Project 3 Proposal

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.

The discourse community that I would like to study and analyze is the Fine Arts discourse community. (In other words, people who paint, draw, sculpt, and so on.) The public goals of this discourse community are to express their ideas, values, and thoughts to those outside of their discourse community.

 

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

Not only can artists communicate between each other with art lingo; things such as technique and medium, but they also share the feelings that they feel when they create art. They share the knowledge of what goes into a painting as well.

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

Artists do this by receiving feedback from other artists and also art critics. Sometimes they hold events where their art is displayed where people can buy their art; feedback and information usually takes place at such events. While art may seem like a private and personal thing, artists have many opportunities to receive feedback and information about what other artists are doing at the ti

 

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.

Artists have more than one genre of communication. They can obviously give and receive feedback by verbally stating their opinions, but one artist can critique another through art itself. In the realm of street art, one artist can talk to another by creating a picture. For example, if one artist paints something on a wall, another artist can answer them by painting something or even finishing the original picture. It only seems fitting that artists can communicate and give feedback with art itself.

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.

Artists have lexis because if they are speaking to another artist, they can probably speak more freely about a piece, rather than if they were speaking to someone who does not do art, they might have to explain terms or ideas or say “how do you not see what I’m seeing?” However, if two artists are talking about a painting, they might pick out the same characteristics and therefore are able dig deeper into the meaning of a piece of art.

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

I think that artists do have a threshold level of members. One could think of artists like Van Gough or Picasso as masters of their craft and therefore expert painters. One who is involved in art could only dream of reaching their level of skill and prestige. Therefore, this discourse community has relevant content and obviously contains discoursal expertise.

I am interested in studying this discourse community because I am interested in art but also came across a couple articles that a friend of mine had from her art class and read them because I had nothing better to do at the time. I was captivated by the articles’ discussion of painters as a community and the feeling that goes into a painting. The articles also described how one can tell if the painter was sitting or standing or what mood they were in when they were creating the piece. I found this very interesting and want to know if this is actually true among artists I know.

I have a couple friends who are art majors, so I could interview them. If both of them do the same type of art, perhaps they could refer me to someone who works with different material than they do. This would give one or two different perspectives, which would be a great asset to the project.

I think the biggest text that will help me with this project will be the interview. Since most of this is based upon what an artist feels, their answers will probably be the most relevant resource I can use. However, I could also find more articles like the ones I previously read that put emphasis on artists as a discourse community.