701851

research-article2017
LAL0010.1177/0963947017701851Language and LiteratureEberhardt

Article

Language and Literature

2017, Vol. 26(3) 227­–246
Gendered representations © The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
through speech: The case sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0963947017701851
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947017701851
of the Harry Potter series journals.sagepub.com/home/lal

Maeve Eberhardt
University of Vermont, USA

Abstract
This study considers the text of the Harry Potter novels to understand the way in which gender
is represented. The analysis centers on the two sidekick characters, Hermione Granger and Ron
Weasley, cataloging the way in which their direct speech is reported throughout the series. From
a wide-lens perspective, verbs used for each of these characters are largely the same. However,
a more fine-grained analysis reveals patterns of asymmetry that also reflect broader cultural
ideologies about gender, reproducing stereotypical views about ‘essential’ differences between
females and males for the millions of readers that comprise the audience of these fictional works.

Keywords
Corpus studies, reported speech, gender asymmetry in language

1. Introduction
There is a prevailing belief in the popular imagination that women and men speak differ-
ently, promoted for example in popular self-help books (Gray, 2004; Tannen, 1990).
Research in language and gender did once occupy itself with this question (e.g. Maltz
and Borker, 1983), but the notion that women and men have different ways of using
language has largely been abandoned by sociolinguists (see Baker, 2014). Questions in
language and gender have since turned elsewhere, shifting from looking at undifferenti-
ated categories of women versus men to questions about how gender interacts with other
facets of identity, and about differences within gender categories rather than between.
Due to the nature of this kind of inquiry, and the understanding that gender is not reflected

Corresponding author:
Maeve Eberhardt, Department of Romance Languages & Linguistics, University of Vermont, 85 South
Prospect Street, 517 Waterman, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
Email: meberhar@uvm.edu
228 Language and Literature 26(3)

in language use, but rather constructed through it, much research in this area has centered
on small numbers of speakers, in order to conduct rich analyses of language and identity
unfolding in interaction (e.g. Bucholtz, 1999; Mendoza-Denton, 2008).
In contrast, techniques of corpus analysis are increasingly being utilized in language
and gender research. Corpus analysis considers large amounts of data to unearth pat-
terns that may otherwise remain hidden, while also allowing scholars to ‘investigate
hunches’ (Baker, 2014) about language. Baker’s (2014) overview of corpus studies of
gender shows that the way women and men use language is largely similar – strikingly
similar in fact, if we bear in mind the aforementioned strong belief about distinct gen-
dered speech patterns. Where there are differences, it is often due to a small number of
atypical speakers, as in Baker’s (2014) analysis of lovely and fucking, considered part
of women’s and men’s speech, respectively (see Lakoff, 1975). Using the spoken part
of the British National Corpus (roughly 10 million words), Baker found that the vast
majority of women did not use lovely, just as the majority of men did not say fucking (or
other swear words supposedly aligned with masculine speech styles). Instead, the gen-
dered skew was attributable to a small number of speakers who provided many instances
of those words to the corpus. Corpus studies thus articulate nicely with small, ‘com-
munity of practice’ (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992) studies, which investigate the
personae that individuals project, and interrogate how linguistic forms aid in the con-
struction of those identities.
Corpus studies have also worked to expose patterns of gendered representations.
Feminist scholars have long noted the asymmetrical linguistic representation of women
and men (Cameron, 1992; Spender, 1998; Sutton, 1995), enumerating how language is
used to cast females into subjugated and marginalized positions. Generic masculine pro-
nouns (e.g. Each student should turn in his paper on time) have figured centrally in lan-
guage and gender debates (Holmes, 2001; Mills, 2008; Romaine, 2001). Similarly, a
great deal of attention has been given to address terms and titles (Baker, 2010), and
semantic degradation of female equivalents of word pairs (e.g. spinster versus bachelor).
While much of this research has focused on English, similar explorations have also been
undertaken for other languages, such as Danish (Gomard and Kunøe, 2003) and Japanese
(Shibamoto Smith, 2003). Motschenbacher’s (2013) study of mixed-gender personal
binomials (from the written portion of the British National Corpus) found that the ten-
dency for male items to come in first position (e.g. kings and queens versus queens and
kings) is robust, even when controlling for factors such as syllable structure and fre-
quency. Women and men also tend to be represented inequitably based on words used to
describe them, in terms of age (Moon, 2014), appearance (Caldas-Coulthard and Moon,
2010), and trends of labeling (Baker, 2010; Page, 2003; Pearce, 2008). Caldas-Coulthard
(1995) found a large discrepancy in the extent to which women’s and men’s voices were
reported in newspapers (the Guardian, the Independent, and The Times). With 76
instances of women speaking compared to 451 instances of men, she concludes that
‘there is a rhetoric of silencing and alienation at work in the way women are excluded
from speaking in the news’ (p. 235). Similarly, Gidengil and Everitt (2003) found that the
verbs used to report the speech of female Canadian politicians compared to their male
counterparts were aggressive and laden with negative affective meaning. For example,
hammer away and fire at were used only to report female candidates’ speech. The authors
Eberhardt 229

