This research is conducted to describe the types of request expressions which are employed by the characters in the film entitled Bridesmaids on Tsui’s theory and the politeness strategy of Brown and Levinson as the choice of characters to express request.
The research uses pragmatics approach with the request expressions as the scope of the analysis. This research is a descriptive qualitative research with purposive sampling technique. The dialogues which contain request expressions are taken as the data. There are nine teen data which represent the criteria. The data are analyzed with Tsui’s theory of request expressions and Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness.
The result shows that the total data of the research are nineteen data. There are four types of request expressions, namely request for action with fourteen data (73,69%), request for permission with three data (15,79%), offer and invitation with each one datum (5,26%). In request for action, it prospects addressee’s action and it is for the speaker’s benefit. The same as request for action, request for permission prospects to the speaker’s benefit and it is difficult for the hearer to refuse the request. Different from request for permission, the action of offer is prospected by the speaker’s request utterance which will be carried out by the speaker for the hearer’s benefit. While in invitation, the speaker asks the hearer to go somewhere.
Politeness strategies are also applied by the characters in the film entitled Bridesmaids to deliver their requests. There are two types of politeness strategies which are applied by the characters in the film entitled Bridesmaids, namely positive politeness with twelve data (63,16%), and negative politeness with seven data (36,84%). Moreover, the context of situation that happens in the conversation is the factor that causes the characters in choosing the politeness strategy which is employed in the request expressions.
Keywords: request expressions, speech act, politeness strategy, film.