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. Vegetarian-curious meat-eaters that may join the group are not frowned upon or judged, but are rather seen as an opportunity to spread the goal of the group. Members will often present these budding vegetarians with information supporting the benefits of a meatless diet in hopes of swaying them to convert. Along with providing information, these newcomers are encouraged to experiment with fare that may seem strange, but familiar enough to flirt with, like: vegan cheese, rice milk, dairy free butter, and coconut milk ice cream or imitation "chicken" nuggets. Add sentence related back to thesis. By exposing them to the vegetarian lifestyle bleh blah.

The second characteristic that defines a discourse community is having "mechanisms of intercommunications among its members" (Swales 471). Like university students involved in campus life use Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch with other like-students, Vegan Detroit uses meetings and the internet to communicate. Once a month, Vegan Detroit sports an outing for not only its members, but also for anyone interested in joining for a cruelty free meal and related conversation. The setting of these gatherings varies. Typically it is held at restaurant, but every once in a while it may be a potluck held in a residential home. Although there are hundreds of members, only an average of ten to thirty members will RSVP and attend. But monthly dinners are not the extent of communication within this very active group. The mass majority of interactions occur online. Every single day people share ideas by posting and responding to threads on the websites messaging board. This is the group's main mechanism of communication. The myriad of topics range from new vegan restaurant hot spots, Groupons, to Shrine Circus protesters rallying for more supporters, but no matter how remote, they can all be traced back to vegetarianism somehow.

A discourse community must also have a way of providing information and feedback to its members (Swales 471). Providing this information is to contribute to the group's goal. For example, a boat club may publish a weekly flyer on upcoming events or new models of boats. In this instance, Vegan Detroit emails a monthly newsletter to all the members. This newsletter typically includes an invitation to its monthly outing, tried and tested vegan recipes, restaurant recommendations, vegetarian food events, and volunteer opportunities. The purpose of this newsletter is to keep the interest of vegetarianism relevant to Vegan Detroit's members, but to also keep them actively involved in the group.

Swales states that the fourth defining characteristic of discourse communities