argue that the use of such verbs served to highlight the supposed combative nature of
female politicians in relation to their male opponents.
Corpus studies have also demonstrated that people still commonly indulge in the
fantasy that ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’; in other words, the prevail-
ing ideology is that the genders – and notice that crucially there are supposed to be two,
as the imposition of a binary system is central to this traditional belief (see, e.g.,
Motschenbacher and Stegu, 2013; Zimman et al., 2014) – are essentially different, and
that these differences are reflected in language. Such discrepancies accordingly appear
when women and men are being talked about. But when language use is examined, we
find, as Cameron (2006a) states, that ‘Men are from Earth, women are from Earth’.
Asymmetry in language, however, is not trivial, and it is important to understand the
unequal representation of females and males. Uncovering asymmetries can lead to
understanding how such differences contribute to gender imbalance in society; or, con-
versely, how more symmetrical representations work towards leveling out this
disparity.
Children’s fiction is a compelling site to excavate for gendered linguistic patterns.
Idealized representations found in fantasy worlds of books may exert a substantial influ-
ence on how young readers come to view the world, and help form ideas about gender-
appropriate behavior (Levorato, 2003; Nakamura, 2006; Zipes, 2006). Hunt (2015)
writes:
…these iterations and reiterations of ideas about gender are typically below the level
of consciousness, and therefore more difficult to resist, but contribute nonetheless to the
gradual accumulation of a set of norms, beliefs about how to be a girl, or how to be a boy,
made all the stronger through their normative relationship to existing traditional views
on gender. (p. 282)
This impels us to become more fully aware of the ways such representations are
crafted, which methods in corpus linguistics are well suited to achieve. Corpus tech-
niques enable the tabulation of frequencies to determine, for example, how much females
versus males use a particular word or group of words. Collocations, which ‘transmit
cultural meanings and stereotypes which have built up over time’ (Romaine, 2001: 160)
also figure importantly. Romaine demonstrated, for example, that the word spinster
(‘unmarried woman’) has particularly negative connotations because it often appears
with adjectives such as lonely and prim. Similar patterns have been found in the Bank of
English corpus, in which adjectives often contained descriptors of age and gender
entwined in their meaning (Caldas-Coulthard and Moon, 2010, 2016; Moon, 2014).
Harry Potter is a seven-book series (1997–2007) written by J.K. Rowling1 chroni-
cling the adventures of the title character. The success of Harry Potter has been phenom-
enal, with over 450 million copies sold, and translations in at least 68 languages
(Scholastic, 2016). For the release of each new installment, bookstores hosted hordes of
customers, often in costume, waiting eagerly for midnight, when they could finally pur-
chase the book. Merchandise with Harry Potter themes is available in Lego sets, under-
wear, and countless other items. To say that Harry Potter has been successful is a wild
understatement.
The series has also been subject to critical analysis, as scholars ask how the phenom-
enon reflects and contributes to ideologies of class, race, and gender (Anatol, 2003,
230 Language and Literature 26(3)

2009; Heilman, 2009; Whited, 2004). With regard to gender, Heilman and Donaldson
(2009) found greater representation of males in the series, with 201 mentioned by name,
compared to 115 females. Different authors submit the opposing interpretations that
female characters are portrayed as either empowered or disempowered figures. Dresang
(2002) and Zipes (2002) assert, for example, that the series uncritically reflects and
reproduces the patriarchal system. Furthermore, the books have been reproached for
their ‘superficial nod to gender equality’ (Yeo, 2004: 4), in the way Rowling provides
token examples of females in powerful or non-stereotypical roles (Professor McGonagall,
Bellatrix Lestrange), seemingly as an afterthought (Heilman, 2003; Heilman and
Donaldson, 2009). In contrast, Bell (2012: 8) proclaims that ‘Hermione…is symbolic of
those who refuse to accept femininity and feminism as arbitrary antonyms’ (see also
Gallardo-C and Smith, 2003; Mikulan, 2009). Such authors select particular scenes or
quotes for support, establishing, for example, that Hermione sometimes uses disempow-
ering language (she is hysterical, she whimpers), and other times is indispensable due to
her knowledge, quickness, and ability to perform complicated spells. Such research fails
to show the extent to which these elements are present: How much does Hermione speak
hysterically? Does Ron also whimper? In what other ways is gender represented to form
characters in readers’ minds? These questions form the basis of the present study, which
interrogates the representation of gender through language in the series.
Some linguistic work on gendered representations in Harry Potter has been done.
Sunderland (2010) examines a single scene from the first book, comparing Harry,
Hermione, and Ron in terms of their material processes (what they do) and semiotic
actions (what they say). Harry and Hermione use more transitive material verbs, exerting
agency to a greater extent than Ron. The three speak at roughly the same rates, but the
verbs unique to each of them show differentiation, with Hermione’s all being intense:
cried, shrieked, ordered, and screamed. Finally, Hermione and Ron use a comparable
number of imperative directives (Harry uses many more), though Harry and Ron also use
non-imperative directives, while Hermione uses none. Overall, Sunderland concludes
that ‘gender asymmetry is not contributed to significantly in the language of or about
Hermione, Ron, and Harry’ (p. 204). In contrast, Hunt’s (2015) exploration of body parts
and material actions in the full texts of three books reveals that females are passive and
ineffectual. Verbs that collocate with male body parts (hands, feet) are more likely to
show agency than female body parts, for example indicating ease of movement through
physical space (scrambling, leaping). Hunt concludes, ‘Females, as embodied entities in
the world of [Harry Potter], are systematically excluded from acting on the world in
powerful or meaningful ways and the message is clear: agency is not for girls’ (p. 282).
The current paper probes the series further, focusing on direct speech reporting verbs.
Such verbs paint a vivid picture of characters, exposing how the author intends the reader
to hear the speech and, thus, envision the speaker (Caldas-Coulthard, 1987, 1995; Geis,
1987; San Segundo, 2016; Semino and Short, 2004). Gidengil and Everitt (2003: 214)
write, ‘States of mind and motivations are attributed to the reported speaker through the
use of affectively charged verbs that evoke an emotional response and encourage a judg-
ment’. Sunderland (2010) notes that comparing any character to Harry would be inher-
ently biased, because other characters, particularly his sidekicks, are written to support
him. The goal of this work is two-pronged: firstly, to provide a broad look at the way
Eberhardt 231

Table 1.  Book titles and abbreviations used.

Book title (Harry Potter and the…) Year of publication Abbreviation

Sorcerer’s Stone 1997 SS
Chamber of Secrets 1999 CS
Prisoner of Azkaban 1999 PA
Goblet of Fire 2000 GF
Order of the Phoenix 2003 OP
Half-Blood Prince 2005 HP
Deathly Hallows 2007 DH

Harry’s female and male sidekicks, Hermione and Ron, are represented through speech,
and secondly, to deepen an understanding of these characters through closer analysis of
particular elements in the reporting verb phrases. Overall, the aim is to illuminate the
representation of gender through speech in the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter.

