impressionable fifth grader looking for a belief to stand by when I conveniently happened to stumble upon PETAs website in my elementary school 's computer lab. After watching multiple investigative videos of the gruesome animal slaughters occurring in factory farms, I, much to my parents’ dismay, renounced my title of an omnivore and adopted the vegetarian diet. However, a ten year old girl does not have many vegetarian peers in Catholic school. I consequently turned to vegetarian forums for moral support and conversation concerning this new lifestyle of mine. Over the past decade I have joined and left several online communities, but recently, I have started partaking in a local group called Vegan Detroit. Vegan Detroit is a steadily growing community that consists of four hundred and eighty seven vegetarians from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. These members share ideas and discuss a multitude of topics related to vegetarianism at monthly meetings and through an online message board. According to, American linguist, John Swales, Vegan Detroit fulfills the six characteristics of a discourse community. A discourse community is a collection of individuals that share one or multiple common, public goals. Specialized texts, methods of communication, rules, and language develop around this mutual goal. Vegan Detroit is a discourse community with the goal of promoting the vegetarian lifestyle. John Swales argues that a discourse community has broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales 471). By this definition, Vegan Detroit qualifies. Members of this group do not support the exploitation of animals for human gain and, therefore, abstain from consuming animal flesh.
“Talk lives in a man’s head, but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of many men there is nothing to keep it company - and so talk goes out through the lips.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night Roughly ten years ago, I was an impressionable fifth grader looking for a belief to stand by when I conveniently happened to stumble upon PETAs website in my elementary school 's computer lab. After watching multiple investigative videos of the gruesome animal slaughters occurring in factory farms, I, much to my parents’ dismay, renounced my title of an omnivore and adopted the vegetarian diet. However, a ten year old girl does not have many vegetarian peers in Catholic school. I consequently turned to vegetarian forums for moral support and conversation concerning this new lifestyle of mine. Over the past decade I have joined and left several online communities, but recently, I have started partaking in a local group called Vegan Detroit. Vegan Detroit is a steadily growing community that consists of four hundred and eighty seven vegetarians from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. These members share ideas and discuss a multitude of topics related to vegetarianism at monthly meetings and through an online message board. According to, American linguist, John Swales, Vegan Detroit fulfills the six characteristics of a discourse community. A discourse community is a collection of individuals that share one or multiple common, public goals. Specialized texts, methods of communication, rules, and language develop around this mutual goal. Vegan Detroit is a discourse community with the goal of promoting the vegetarian lifestyle. John Swales argues that a discourse community has broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales 471). By this definition, Vegan Detroit qualifies. Members of this group do not support the exploitation of animals for human gain and, therefore, abstain from consuming animal flesh.
Cited: "Vegan Detroit Meetup Group." Vegan Detroit Meetup Group. Meetup, 16 Nov. 2002. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. Wardle, Elizabeth, Doug Downs, and John Swales. "John Swales: The Concept of a Discourse Community." 2010. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 467-80. Print.