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Sara Cazares
Writing 2
Wilson
17 February 2016
WP2
The region of Latin America holds some of the most significant and highest levels of
poverty in the world with many living in poor conditions and not having enough to eat. However,
they still produce an abundance of food and commodities for the rest of the world despite being
unable to provide for themselves. Because of globalization, regions in Latin America now suffer
immense poverty and inequality. This topic can be approached by many different disciplines,
each focusing and finding various aspects more important than others. In the academic journal
Poverty and Inequality in Latin America: A Story of Two Decades, written by Gasparini and
Cruces, the writing is from an economic viewpoint. The book written by Duncan Green, Faces
of Latin America, explores the poverty through sociological values and viewpoints. Because
there are two different disciplines that are discussing the same topic, the disciplines use various
conventions to shape the topic, which effects the meaning of the information and emphasizes
aspects that their respective discourse community finds important.
Sociology is defined as the study of development, structure and functioning of human
society. They use what is called their sociological imagination, viewing familiar things from a
different perspective, making the familiar strange. Because of this viewpoint, sociological texts
often include more social observations and conditions of what they are studying. Economists
write their texts in a more formal and straightforward way. They focus mainly on production and
goods with the aid of statistics. The use of statistics in an economist paper shows the facts that

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have been gathered from what is being studied. There is a removal of emotion because the
description is in numbers and not personal descriptions as in a sociological paper. This changes
the view of how drastic the poverty levels are in Latin America. If learning about it through the
economist paper, the reader may understand the numbers and what they represent. However, if
viewed as through a sociological paper, the reader is told of what the poverty entails and what
living in it actually includes.
With the topic being poverty in Latin America the book, Faces of Latin America,
addresses the way that those living in poor conditions face their everyday lives and how they
survive. Green explores the different interactions between countries and their histories as they
relate to society which is a main function of sociology. One part of the text states when foreign
investment from the new industrial powers such as Britain and the US started to arrive, it turned
the old plantations into modern capitalist farms. Wage labor replaced slavery, which was
abolished everywhere in Latin America by the end of the nineteenth city and farmers began to
invest more capital in machinery and fertilizers, (Green 114). Because this is a sociological
paper, the text continues on to describe the new lives that came with the modern capitalist, and
how the abolished slavery changed their lives. The social part is explained, and not just
numerical facts are being stated. In the economist paper, Poverty and Inequality: A Story of Two
Decades, there is the use of statistic and economic terms to relay its information. For example,
the academic journal mentions one of the most important types of initiatives in this area has
been the introduction of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs. Most of these programs are
targeted to poor households with children; others provide noncontributory pensions for older
adults living in poverty, (Gasparini). The economic text expresses that there is poverty but
addresses it through the ways that it can be fixed such as through various programs. The

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discourse community reading the journal would understand what the aim of the programs were,
which is alleviate poverty, but not understand what the definition of those living in poverty are
facing. In contrast, those reading the sociological text would understand the social part of
poverty and have an image of the poverty but would lack extensive information about the
poverty rates and programs meant to address them. Each discourse community would understand
poverty in different terms because of the different disciplines that are used.
The discourse community is also aimed for other sociologists or those who have a general
knowledge of sociological aspects. These type of papers include descriptions of how life was in
the past years and how it developed to the years now, however it shows that transformation
through description of everyday lives. Typically, there are not too many terms that are difficult to
understand and a majority of them have context clues to aid its readers. Economic papers are
often the opposite, using jargon that is specifically aimed toward those in the economic discourse
community. This is because there are terms and formulas that are used that describe many
different things and situations in a countries economy. The intended audience is expected to
know these terms without prior context. Each chapter is in a specific order for an economic
journal because the terms, facts and statistics build upon one another. It is organized for the
reader to understand how all the information comes together to shape the topic economically.
Sociological texts are written in chronological order, showing the change and development that a
country or group of people have experienced, like the changing of poverty throughout the years.
Even the way that the information is organized is specific and changes the topic due to the
academic discipline writing it.
To further show their information, economic texts may include figures and graphs to
display a collection of data in one set. The readers of this text must then know how to read the

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graph accurately and be able to grasp the information the graph was trying to portray. In the text
by Gasparini, many figures and graphs are drawn to display the information that equates to the
reason there is inequality and poverty. These figures show different reasons such as GDP and
Supply/Demand that are meant to show the status of Latin Americas economy. Again here is
another example of the use of economic terms and background information being significant
when entering the discourse community. The paragraphs in the text that accompany the graphs
describes in further detail the point that the graph is making. Graphs, charts and figures in
economic texts usually have everything labeled and in addition include a title, making it clear to
the reader what it is showing. These facts give a numerical face to poverty, showing that the
effects of poverty can lead to a change in GDP and Supply/Demand figures. Although the GDP
does not accurately tell of the poverty level in a country, it is able to help identify the economys
well being. The accumulation of figures, graphs and economic terms make it clear that the
discourse community is the intended audience and those with previous knowledge would be best
suited when reading this point on the topic.
Sociological texts may include graphs and figures, but predominately there is the use of
pictures. Pictures accompany a description of the topic that is being addressed. When speaking of
the topic of Latin American poverty, Green includes images of the poor working and poor living
conditions that the citizens can live in. The pictures are creating a visual and showing social
connections to the audience, the reader is then able to identify what the author is speaking of.
The descriptions are not just words when a picture accompanies it because the pictures give the
words meaning and proof of the harsh reality. The numbers in graphs do not show anything and
can be just a number, however with sociological texts and the use of pictures, when speaking of
poverty the author includes pictures to show the reality. The pictures shows the hardships of

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those living in poverty and is not just a number, and the audience is forced to recognize the
actuality of how severe the topic or theme is. Pictures that create visuals are very significant to
sociological papers giving the reader a specific image that they can refer to when reading the
social information, such as poverty, and what it contains.
Sociological and Economic texts vary greatly due to how their information is delivered,
which changes how the view of a topic may be viewed. There is a social aspect that was being
described in Latin America through the sociological text, and the economic journal stated facts
and programs that accompany the presence of poverty. One paper, written in an economic style,
may use graphs and statistics to prove their statements, while another, such as a sociological
paper, uses descriptions and pictures. Each academic discipline has its own distinct set of values
and ways of communicating information that they find important. The variance in telling this
information leads to the different ways that the information can be interpreted, the meaning
changes due to the different emphasize that each paper uses to address its discourse community.
Although both address poverty, the use of information through description in a sociological paper
versus facts that are found in an economic journal, as well as the use of terms that are broad or
specific to a discourse community, the reader draws different information from both papers
regardless if the topic is shared.

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Bibliography

Green, Duncan. Faces of Latin America. London: Latin America Bureau, 1997
Gasparini, L., & Cruces, G. . POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA: A STORY
OF TWO DECADES. Journal Of International Affairs, 66(2), 51-63. 2013

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