2. Data and methods

The entire set of seven books is considered here, a corpus of 1.1 million words.2 From
the earliest to most recent, Table 1 (Rowling, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2003, 2005,
2007) lists the titles and the abbreviations used hereafter.
The corpus was searched for the names ‘Hermione’ and ‘Ron’, in order to collect all
instances of direct speech attributed to them. Instances of ‘he’ or ‘she’ co-indexed with
these characters were also included. This provided a full profile of their representation
through speech, as opposed to searching for a selection of pre-chosen verbs. Only direct
speech reports were included, which are closest to actual interactions (Caldas-Coulthard,
1987). In fictional texts, direct speech conveys what a character has said transparently,
without being filtered through the perspective of the narrator or other characters (Leech
and Short, 2007; Semino and Short, 2004). Indirect speech, on the other hand, relays the
idea of an utterance, but it may not be verbatim, or even an accurate reproduction of the
original speech. Indirect speech was therefore excluded, as was any dialogue that had no
reporting verbs. In addition, some verbs (scream, yell) can report speech as well as vocal-
ization, which ‘describes merely the physical characteristics of a sound’ (Zwicky, 1971:
225). The two examples below of scream provide this contrast: in 1. Hermione’s scream
indicates that she made a noise, but not that she has spoken. In 2. this same verb is used
to report her speech directly.

1. The bolt was drawn back, the door creaked open, and Hagrid’s head appeared in
the gap. Hermione screamed. (OP)
2. She released Harry, leaned over the banister, and screamed, ‘Ron! RON! Get up
here, quick!’ (DH)

When such verbs designated vocalization, as in 1, they were excluded. Apart from these
exceptions, each verb of reported direct speech attributed to Hermione and/or Ron was
232 Language and Literature 26(3)

Table 2.  Verbs of reported speech (from Caldas-Coulthard, 1987).

Reporting
Neutral say, tell
Structuring ask, inquire, reply, answer
Metapropositional Assertive exclaim, mention, suggest, agree,
correct, counter
Directive urge, instruct, order
Expressive accuse, grumble, lament, confess,
complain, swear
Metalinguistic narrate, quote, recount
Descriptive
Prosodic cry, intone, shout, yell, scream
Paralinguistic Vocal qualifiers whisper, murmur, mutter
Vocal qualification giggle, sob, groan, sigh
Signaling discourse Relational repeat, echo, add, emend
Discourse progress pause, hesitate, pursue, go on, break off

identified, along with any verbal modifiers (said quietly, muttered irritably). Verbs were
categorized using Caldas-Coulthard’s (1987) taxonomy, detailed in Table 2.
Regarding gendered representations, metapropositional, prosodic, and paralinguistic
are the most relevant verb categories, as they provide a layer of meaning beyond indicat-
ing that direct speech is being reported, or how the speech relates to other parts of the
discourse. Metapropositional verbs (mention, agree) provide the illocutionary force for
the reader, so that ‘authors can ensure that readers interpret correctly what they are trying
to transmit’ (Caldas-Coulthard, 1987: 157). Prosodic verbs describe the pitch, loudness,
or duration (yell, scream), whereas paralinguistic verbs (whisper) mark the manner of
speech, and, in the case of voice qualification verbs (groan), indicate the speaker’s atti-
tude as well.

3. Results
Overall, Ron has slightly more reported speech verbs (n = 2154) than Hermione (n =
1937), reflecting the overall representation of gender in the series (Heilman and
Donaldson, 2009), and reminiscent of Caldas-Coulthard’s (1995) study of female and
male voices in newspaper reports, albeit much less extremely than the fivefold gendered
difference she uncovered there.
Looking at the series linearly, the numbers appear more evenly distributed, shown in
Figure 1. Ron has more direct speech reported in books 1 and 2, but the gap narrows in
books 3 and 4, and then Hermione’s numbers overtake his beginning in book 5. The dif-
ference between them is thus mostly accounted for by the earlier books, and looks insub-
stantial when viewing the trajectory of the series. Additionally, the characters have
almost exactly the same number of different verbs used to report their speech (Hermione
82, Ron 80). This diverges from Gidengil and Everitt (2003), who found a greater num-
ber of distinct verbs used to report female politicians’ speech.
Eberhardt 233

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
HP1 HP2 HP3 HP4 HP5 HP6 HP7

Hermione Ron

Figure 1.  Number of reported speech verbs for Hermione and Ron by book.

The ‘canonical neutral speech verbs’ (Bell, 1991: 206) say and tell simply report that
an utterance was made, and, as expected, account for the majority of the data (Caldas-
Coulthard, 1995; Sunderland, 2010). Neutral verbs account for 76.60% of Ron’s reported
speech verbs (1650/2154), and 72.74% (1409/1937) of Hermione’s. Though the differ-
ence is less pronounced between female and male here, this result is consistent with
Gidengil and Everitt’s (2003) finding of gender differences and neutral verbs in political
campaigns. Rowling thus mediates readers’ interpretation more for Hermione, a point
that will be returned to below.

4. Metapropositional verbs
As mentioned earlier, the verb categories that provide interpretation for the reader are metap-
ropositional (assertive, directive, expressive), prosodic, and paralinguistic (vocal qualifiers,
vocal qualification). In order to assess the relationship between character and verb type, a
two-way group-independence chi-square was performed. The chi-square statistic showed a
trend towards significance (χ2 = 9.978, df = 5, p = .076). The standardized residuals of this
test indicate that the difference responsible for this tendency lies in expressive verbs, which
convey the feelings of the speaker (e.g. complain). Ron shows more expressive verbs than
expected (standardized residual = 2.0), whereas Hermione shows fewer than expected
(standardized residual = –1.8). All other categories show no difference.

