Chapter published in:
Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English: Literary and linguistic approaches
Edited by Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 312] 2020
► pp. 271–293

“Meaning you have been known to act rashly”

How Molly Weasley negotiates her identity as a moral authority in conflicts in the Harry Potter series

| Masaryk University
Molly Weasley, a mother character in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, represents a moral authority whose system of moral values and principles that governs her family is also recognised and highly appreciated by other characters in the books and by the readers. However, even Molly Weasley becomes engaged in conflictual situations in which she transgresses her morality and chooses impoliteness to control her interlocutor’s inappropriate behaviour. Such situations enable her to negotiate her identity as a moral authority and to be perceived as a complex character. Drawing upon Culpeper’s (2011) theoretical framework of impoliteness, the objective of the paper is to study how Molly Weasley employs conventionalised and implicational impoliteness in her direct speeches, which functions her impolite formulas have, and how both the triggers and functions are determined by her relation with her interlocutor.
Keywords: impoliteness, conventionalised impoliteness, implicational impoliteness, Harry Potter, Molly Weasley, moral authority, manners
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Molly Weasley as a moral authority
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Conventionalised impoliteness
    • 5.2Implicational impoliteness
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Sources
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.312.12pel
References

Sources

Rowling, J. K.
1999 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2000 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2001 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2002 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2005 Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Blake, Andrew
2002 The Irresistible Rise of Harry Potter. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Blitvich, Pilar Garcés-Conejos, and Maria Sifianou
2017 “(Im)politeness and Identity.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 227–256. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bousfield, Derek
2010 “Researching Impoliteness and Rudeness: Issues and Definitions.” In Interpersonal pragmatics, Vol. 6 Handbook of pragmatics, ed. by Miriam A. Locher, and Sage L. Graham, 101–134. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Chappell, Drew
2008 “Sneaking out after Dark: Resistance, Agency, and the Postodern Child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series.” Children’s Literature in Education 39: 281–293. Crossref.Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan
2001 Language and Characterisation. People in Plays and Other Texts. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2011 Impoliteness. Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Claire Hardaker
2017 “Impoliteness.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 199–225. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Marina Terkourafi
2017 “Pragmatic Approaches (Im)politeness.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 11–39. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, Carol
2003 In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grimes, Katherine M.
2002 “Harry Potter: Fairy Tale Prince, Real Boy, and Archetypal Hero.” In The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter. Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, ed. by Lana A. Whited, 89–122. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Langlotz, Andreas, and Miriam A. Locher
2017 “(Im)politeness and Emotion.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 287–322. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lykke, Guanio-Uuru
2015 Ethics and Form in Fantasy Literature. Tolkien, Rowling and Meyer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mauk, Margaret S.
2017 “ ‘Your Mother Died to Save You.’ The Influence of Mothers in Constructing Moral Frameworks for Violence in Harry Potter.” Mythlore 36 (1): 123–141.Google Scholar
McDougal, Jenny
2015 “Doubting Dumbledore.” In A Wizard of Their Age: Critical Essays from the Harry Potter Generation, ed. by Cecilia Konchar Farr, 159–179. Albany: State University of New York Press, Albany.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Dan, and Derek Bousfield
2017 “(Im)politeness in Fictional Texts.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 759–783. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Petraki, Eleni, Carolyn Baker, and Michael Emmison
2007 “ ‘Moral Versions’ of Motherhood and Daughterhood in Greek-Australian Family Narratives.” In Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse, ed. by Michael Bamberg, Anna De Fina, and Deborah Schiffrin, 107–132. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pleyer, Monika
2017 “Identities and Impoliteness in Translated Harry Potter Novels.” In Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics, ed. by Istvan Kecskes, and Stavros Assimakopoulos, 231–253. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rosado, Tréza
2015 “The Generation(s) of Harry Potter. The Boy Wizard and His Young Readers.” In A Wizard of Their Age: Critical Essays from the Harry Potter Generation, ed. by Cecilia Konchar Farr, 73–81. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Schanoes, Veronica L.
2003 “Cruel Heroes and Treacherous Texts. Educating the Reader in Moral Complexity and Critical Reading in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Books.” In Reading Harry Potter, ed. by Giselle Liza Anatol, 131–146. Westport: Prager.Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
2017 “(Im)politeness and Cultural Variation.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 571–599. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Vladimir Žegarac
2017 “Power, Solidarity and (Im)politeness.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Z. Kádár, 119–141. London: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sunderland, Jane
2011 Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Turner, Jonathan H.
2000 On the Origins of Human Emotions: A Sociological Enquiry into the Evolution of Human Affect. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Vezzali, Loris, Sofia Stathi, Dino Giovannini, Dora Capozza, and Elena Trifiletti
2014 “The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 45 (2): 105–121. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Watts, Richard J.
2003 Politeness. Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilamová, Sirma
2004 On Expressing Negative Politeness in English Fictional Discourse. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita.Google Scholar
Wolosky, Shira
2010 The Riddles of Harry Potter. Secret Passages and Interpretative Quests. London: Palgrave MacMillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar