Running Head: DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC.

Discourse Community Ethnography on Monsters, Inc.

Andrea Corral Rosales

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Professor Saul Hernandez

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 2

Discourse Community Ethnography on Monsters, Inc.

A discourse community, as described by American linguist John Swales, is a

group that has goals and purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals. (As

cited in Borg, 2003, p.398). In his book, Genre Analysis: English in Academic and

Research Settings in a chapter titled The Concept of Discourse Communities, Swales

proposes six defining characteristics that he considers will be necessary and sufficient

for identifying a group of individuals as a discourse community. In the following

paragraphs, I will apply Swales' characteristics into the fictional world of Monsters, Inc.,

the company where Sulley and Mike Wazowski work at in the movie of the same name.

Firstly, Swales (1990), establishes that a discourse community has a broadly

agreed set of common public goals. (p. 220). When watching the movie, something that

seems like the company's motto can be spotted right at the entrance of the factory. The

statement is We Scare Because We Care. Let's remember that this company's business

is obtaining screams from children to power the city, so We Scare Because We Care

can be interpreted as it being Monsters, Inc.'s goal of collecting the children's screams to

power the city because without that energy the city would not be able to keep

functioning the way it should. There are scarers, secretaries, maintenance monsters, and

many more jobs in Monsters, Incorporated. Even though they all study different things,

worry about different situations, or not necessarily focus on the same work, all the effort

put into their area adds up to the one common goal in Monsters, Inc. Just because

employees in Monsters, Inc. work in different things it doesn't mean that they are

isolated from one another, they have ways of communicating with each other to keep up

with all that is happening at the factory.

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 3

The second characteristic is that a discourse community has mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members (Swales, 1990, p.221), which is shown

multiple times in the movie. The Monstropolis Horn and The Daily Globe are

newspapers, and the Business Shriek is a magazine, the three of them write headlines

regarding Monsters, Incorporated, and some even publish interviews with the CEO of

the company Henry J. Waternoose where he gives information about crucial topics such

as the scream shortage in the city. The characters of the movie can be seen reading these

news and using those articles as a source of information of what is going on at their

workplace. Another form of intercommunication that occurs in this movie happens

through the paperwork that Mike Wazowski always forgets to turn in: the M.I. Scare

Report. The M.I. Scare Report is a report that every scarer must turn in at the end of the

day, it contains information about the kid they scared, notes and observations as well as

the child's capacity to scream. The reports serve as records and are available for

consultation for the scarers and their partners. Celia, the receptionist in Monsters, Inc.,

connects people who need to talk through the phone and intercommunicate to share

information with one another.

The use of participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and

feedback is the third characteristic pointed by Swales (1990, p.221). To showcase the

involvement of the monsters at the company, they all compete for the titles of Scare

Leader which is the title displayed on the screens at the Scarefloors, Scarer of the Month

which can be translated to Employee of the Month in any other company, and the

coveted Scare Record which is the ultimate amount of energy acquired from a single

scare by a single scarer. A way new employees get information and feedback about their

performance in Monsters, Inc. is through the Scare Demos, which are simulations of
DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 4

scare-scenarios, the monsters all get together to watch and learn how experienced

monsters would approach each kid depending on their fears. These competitions and

workshops encourage the monsters to keep getting better at scaring and are the main

way to see which employee is committed to the company's growth and success and

which one is not. Another way to distinguish a committed employee and a lousy one is to

see which follows the conventions expected from them and which one doesnt.

The fourth characteristic Swales (1990), talks about, is that every discourse

community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative

furtherance of its aims. (p.221). There are standard ways of conducting themselves that

monsters working in Monsters, Inc. should not forget. All monsters in the movie know

that children are toxic or poisonous, therefore the scarers at Monsters, Inc. are aware of

said toxicity too. In the factory, every member of the discourse community must follow a

protocol to ensure that they are not contaminated. Monsters make sure not to touch kids

when they enter their rooms, to report of any obstacle they might have encountered that

can potentially lead to an accident, and, in the case when they do get contaminated, they

are obligated to call the Child Detection Agency to take further measures. The later are

genres that Monsters, Inc. needs to survive and failing to follow them could disturb the

discourse community and the achievement of its goal just like it happened in the movie

when Boo was introduced into the Monster World. Of course, to follow these genres the

employees need to know the terminology used, what each word and phrase means.

Swales (1990), says in his fifth characteristic that a discourse community has

acquired some specific lexis. (p. 222). In Monsters, Inc. monsters use specific lingo to

communicate, they have terminology that is specific to their company and what they do.

Some examples are:

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 5

Scarefloors

Scream Capacity

Dead Door

2319

Child Detection Agency (CDA)

Waternoose Jump and Growl

Scream Extractor

All these seem strange to those who do not belong to the discourse community that is

Monsters, Inc. and even to those who are members of Monsters, Inc. but are new to the

community.

The final characteristic Swales (1990) established is that a discourse community

has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and

discoursal expertise. (p. 222). Monsters, Inc. has new members coming and other

going. Needleman and Smitty are maintenance and errand monsters who are new in the

job, because of that, they do not yet know all the lexis or may not participate as much.

Despite of their small level of expertise they are still members of the discourse

community. On the other hand, some experts on the matter of Scream Power leave

Monsters, Inc. almost at the end of the movie. Randall Boggs, Fungus, and the CEO

Henry J. Waternoose all had to leave Monsters, Inc. involuntarily because they violated

Monstropolis' law. Monsters come and go from Monsters, Inc., that means that there is

a flow of newbies and experts.

In conclusion, Monsters, Inc. is a discourse community. The company has a clear

common goal of collecting screams to power the city, various mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members such as the M.I. Reports, participatory

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 6

mechanisms like those Scarer of the Month awards, it possesses genres that must be

followed to ensure the correct performance of the community, a unique lexis that

foreigners to Monsters, Inc. would not understand, and a good ratio between novices

like new employees and experts like senior scarers and the CEO. All things considered, it

is shown that Monsters, Incorporated is a discourse community by the standards of

linguist John Swales.

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ETHNOGRAPHY ON MONSTERS, INC. 7

References

Anderson, D. K. (Producer), & Docter, P. (Director). (2001). Monsters, Inc. [Motion Picture].

United States: Buena Vista Pictures.

Borg, E. (2003). Discourse community. ELT Journal, 57(4), 398-400. doi:10.1093/elt/57.4.398

Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),

Writing about writing: A college reader (pp. 212-227). Boston, MA: Bedford/St.

Martins.