5. Verbs of aggressiveness
It is intriguing to find that there is virtually no difference between Hermione and Ron
with regard to the way their direct speech is reported, particularly in light of criticisms
234 Language and Literature 26(3)

leveled at Rowling for her representation of females (Cordova, 2015; Dresang, 2002;
Heilman, 2003; Yeo, 2004). Furthermore, as discussed earlier, the literature tackling
gender from a corpus linguistics perspective has demonstrated that females and males
are often represented in quite disparate ways (Baker, 2014; Caldas-Coulthard and
Moon, 2010; Hunt, 2015; Motschenbacher, 2013). There is additionally a substantial
body of literature demonstrating how children’s fiction reinforces the current gender
order, and is a powerful source of socialization into normative gendered behaviors
(Levorato, 2003; Sunderland, 2010; Zipes, 2006). While we should not necessarily
expect Rowling (or any author) to reproduce this trend, given the critical works which
have accused her of doing just this, it seems prudent to probe the question more
deeply of whether gendered representations in the novels are as symmetrical as the
previous result suggests.
While detailed and comprehensive, perhaps the verb categorization system collapses
a distinction that should be unpacked; after all, Caldas-Coulthard did not develop this
taxonomy specifically for gender (though she effectively applied it to gender in newspa-
per reports, discussed earlier). Gidengil and Everitt (2003), on the other hand, were inter-
ested in uncovering differences in gendered representations of speech in their experiment
testing the perceived aggressiveness of verbs. The authors asked participants to rate
verbs on a 5-point scale to indicate how aggressive they perceived the person whose
speech was reported. Half of the participants rated the speech of female ‘Jan Jones’,
while the other half rated male ‘John Jones’. Verbs were tested in individual sentences
with dummy subjects and the wording ‘such and such’, so that the content of the reported
speech would not affect the ratings of the verb itself. Verbs in Harry Potter were re-cat-
egorized according to this scheme. Not all verbs from the novels appeared in their exper-
iment. In such cases, the verbs were compared to Gidengil and Everitt’s lists to determine
the best categorization. The neutral verb say was not part of their experiment, for exam-
ple, but was similar in affect to verbs such as ask and agree, and thus labeled ‘non-
aggressive’. Similarly, barked did not appear in Gidengil and Everitt’s work, but was
comparable to lash out and shoot back and so was accordingly considered ‘aggressive’.
Sentences below provide examples of aggressive (3 and 4) and non-aggressive (5 and 6)
verbs from Harry Potter:

3. ‘What do you mean, “in there?” demanded Hermione, jumping down from the
bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted. (OP)
4. ‘Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?’ Hermione suggested
anxiously. (GF)
5. ‘You do it, then, if you’re so clever,’ Ron snarled. (SS)
6. ‘Half past eleven,’ Ron muttered at last, ‘we’d better go.’ (SS)

An additional chi-square test was run to determine whether the difference between
characters was significant according to this distinction. This test did reveal a significant
distinction between the two characters (χ2 = 24.88, df = 1, p < .005): Hermione uses
fewer aggressive verbs than expected (standardized residual = –3.5), while Ron uses
more than expected (standardized residual = 3.3). However, the effect size of the chi-
square (phi = –.078) reflects a weak measure that accounts for only 7.8% of variance in
Eberhardt 235

the data. Such a result indicates a significant difference, but with a very small effect size
that renders this difference insubstantial.
Neither verb categorization system, even the one devised precisely to capture gen-
dered differences in reports of direct speech, indicates quantitatively that there is
much of a difference in the way that Hermione and Ron are represented as speakers.
It may be that Rowling is striving for a less stereotypical representation of gender
and, given her attempt to show diversity at Hogwarts (Bell, 2016), this is indeed
likely. In fact, Rowling has spoken explicitly about the importance of Hermione in the
series. In an interview, she says, ‘My feminist conscience is saved by Hermione,
who’s the brightest character…I think we have a very strong female character in her’
(Oprah Magazine, 2001). It may be because of this that her characters’ speech more
closely reflects studies of how females and males actually talk as opposed to how they
are talked about. This finding runs contrary to feminist criticisms leveled at the series,
and contrasts sharply with the conclusions drawn by Hunt (2015). While this compre-
hensive view of the series provides a general profile of Hermione and Ron, and shows
far more similarities between them than differences, there is a danger that such a
broad view of the novels may ‘flatten out’ the data (Sunderland, 2010), burying
nuanced patterns within the texts. A more fine-grained analysis of the verbs used to
report Hermione and Ron’s speech complements this wide-lens view of gender repre-
sentation in the novels.

6. Unique verbs
In the scene from the first book, Sunderland (2010) found little difference between
Hermione and Ron (and Harry, who is not considered here); however, when she exam-
ined the verbs unique to each of the characters, compelling differences began to emerge.
The fact that Rowling selects particular verbs to report the speech of Hermione but not
Ron, and vice versa, suggests that these verbs somehow define or contribute to the types
of characters she is developing – or at least that such verbs help to draw a contrast
between them. In looking across the seven novels, the characters have an almost identical
number of unique verbs (34 for Hermione, 33 for Ron), which account for a very small
segment of their data (1.75% and 1.53%, respectively). A single use of a verb may be
incidental, so only unique verbs used at least three times are included in Table 3, as these
help identify a pattern of character representation.
As shown earlier, the snapshot that Sunderland (2010) provides from book 1 turns
into a trend when considering the entire series, and appears even more remarkable than
what she described there. With the exception of pressed on, all of Hermione’s unique
verbs are extreme, particularly in the way they evoke stereotypes of normative feminin-
ity. The verbs can be grouped into those that describe speech produced in a high-pitched
voice and suggest an element of fearfulness (scream, squeal, shriek, squeak), or those
that describe sadness and perhaps helplessness (wail, whimper). In contrast, most of
Ron’s unique verbs indicate an unequivocally low-pitched voice, which may be either
loud (bellow, roar) or under the breath, denoting emotional distance and disengagement
(mumble, grumble, grunt). It is not only Hermione’s speech that reproduces gendered
stereotypes; Ron’s does so just as much.
236 Language and Literature 26(3)

Table 3.  Unique verbs.

Hermione Ron

Verb Count Verb Count

screamed 18 bellowed 13
squealed 13 roared 10
shrieked 12 mumbled 8
squeaked 8 croaked 4
wailed 5 grumbled 4
whimpered 4 blurted 3
pressed on 3 grunted 3

‘While much has been made of Hermione’s propensity for bursting into tears and
cowering in the face of danger,’ Bell (2012) asserts, ‘in truth, Ron’s emotional outbursts,
whimpering and crying are just as common and much more central to his character –
Hermione’s are incidental’ (p. 7). It is interesting that Bell chose these two verbs to argue
his thesis; in point of fact, it is only Hermione who whimpers to speak, never Ron, and
while Ron casts a spell once over the course of seven years at Hogwarts using cry, this
verb is used many more times (n = 37) for Hermione, suggesting that these verbs are in
fact more central to her character than to his.3 As a reported speech verb, cry is used in
two main ways: to express heightened emotion (sorrow, excitement, surprise), or to pro-
duce a spell. Most of Hermione’s instances of cry indicate emotion (28/37 = 75%), par-
ticularly when she is upset or distressed (20/37 = 54%). This is exemplified in 7, in which
Hermione is exuberant about Harry’s news, her emotion emanating from cry, and rein-
forced with the modifier happily. In contrast, although Ron is also happy about Harry’s
achievement, the emotion stays out of his voice, his contribution reported with neutral
said, unmodified:

7. The day after this rather gloomy birthday tea, their letters and booklists arrived
from Hogwarts. Harry’s included a surprise: he had been made Quidditch Captain.
‘That gives you equal status with prefects!’ cried Hermione happily. ‘You can use
our special bathroom now and everything!’
‘Wow, I remember when Charlie wore one of these,’ said Ron, examining the
badge with glee. (HP)

In 8, Harry and Ron are arguing, while Hermione tries to defuse the situation.
Emotions are high for all three characters, but expressed dissimilarly among them:

8. ‘Take off the locket, Ron,’ Hermione said, her voice unusually high. ‘Please take
it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.’
‘Yeah, he would,’ said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. ‘D’you
think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think
I didn’t guess you were thinking this stuff?’
‘Harry, we weren’t—’
Eberhardt 237

‘Don’t lie!’ Ron hurled at her. ‘You said it too, you said you were disappointed,
you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than—’
‘I didn’t say it like that—Harry, I didn’t!’ she cried.
The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione’s face, and
the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a
short-lived firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and
cold. The sword of Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and they were
three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.
‘So why are you still here?’ Harry asked Ron.
‘Search me,’ said Ron.
‘Go home then,’ said Harry.
‘Yeah, maybe I will!’ shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who
did not back away. (DH)

While Harry and Ron are clearly angry at one another, their speech is mostly
reported with neutral said or structuring ask. Ron’s anger does come through in two
of his turns (hurled at, shouted), but each time Hermione’s speech is reported, her
manner of speaking is made explicit (cry, her voice unusually high). Further, not only
is Hermione’s speech glossed as emotional, she is literally crying as well. While the
boys are angry (and on the verge of a physical altercation), the emotion sanctioned for
the girl is to be upset.
The nestling of emotion within cry also spills over into its use for spell-casting. When
a character uses cry for a magical incantation, it suggests that the spell was performed in
a loud, high-pitched voice, laden with emotion. Throughout the books, Ron uses cry only
one time to cast a spell (SS). It would be interesting to explore why he does not use cry
more frequently to perform magic, and what verbs he tends to use instead for spell-
casting, though this cannot be addressed here.
The following example illustrates Hermione using cry to cast a spell. Although
Hermione is the smartest and often the most magically capable of the three, she falters
under the pressure of the situation. Her emotion is given greater focus in comparison to
Ron’s straightforward question.

9. Ron and Hermione pointed their wands at it too, so that the little golden cup spar-
kled in a three-way spotlight: the cup that had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff,
which had passed into the possession of Hepzibah Smith, from whom it had been
stolen by Tom Riddle.
‘And how the hell are we going to get up there without touching anything?’ asked
Ron.
‘Accio Cup!’ cried Hermione, who had evidently forgotten in her desperation
what Griphook had told them during their planning sessions. (DH)

Figure 2 details Hermione’s unique verbs (plus cry). Not only is her use of cry notable
for its overall occurrence, but also for the fact that its frequency rises throughout the
series, with a large increase in book 7 (along with scream, though this increase is less
marked).
238 Language and Literature 26(3)

Hermione
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
HP1 HP2 HP3 HP4 HP5 HP6 HP7
cry scream squeal squeak
shriek wail whimper connue

Figure 2.  Use of unique verbs across the series for Hermione.

Ron
10

0
HP1 HP2 HP3 HP4 HP5 HP6 HP7

bellow mumble roar croak

grumble advise blurt (out) grunt

Figure 3.  Use of unique verbs across the series for Ron.

None of Ron’s unique verbs show a noticeable rise throughout time (Figure 3). The
increase in cry and scream corresponds to Hermione’s development – as she enters the
‘heterosexual marketplace’ (Eckert, 2006) and forms a romantic relationship with Ron,
she engages in more stereotypical heteronormative behaviors (Pugh and Wallace, 2006),
a change accordingly reflected in her speech. Sunderland (2010) predicted that
Hermione’s semiotic representation would change over the course of the series, and this
is borne out in the case of these two verbs.
Eberhardt 239

Table 4.  Verbs with disproportional distribution.

Hermione Ron
gasped 21 7
muttered 10 51
shouted 12 24
snapped 24 14
whispered 106 37
yelled 2 33

There are several other verbs that both characters share, but which, like cry, have
disproportional allocations. As Table 4 shows, on the whole, these verbs portray
Ron’s speech as loud (yell, shout) and Hermione’s as quiet (whisper). Ron’s more
frequent use of mutter articulates with the characterization reflected in his unique
verbs (mumbled, grumbled, and grunted), though it is an exception to this trend of
volume differences. Finally, gasp and snap conjure ideas of the speaker as emo-
tional and quick to react in fear, shock, or anger, traits associated more closely with
Hermione than Ron.
One final set of verbs further underlines the normative script of how females and
males ought to behave – and speak. Both characters use the metapropositional suggest
and demand, though their ensuing pattern is intriguing. The most frequent of Ron’s
metapropositional verbs is demand (16/61 = 26.22%); suggest, on the other hand,
accounts for 9.83% of this category (n = 6/61). In contrast, suggest is the most common
of Hermione’s metapropositional verbs (8/53 = 16.36%), while demand accounts for
11.32% (6/53), the exact inverse pattern to Ron’s. Such a contrast, though subtle, echoes
the familiar ideologies that women are passive, men are assertive; women are coopera-
tive and men are competitive – precisely the kind of thinking promoted in popular works
such as You Just Don’t Understand (Tannen, 1990), contributing to the seemingly
unchanging mindset that women and men are fundamentally different, and speak differ-
ently as a reflection of their essential qualities.

