Presentation Title
Is Hermione Really as Polite as She Seems? : Structuring Gendered Interactions Through Politeness Constructs in Harry Potter
Abstract
We investigate how gender can interact with and influence the construction and implementation of politeness through the scope of interaction patterns found within the Harry Potter book series. We draw upon previous research done on politeness speech by Lakoff (1973), gendered politeness constructs as in De Felice and Garretson (2018), as well as research already done on politeness constructs at work within Harry Potter in Pleyer (2015).We are particularly building upon Pleyer by specifically looking at politeness, as opposed to impoliteness, as well as looking at how gender plays a role in these polite interactions.
In order to see how politeness constructs can be gendered, we compare and contrast politeness at work through different gendered interactions, these being female-male, male-male, and female-female interaction patterns. As this information is not clearly laid out by the author of the series, we assume that all characters being analyzed are cis-gendered. We distinguish politeness constructs as the words “please” and “thank you” and requests that include phrases such as “will you” and “can you.” We look to confirm whether a difference is at play in the usage of these politeness constructs when coded by the gender of both the speaker and the recipient. Further, after compiling the generalized patterns of politeness between different gendered interlocutors within the Harry Potter series, we will try to determine whether these patterns are indicative of or contrastive to a modern societal standard of politeness constructs.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Guillermo Rodriguez
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Arts and Sciences
Program/Major
Linguistics
Primary Research Category
Social Sciences
Is Hermione Really as Polite as She Seems? : Structuring Gendered Interactions Through Politeness Constructs in Harry Potter
We investigate how gender can interact with and influence the construction and implementation of politeness through the scope of interaction patterns found within the Harry Potter book series. We draw upon previous research done on politeness speech by Lakoff (1973), gendered politeness constructs as in De Felice and Garretson (2018), as well as research already done on politeness constructs at work within Harry Potter in Pleyer (2015).We are particularly building upon Pleyer by specifically looking at politeness, as opposed to impoliteness, as well as looking at how gender plays a role in these polite interactions.
In order to see how politeness constructs can be gendered, we compare and contrast politeness at work through different gendered interactions, these being female-male, male-male, and female-female interaction patterns. As this information is not clearly laid out by the author of the series, we assume that all characters being analyzed are cis-gendered. We distinguish politeness constructs as the words “please” and “thank you” and requests that include phrases such as “will you” and “can you.” We look to confirm whether a difference is at play in the usage of these politeness constructs when coded by the gender of both the speaker and the recipient. Further, after compiling the generalized patterns of politeness between different gendered interlocutors within the Harry Potter series, we will try to determine whether these patterns are indicative of or contrastive to a modern societal standard of politeness constructs.