One reason for going through this example is to illustrate the four main components of what we are calling discourse systems. Any
group that has particular ways of thinking, treating other people, communicating and learning can be said to be participating in a
particular discourse system. Discourse systems can be associated with very large groups of people – and so we will be talking about,
for example, the Confucian discourse system or the Utilitarian discourse system (which can be thought of as the discourse system of
international capitalism) – or rather small groups of people like families or affinity groups.