Introduction
Intertextuality is the purposeful molding of the meaning of a text by some other text, whether by citation, allusion, calque, duplication, interpretation, pastiche, or parody. This essay analyses three artifacts: The DogForum discourse community, the National Black Cat Appreciation Day, and The Dog Training and Behavior Community on the DogForum. These artifacts are assessed based on how quotations, allegory, and parody are used as intertextual forms. The aim is to respond to the question; how does intertext in discourse communities impact members, and how is authority expressed within these communities. The intricate link between a text and other texts is considered necessary for interpretation.
The DogForum Discourse Community
The DogForum discourse community is a collection of individuals who share concerns about their dogs. The Discourse community has underlying beliefs, assumptions, and means of communicating its aims. The DogForum Web platform presents the discourse communities as an organization with objectives and purposes to utilize communication to address dogs’ health distress concerns (“Dog Forum Community” 1). The Dog Forum discourse community is based on ideologies about good health for the dogs and a decent engagement platform that can offer professional care support overseen by the website administrators.
The Application Parody
The DogForum community frequently employs parody to ease the atmosphere in the conversations. For instance, the “My dog is destroying my furniture” post applies exaggeration for comic effect that reflects on the culture on the platform (“Dog Forum Community” 1). There is often antagonism and friction between the ideals, opinions, perspectives, and interpersonal styles. Therefore, there is no genuine sense for reliable people from a cognitive perspective. Most discourses assume that after the first interpersonal communication, everyone interacts with various social institutions outside peer networks. These may include local companies and forums, and organizations. These societal structures require one or more Discourses, which can be learned fluently to the degree of access to and membership in these communities.
The Expression of Authority
Despite the parody quotes, the authority within the group recognizes the need for a respectful forum for people with genuine concerns about their dogs to share and seek support. The ideology of care emerges as a collection of views and concepts that together form a holistic perspective evident in the community. Through the ideas, the members make meaning of the world and access solutions from different viewpoints. As in the religions, economic systems, cultural mythologies, and languages, the DogForum discourse community contributes to most ideologies’ formation and maintenance (“Dog Forum Community” 1). The DogForum Community has an established set of rules defined by the authority on the platform.
National Black Cat Appreciation Day Community
Quotation Instance in Intexting
The second artifact is the National Black Cat Appreciation Day discourse community. The community members use quotations repeating a phrase, sentence, or piece from spoken or particular text from known authors. For instance, a forum member notes that her sisters placed Cleo, a cat, in this box. They had just seen the commercial saying, “if it fits, it ships…..” (“National Black Cat Appreciation Day” 1). The quotation is portrayed as expression, such as anything spoken in speech, introduced in literature works (Adler-Kassner and Wardle 57). In the article, Adler-Kassner and Wardle (57) also use the same technique to improve readers’ appreciation of the author’s case. Adler-Kassner and Wardle (57) highlight that a more discipline-specific learning process entails both the acquisition of new information and the “extension and alteration of identity, of the learner’s ‘sense of self,” citing authors. Quotations address the communication needs to send accurate identifying information to the reader.
Additionally, quotes emphasize the members’ contribution points without distorting the message. The primary purpose for quoting content in the literary composition is to bolster the words and provide the document with an authentic tone (Gee 9). A quote adds a second voice to the author’s views, opinions, and assertions (Gee 11). The quotes enhance the communication of original ideas without diluting their intended meaning. Additionally, the quotation provides the reader with a more concise, memorable way to express a concept.
Communication Authority
In academic works, the authority is in the author’s capacity to capture the reader’s attention by earning their trust, eliciting their appreciation and trust, or acting according to the predominant culture. Additionally, authority over the scholar community means establishing the identity obtained in the forum to the intended audience to assure acceptance of the message (Stacho et al., 9). In an ideal world, authority in communication would be achieved by mastering the art of communicating and radiating confidence to earn trust (Gee 13). Such effective communication in forums is subsequently transferred to the audience, resulting in the message’s acceptance. Such effectiveness entails developing a positive workplace persona inside the activity systems within the forum and using it to impose power.
