REQUEST STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY MALE AND FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

Abstract

This study concerns with pragmatics, especially request strategies employed by male and female characters in The Devil Wears Prada. It is interesting to analyze this movie because almost all of this movie setting took place in the workplace and the request is a particularly important speech acts in a workplace where workers must give directions to each other. Besides, social status can be found easier in a workplace. Moreover, it is conducted to reveal the request strategies of six selected characters that have different statuses in The Devil Wears Prada and to investigate the correlations between the different request strategies employed by six characters in the movie with gender and social status. The analysis uses Blum Kulka et al (1989) classification of request strategies which lead to find out the types of request. The study applies qualitative research method. In this research the data which are used to be analyzed are acquired from the trusted website (http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/devil_wears_prada.pdf) accessed on February 22nd 2013. The data which are taken are only the utterances that consist of requests, used by the three male and female characters in the movie. Blum Kulka et al (1989) classify nine categories of request strategies starting from direct request to inconventionally indirect request. From the classification of request strategies, it can be found the request strategies used mostly by three male and three female characters with different statuses. The results of this study show that direct request strategy is used mostly by male and female characters with different statuses, except the male subordinate used direct request strategy as equal as indirect request strategy.