7. Verbal modification
As previously mentioned, Hermione’s speech is mediated to a greater extent than Ron’s,
by the greater number of non-neutral reporting verbs attributed to her when compared to
him. This trend is also evident when considering verbal modification. It is especially
common for authors to modify neutral reporting verbs, precisely because they otherwise
offer no sense of how the speech was performed. Overall, 39.90% of Hermione’s reported
speech verbs are modified (773/1937), compared to 30.73% of Ron’s (662/2154). Among
neutral verbs, the gap widens: 48.19% of Hermione’s neutral verbs (679/1409) are modi-
fied, compared to 34.96% of Ron’s (577/1650). Table 5 lists the adverbial modifiers that
were used uniquely (at least three times) for Hermione’s and Ron’s speech.
Table 5 further sheds light on the contrast Rowling ultimately creates between
Hermione and Ron, reproducing stereotypical ideologies of gender. Given that Hermione
240 Language and Literature 26(3)

Table 5.  Unique adverbial modifiers.

Hermione Ron
shrilly 10 incredulously 7
briskly 9 hoarsely 6
coolly 8 bracingly 4
timidly 8 doubtfully 3
coldly 6 jerkily 3
severely 4 savagely 3
sadly 5 sleepily 3
seriously 4  
loftily 3  
tartly 3  

is widely considered the ‘brains of the operation’ – she reads, remembers, and generally
knows more than other characters (Bell, 2012) – we might expect the modifiers applied
to her verbs to indicate just that. The modifiers unique to Hermione instead tend to
describe how she feels rather than what she knows, indicating the emotional state in
which she produced the utterance. Only seriously provides an epistemic layer of mean-
ing; the rest all indicate her affective state, which is most often negative (e.g. angry,
fearful). In 10, Hermione is annoyed with Ron, who is staring at a girl and wondering
whether she is a ‘veela’ (a mythical, captivatingly beautiful female creature). The modi-
fier tartly conveys her annoyance and her jealousy of Ron’s interest in another girl.

10. ‘Of course she isn’t!’ said Hermione tartly. ‘I don’t see anyone else gaping at her
like an idiot!’ (GF)

In 11 Hermione wants Harry to secretly teach fellow students defensive magic, and tries
to appease him after he has become angry about the suggestion.

11. ‘Harry,’ she said timidly, ‘don’t you see? This … this is exactly why we need you
….We need to know what it’s r-really like … facing him … facing V-Voldemort.’
(OP)

In the case of Ron’s unique adverbial modifiers, the opposite is true, most having to
do with knowledge rather than emotions. In 12, Ron asserts rather assuredly that what
Harry has seen in his sleep is nothing more than a dream. In 13, while hoarsely conveys
some worry, the main thrust of Ron’s comment is to relay the severity of the situation,
rather than to show his fear. Overall, the characters’ speech modifiers summon tropes of
the emotional female in contradistinction to the rational male.

12. ‘It was only a dream,’ said Ron bracingly. ‘Just a nightmare.’ (GF)
13. ‘We’re in trouble now,’ he said hoarsely. ‘No Dumbledore. They might as well
close the school tonight. There’ll be an attack a day with him gone.’ (CS)
Eberhardt 241

In this latter section, a closer analysis of the corpus reveals that the meaning of Hermione’s
speech is manufactured for the reader to a greater extent than Ron’s. Such a tendency,
consistent with findings in other studies of speech verbs (Caldas-Coulthard, 1995;
Gidengil and Everitt, 2003), reflects a larger cultural pattern which tolerates and supports
the surveillance of the way women look, act, and speak. Regarding physical appearance,
Bell (2012) contends that Rowling provides scant information about Hermione’s looks,
which he welcomes as a refreshing change from the usual tendency to dwell on female
characters’ looks. Conversely, Heilman (2003) convincingly argues that Rowling pro-
vides great detail about the appearance of Hermione and other females. While it may be
true, as Bell asserts that, ‘Hermione’s looks aren’t really the point. Her abilities are’ (p.
9), they matter enough to be included and evaluated. Her looks do not reflect normative
standards of female beauty (bushy hair, large front teeth – until she allows them to be
magically reduced), and she is not regarded as pretty by her peers (when Hermione puts
concentrated effort into her looks for the Yule Ball (GF), she is initially unrecognizable
as ‘a pretty girl in blue robes Harry didn’t know’). The abundance of description attached
to Hermione’s speech is seated within this cultural preoccupation with female appear-
ance and behavior. The frequency with which Rowling describes the manner of
Hermione’s talk imposes a clear picture of what she sounds like when she speaks, and
how her speech should be interpreted. In this way, Rowling injects a more well-defined
image of Hermione in the reader’s mind, reflective of the larger societal tendency that
encourages a strong, evaluative gaze fixated on females, and the greater overall impor-
tance of appearance for women.
These findings suggest several avenues for future considerations of Harry Potter.
This study has looked at only Hermione and Ron as Harry’s sidekicks. A next step would
be to extend this to other characters that figure prominently in the series. A preliminary
analysis of the reported speech of Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom suggests that
there is much to discuss surrounding more peripheral characters as well. Another inter-
esting future line of investigation would be to consider how the verbs unique to Hermione
and Ron are used for other characters, or to catalog all the unique verbs used in the series,
to further understand how Rowling enriches character profiles through speech, particu-
larly with respect to gendered representations. Furthermore, studies are needed that
tackle the actual uptake of such representations (Sunderland, 2010; Zipes, 2002), in
Harry Potter and other fictional works, to understand how young readers in particular
absorb such representations of gender (or do not).

