Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Pop Culture
Vol. 2:1 (2026) ► pp.31–53

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Reporting verbs and perception of femininity/masculinity in Harry Potter’s Hermione

A reader-response study of characterisation

ORCiD logo with link | University of Insubria
ORCiD logo with link | University of Nottingham
Published online: 26 August 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlpop.25004.mas
Abstract
This study explores the relationship between reporting verbs and characterisation. It adopts a reader-response approach to test whether reporting verbs have an effect on readers’ perception of a character. Using data collected through a questionnaire, we investigate readers’ perceptions of Hermione’s feminine and masculine traits in a set of extracts from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Two versions of the questionnaire are used; they both present the same passages but in the original version Hermione’s speech is reported with stereotypically gendered verbs like shrieked, screamed, and squealed, while in the manipulated version the more general option said is employed. The comparative analysis of ratings for feminine and masculine traits shows whether the type of reporting verb used influences readers’ perception of femininity and masculinity in Hermione. This study offers two interconnected contributions: first, it provides some empirical evidence on the role of textual features — reporting verbs more specifically — in the characterisation process; second, it sheds some light on the potential of reporting verbs to influence gender representation as perceived by real readers. While doing so, this paper also adds to the critical discussion of Harry Potter more generally, contributing with data-based insights to the highly debated issue of gender representation in the novels.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reporting verbs and gender representation
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Results and discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (32)
References
Bell, A., Browse, S., Gibbons, A., & Peplow, D. (2021). Style and reader response: Minds, media, methods. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bell, C. (2012). Introduction. In C. Bell (Ed.), Hermione Granger saves the world: Essays on the feminist heroine of Hogwarts (pp. 1–15). McFarland & Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(2), 155–162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bortolussi, M., & Dixon, P. (2002). Psychonarratology: Foundations for the empirical study of literary response. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Čermáková, A., & Mahlberg, M. (2018). Translating fictional characters — Alice and the Queen from the Wonderland in English and Czech. In A. Čermáková & M. Mahlberg (Eds.), The corpus linguistics discourse: In honour of Wolfgang Teubert (pp. 223–253). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cordova, M. (2015). “Because I’m a girl, I suppose!” Gender lines and narrative perspective in Harry Potter. Mythlore, 33(2), 19–33. [URL]
Culpeper, J. (2001). Language and characterisation: People in plays and other texts. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Reflections on a cognitive stylistic approach to characterisation. In G. Brône & J. Vandaele (Eds.), Cognitive poetics: Goals, gains, and gaps, 125–159. Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dresang, E. (2002). Hermione Granger and the heritage of gender. In L. Whited (Ed.), The ivory tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a literary phenomenon, 211–242). University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eberhardt, M. (2017). Gendered representations through speech: The case of the Harry Potter series. Language and Literature, 26(3), 227–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gallardo, C. X., & Smith, C. (2003). Cinderfella: J. K. Rowling’s wily web of gender. In G. L. Anatol (Ed.), Reading Harry Potter: Critical essays (pp. 191–205). Praeger. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geldenhuys, M., & Bosh, A. (2020). A Rash adapted version of the 30-item Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Journal of Personality Assessment, 102(3), 428–439. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heilman, E. E., & Donaldson, T. (2009). From sexist to (sort-of) feminist representations of gender in the Harry Potter series. In E. E. Heilman (Ed.), Critical perspectives on Harry Potter, 139–161. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, J., & Meyerhoff, M. (Eds.) (2003). The handbook of language and gender. Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunt, S. (2015). Representations of gender and agency in the Harry Potter series. In P. Baker & T. McEnery (Eds.), Corpora and discourse studies: Integrating discourse and corpora, 266–284. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kassambara, A. (2023). rstatix: Pipe-friendly framework for basic statistical tests. R package version 0.7.2, [URL]
Mastropierro, L. (2020). The translation of reporting verbs in Italian: The case of the Harry Potter series. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 25(2), 241–269. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mastropierro, L., & Conklin, K. (2019). Racism and dehumanisation in Heart of Darkness and its Italian translations: A reader response analysis. Language and Literature, 28(4), 309–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021). Racial slurs and perception of racism in Heart of Darkness. Journal of Literary Semantics, 50(1), 25–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). What triggers perceptions of racism in Heart of Darkness? A reader-response analysis. Language and Literature, 32(4), 437–457. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mastropierro, L., & Grabovski, Ł. (2024). Repeated reporting verbs in English novels and their Italian and Polish translations: A preliminary multifactorial study. Across Languages and Cultures, 25(2), 310–330. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzuca, C., Majid, A., Lugli, L., Nicoletti, R., & Borghi, A. M. (2020). Gender is a multifaceted concept: Evidence that specific life experiences differentially shape the concept of gender. Language and Cognition, 12(4), 649–678. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mikulan, K. (2009). Harry Potter through the focus of feminist literary theory: Examples of (un)founded criticism. Journal of International Social Research, 2(9), 288–298. [URL]
Nemesio, A., Levorato, C., & Ronconi, L. (2010). The reader in the text: The construction of literary characters. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 29(1), 89–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palmer, A. (2004). Fictional minds. University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peplow, D., & Carter, R. (2014). Stylistics and real readers. In M. Burke (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of stylistics, 440–454. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pugh, T., & Wallace, D. (2006). Heteronormative heroism and queering the school storyin J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 31(3), 260–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruano San Segundo, P. (2016). A corpus-stylistic approach to Dickens’ use of speech verbs: Beyond mere reporting. Language and Literature, 25(2), 113–129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Reporting verbs as a stylistic device in the creation of fictional personalities in literary texts. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, 39(2), 105–124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018a). An analysis of Charles Dickens’s gender-based use of speech verbs. Gender & Language, 12(2), 192–217. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018b). Dickens’s hyperbolic style revisited: Verbs that describe sounds made by animals used to report the words of male villains. Style, 52(4), 475–493. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitley, S., & Canning, P. (2017). Reader response research in stylistics. Language and Literature, 26(2), 71–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue