HW 3/5

Assignment 1 second draft

Look for 6 conceptualizations and what kind of discourse community Du Bois is discussing and/or part of.

In Du Bois’s essay, his shared common goals are ones that are common with activist in his time, trying to move the United States forward away from the idea of second class citizenship and double-conscious. If he were to try to convince anyone through his plea, it would be those that are educated, fence sitters, politically affiliated.

Du Bois uses a specific lexis, which is a highly educated dialect. Using this form of lexis in a plea, in order to convince highly educated and/or political affiliates would be a good idea during the late 20th century and early 21rst century when most of the South and some north was illiterate. If he proves to have obtained an education and have a wide vocabulary, he could establish himself, not only as a member of the white educated and /or political affiliated discourse community, but a black member of the white educated and/or political affiliated discourse community. This integration would be a huge step toward coalescence of social and racial groups.

There is definitely a thresh hold level of members in a highly prestigious school such as Harvard. For Du Bois to be admitted there was a huge step into being integrated in a highly educated discourse community, especially at a predominantly white school. And to be the first African American to earn his phd there took it to another level.

All of these conceptualizations would eventually lead Du Bois to be one of the founders of a completely separate discourse community which only included highly educated, African American activists.

Speech Community Vs. Discourse Community.

Du Bois was born into a speech community that was seen as inferior to white people. His objective was to leave his speech community and integrate himself into a discourse community of highly educated white scholars and political affiliates. But he would not forget his roots of shared linguistic forms, shared regulative rules and shared cultural concepts. It was then, once he was integrated and accepted, that he would plea and (at the same time) inform the discourse community he was now part of that the speech community (that he was born and raised in) had been convinced of the idea that they were naturally inferior due second hand citizenship.