8. Conclusions
In summary, more similarities than differences obtain between Hermione and Ron when
Harry Potter is considered on a wide scale. The two characters share much in common
– they are central characters to the story, they share the same goal, they are each one third
of the ‘golden trio’. Baker (2014) cautions that, ‘We are primed to notice and report dif-
ference, and this may mean that we superficially interpret quantitative findings, over-
focusing on differences while underplaying similarities’ (p. 43). It is not the intention to
reproduce this trend here, and thus it should be emphasized that the larger picture is one
of sameness. Furthermore, we may question how much we can attribute these findings to
242 Language and Literature 26(3)

gender, particularly since only two characters are considered (Swann, 2002). The pat-
terns of representation may be idiosyncratic, and in fact do not have bearing on our
understanding of gendered representations. However, the fine-grained patterns uncov-
ered, which echo findings from other studies and reflect easily recognizable stereotypes,
strongly suggest that these character representations do indeed have relevance for dia-
logue about gender. Though the differences between Hermione and Ron are quantita-
tively minimal (cry, for example, accounts for 1.9% of the total of Hermione’s reported
speech verbs; bellow is responsible for only 0.6% of all of Ron’s), they are impactful. As
Stubbs (2001) writes, ‘Repeated patterns show that evaluative meanings are not merely
personal and idiosyncratic, but widely shared in the discourse community. A word,
phrase or construction may trigger a cultural stereotype’ (p. 215). Furthermore, it doesn’t
take many such instances for traditional gender lore to be reinforced. It is not only the
individual words that are noteworthy, but also the trend of difference – indeed, opposites
– that Rowling (re)creates between Hermione and Ron: quiet / loud, high-pitched / low-
pitched, cooperative / competitive, emotional / rational, affective / epistemic expression.
The continual construction of female and male in such contrastive terms reifies the
notion that females and males are polarized, on opposite sides of the binary.
Because these trends fit the cultural script of gender difference, such distinctions are
magnified in the minds of critics and readers – the gendered discourses are familiar, and
thus taken as confirmation of the common-sense notion that women and men are funda-
mentally different. Traditional representations of idealized, fictitious characters such as
those presented in Harry Potter help to recirculate already entrenched gender ideologies.
Cameron (2006b) captures this particularly effectively: ‘People learn what is considered
normal and desirable femininity or masculinity from representations as well as from
first-hand observation and experience; indeed, representations may be even more power-
ful in forming desires and identifications just because they are idealized’ (p. 15). People,
children especially, reading these books and faced with such representations, however
subtly they are codified in discourse, have yet another example of the idealized gender
binary in front of them, which constructs girls and boys as different, and such differences
as natural and essential.
The US recently endured a heated campaign, during which people commented, often
negatively, on the speech and physical appearance of Hillary Clinton, the first female
presidential nominee of a major party in the country’s history:

14. ‘I’m sorry to dwell on the tone issue but there is something here where Hillary
Clinton suggests that she is almost not comfortable with herself…She could
make a case for herself if she would just kind of lower the temperature…and kind
of get off this screaming stuff.’ (Journalist Bob Woodward on MSNBC’s Morning
Joe, 3 February 2016)4
15. ‘[Hillary’s] vitriolic, shrill, shrewish ranting should have been turned around
back on herself…’ (Caller to NPR’s On Point, 4 June 2016)

It is no coincidence that Clinton is described as screaming and speaking shrilly, and that
these words feature prominently in Hermione’s character profile. Such words become
activated for descriptions of a woman, whether or not she is screaming or being shrill;
Eberhardt 243

conversely, they are virtually never applied to a man, whether or not he is screaming or
being shrill. Each instance of such descriptions of Clinton further cements for listeners
the idea that women are prone to being shrill and screaming; each appearance in Harry
Potter further embeds this ideological notion for readers. While Hermione may save
Rowling’s ‘feminist conscience’, what Rowling reinserts into the consciousness with
even small numbers, even single uses, of such strongly gendered words, is a reinscribing
of stereotypes which serve only to further uphold and promote the unequal gender order.

Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to Guillermo Rodríguez for assistance with this project. I also thank Chris
Torossian, Joy Levine, and Sara McGee. Additionally, two anonymous reviewers and Editor Geoff
Hall provided invaluable feedback. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Notes
1. Joanna Rowling chose to publish using her initials, fearing that potential audiences, boys
especially, would not read the books if the author was known to be a woman.
2. The author’s personal copies of the American versions of the novels were utilized to perform
the searches.
3. Considering all uses of whimper in the corpus, Ron makes a noise described as a ‘whimper’
three times, though Rowling never uses it to report Ron’s speech. Hermione uses it eight
times: four as reported speech, once in response to pain, and three times in fear.
4. Transcripts are lightly edited to remove elements such as false starts.

References
Anatol GL (ed.) (2003) Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Anatol GL (ed.) (2009) Reading Harry Potter Again: New Critical Essays. Santa Barbara, CA:
Praeger.
Baker P (2010) Will Ms ever be as frequent as Mr?: A corpus-based comparison of gendered terms
across four diachronic corpora of British English. Gender and Language 4(1): 125–149.
Baker P (2014) Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury.
Bell A (1991) The Language of News Media. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Bell C (2012) Introduction. In: Bell C (ed.) Hermione Granger Saves the World: Essays on the
Feminist Heroine of Hogwarts. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, pp.1–15.
Bell C (ed.) (2016) Wizards vs. Muggles: Essays on Identity and the Harry Potter Universe.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Bucholtz M (1999) ‘Why be normal?’: Language and identity practices in a community of nerd
girls. Language in Society 28(2): 203–223.
244 Language and Literature 26(3)

