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Part of
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
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.312.12pel
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