Dog Training and Behavior Discourse Community on DogForum
The Dog Training and Behavior discourse community on DogForum uses images of dogs to contextualize the community. These are instances of allegory as intertext, which helps elaborate on the critical themes in the academic works (Gee 9). Such intertextual relationships might be contextualized historically in the forum, moving from linguistic text to thematized content and historical context as representations of culture and society. Intertextuality as allegory introduces visuals into words and transfers the focus from readers to topic, culture, and community. Gee (9) also employs poems as an allegory in intersexuality, highlighting a poem a young middle-class housewife reads daily to her 5- and 7-year-old girls (Gee 14). The story reflects on the need for communication in a discourse community.
The Dog Training and Behavior discourse community members further employ allegory as a symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a not explicitly stated message in the description. Allegory, which includes fable, parable, and apologue, may contain multiple meanings that the reader can only comprehend through an interpretive paradigm. Allegories in literature are frequently used to describe situations and events or express abstract thoughts through objects, individuals, and activities. In academia, symbolic communication makes allegory intertext form crucial in addressing the discourse community. The symbolic allegory, in which a character or object is not only a vehicle for a concept but instead has a distinct identity or narrative autonomy different from the message it delivers. The symbolic allegorical, which may be as basic as a fairytale or as sophisticated as a multilayered story, has always been used to reflect political and historical circumstances and has long proven popular as a medium for satire.
In such a setting, understanding the discord community’s nature may also require inquiry about the degree of friction or conflict within the discord community. In such an academic environment, it is expected that conflict and tension will nearly always exist in scholarly works as an artifact. The author is responsible for defending their positions and addressing the gaps that would otherwise introduce discord within the community (Adler-Kassner and Wardle 57). Some individuals experience more apparent and explicit conflicts between two or more of their Discourses than the other community members in academia. In such an online community, conflict may prevent learning one or both competing Discourses (Adler-Kassner and Wardle 57). Miscommunication as a result of misguided internal criticism as self-scrutiny can also impact the quality of the engagements.
The Need for Effective Communication
Effective communication is essential for establishing a controlled environment that does not raise unnecessary discourse. In the Dog Training and Behavior discourse community, discourse-defined stances from which to communicate and act are not defined only inside a discourse but also as viewpoints overtaken by the discourse regarding others. Managing discourse is partially characterized as a collection of beliefs, standards, and positions defined by direct antagonism to equivalent points in the discourse. Any discourse is concerned with certain things and promotes specific notions, points of view, and values at the detriment of others (Gee 15). As a result, the disparities will marginalize perspectives and ideas that are important to other discourses. Indeed, a discourse may compel one to embrace values that clash with other discourses.
Conclusion
Linguists recognize that comprehending intertextuality results in a richer reading experience that allows new interpretations by infusing the text with another background, concept, or tale. The fundamental notion of a discourse community can be developed in opposition to the more established sociolinguistic idea of a community. The discourse is common in a homogenous collection of people who share a common interest, geographical location, language variation, and set of social, religious, and cultural beliefs. These communities are often after securing a network of people with similar interests with the hope of gaining from the community. In comparison to the artifacts, there is a diverse socio-rhetorical assemblage of individuals who share a common set of interests to improve the quality of life of their pets. Intertextuality forms including quotations, allegory, and parody provide tools for effective communication and context to the discourse community.
Works Cited
Adler-Kassner, Linda, and Wardle, Elizabeth. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. University Press of Colorado, 2015. 45-57.
“Dog Forum Community.” Dogforum, 2022.
Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17.
“National Black Cat Appreciation Day.” Catforum, 2022.
Stacho, Zdenko, et al. “Effective Communication in Organisations Increases their Competitiveness.” Polish Journal of Management Studies 19 (2019).