Caldas-Coulthard C (1987) Reported speech in written narrative texts. In: Coulthard M (ed.)
Discussing Discourse. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, pp.149–167.
Caldas-Coulthard C (1995) Man in the news: The misrepresentation of women speaking in news-
as-narrative discourse. In: Mills S (ed.) Language and Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
New York: Longman, pp.226–239.
Caldas-Coulthard C and Moon R (2010) ‘Curvy, hunky, kinky’: Using corpora as tools for critical
analysis. Discourse & Society 21(2): 99–133.
Caldas-Coulthard C and Moon R (2016) Grandmother, gran, gangsta granny: Semiotic representa-
tions of grandmotherhood. Gender and Language 10(3): 309–339.
Cameron D (1992) Feminism and Linguistic Theory. New York, NY: St Martin’s Press.
Cameron D (2006a) On Language and Sexual Politics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cameron D (2006b) Theorising the female voice in public contexts. In: Baxter J (ed.) Speaking
Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan,
pp.3–20.
Cordova M (2015) ‘Because I’m a girl, I suppose!’: Gender lines and narrative perspective in
Harry Potter. Mythlore 33(2): 19–33.
Dresang E (2002) Hermione Granger and the heritage of gender. In: Whited L (ed.) The Ivory
Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. Columbia, MO: University
of Missouri Press, pp.211–242.
Eckert P (2006) Vowels and nailpolish: The emergence of linguistic style in the preadolescent
hetereosexual marketplace. In: Cameron D and Kulick D (eds) Language and Sexuality: A
Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.189–195.
Eckert P and McConnell-Ginet S (1992) Think practically and look locally: Language and gender
as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461–490.
Gallardo-C X and Smith C (2003) Cinderfella: J.K. Rowling’s wily web of gender. In: Anatol GL
(ed.) Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, pp.191–205.
Geis M (1987) The Language of Politics. New York, NY: Springer.
Gidengil E and Everitt J (2003) Talking tough: Gender and reported speech in campaign news
coverage. Political Communication 20(3): 209–232.
Gomard K and Kunøe M (2003) Equal before the law – Unequal in language. In: Hellinger M
and Buβmann H (eds) Gender Across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Men and
Women (Volume 3). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp.59–85.
Gray J (2004) Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding
the Opposite Sex. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Heilman E (2003) Blue wizards and pink witches: Representations of gender identity and power.
In: Heilman E (ed.) Harry Potter’s World: Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives. New
York, NY: Routledge, pp.221–239.
Heilman E (ed.) (2009) Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2nd edition). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Heilman E and Donaldson T (2009) From sexist to (sort-of) feminist representations of gender in
the Harry Potter series. In: Heilman E (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2nd edi-
tion). New York, NY: Routledge, pp.139–161.
Holmes J (2001) A corpus-based view of gender in New Zealand English. In: Hellinger M and
Buβmann H (eds) Gender Across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Men and
Women (Volume 1). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp.115–136.
Hunt S (2015) Representations of gender and agency in the Harry Potter series. In: Baker P and
McEnery T (eds) Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora. New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.266–284.
Lakoff R (1975) Language and Woman’s Place. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Eberhardt 245

Leech G and Short M (2007) Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Levorato A (2003) Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Maltz D and Borker R (1983) A cultural approach to male–female miscommunication. In: Gumperz
J (ed.) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.196–216.
Mendoza-Denton N (2008) Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth
Gangs. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Mikulan K (2009) Harry Potter through the focus of feminist literary theory: Examples of (un)
founded criticism. The Journal of International Social Research 2(9): 288–298.
Mills S (2008) Language and Sexism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moon R (2014) From gorgeous to grumpy: Adjectives, age, and gender. Gender and Language,
8(1): 5–41.
Motschenbacher H (2013) Gentlemen before ladies? A corpus-based study of conjunct order in
personal binomials. Journal of English Linguistics 41(3): 212–242.
Motschenbacher H and Stegu M (2013) Queer linguistic approaches to discourse. Discourse &
Society 24(5): 519–535.
Nakamura M (2006) Creating indexicality: Schoolgirl speech in Meiji Japan. In: Cameron D and
Kulick D (eds) The Language and Sexuality Reader. New York, NY: Routledge, pp.270–284.
Oprah Magazine (2001) J.K. Rowling’s books that made a difference. Available at: www.oprah.
com/omagazine/JK-Rowlings-Books-That-Made-a-Difference (accessed 5 June 2016).
Page R (2003) ‘Cherie: lawyer, wife, mum’: Contradictory patterns of representation in media
reports of Cherie Booth/Blair. Discourse & Society 14(5): 559–579.
Pearce M (2008) Investigating the collocational behavior of MAN and WOMAN in the BNC using
Sketch Engine. Corpora 3(1): 1–29.
Pugh T and Wallace D (2006) Heteronormative heroism and queering the school story in J. K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 31(3): 260–281.
Romaine S (2001) A corpus-based view of gender in British and American English. In: Hellinger
M and Buβmann H (eds) Gender Across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Men
and Women (Volume 1). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp.153–175.
Rowling JK (1997) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (1999a) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (1999b) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (2000) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (2003) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (2005) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York, NY: AA Levine.
Rowling JK (2007) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York, NY: AA Levine.
San Segundo PR (2016) A corpus-stylistic approach to Dickens’ use of speech verbs: Beyond mere
reporting. Language and Literature 25(2): 113–129.
Scholastic (2016) About the series. Available at: http://harrypotter.scholastic.com/series_informa-
tion/ (accessed 2 August 2016).
Semino E and Short M (2004) Corpus Stylistics: Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a
Corpus of English Writing. New York, NY: Routledge.
Shibamoto Smith J (2003) Gendered structures in Japanese. In: Hellinger M and Buβmann H (eds)
Gender Across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Men and Women (Volume 3).
Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp.201–226.
Spender D (1998) Man Made Language. New York, NY: Pandora.
Stubbs M (2001) Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Sunderland J (2010) Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction. London: Continuum.
246 Language and Literature 26(3)

Sutton L (1995) Bitches and skankly hobags: The place of women in contemporary slang. In: Hall
K and Bucholtz M (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self.
New York, NY: Routledge, pp.279–296.
Swann J (2002) Yes, but is it gender? In: Litosseliti L and Sunderland J (eds) Gender Identity and
Discourse Analysis. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp.43–67.
Tannen D (1990) You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York, NY:
Quill.
Whited L (ed.) (2004) The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon.
Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
Yeo M (2004) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Feminist interpretations/Jungian dreams.
SIMILE: Studies In Media & Information Literacy Education 4(1): 1–10.
Zimman L, Davis J and Raclaw J (eds) (2014) Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in
Language, Gender, and Sexuality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Zipes J (2002) Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature from Slovenly
Peter to Harry Potter. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zipes J (2006) Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the
Process of Civilization. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zwicky A (1971) In a manner of speaking. Linguistic Inquiry 2(2): 223–233.

Author biography
Maeve Eberhardt is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Vermont. Her
research focuses on race, gender, sexuality, and the way in which these identities intersect and are
performed in language and represented in various media, including literature, television and popu-
lar music.