Ted Townsend from CEO in San Francisco. She asks Becky to give the phone number of Ted Townsend. The dialogue is presented below.
Becky : Also, these just arrived from Ted Townsend. Here‘s the card.
Jules : reading the card
Get me Townsend’s number will you?
Datum 35 Jules directly asks Becky to give the number of Ted Townsend. She says
Get me Townsend’s number will you? It is an imperative strategy that is applied
in this utterance because the request is stated clearly and imposes the requestee to carry out the request. The intention from this utterance is obviously seen that Jules
wants the number of Ted Townsend. She wants to call Ted Townsend to say thank
for the bouquet. By adding will you?, the request becomes polite and pleasant for
the requestee to accept the request.
3. The Purposes of Request Applied by the Main Characters in The Intern
The purposes of request are request for goods, request for initiation of action, request for cessation of action, and request for joint activity. These
purposes are applied by the main characters in this movie.
a. Request for goods
There are 2 occurrences of request for goods in The Intern. The purpose of request for good is to request someone to take some stuff or goods as a wish from
the requester. It is achieved when the requestee can comply the request. An example of request for goods is held
in Jules‘s house. The dialogue involves Jules and her husband, Matt. Jules arrives at home. Matt welcomes
Jules‘s arrival. Then, Matt asks about the story in San Francisco which is about
her meeting with the CEO. Jules does not give enough answer because she is tired. However, she still wants to talk to Matt.
Jules : Do we have any, like, real booze, like vodka or something?
Matt : Yeah…taking a glass of liquor and giving it to Jules
Datum 34
When the conversation happens, Jules asks Matt by saying Do we have any, like, real booze, like vodka or something?
Jules formulates her utterance to ask Matt to take a drink for her before telling about the CEO. Matt responds the
request by giving her a glass of liquor. Then, they are talking about CEO and diverting the topic to the marriage. This request belongs to request for goods since
it refers to a glass of liquor which is requested by Jules. A drink represents something which is taken by Matt.
Another example happens in the conversation of Jules, Ben, and Jules‘s
close coworker, Cameron. The setting is in Jules‘s private room. When Jules and Cameron are talking about hiring a CEO, Ben comes to her room. It disturbs the
conversati on between Jules and Cameron. Actually, Ben is asked to take Jules‘s
jacket as an order by Becky. Ben
: Excuse me. Cameron and Jules turn to see Ben standing in the
doorway. Jules quickly recovers. I apologize but Becky said you needed something taken care of on your jacket...
Jules : Oh, right —
Datum 8
By saying I apologize but Becky said you needed something taken care of...on your jacket...
. Ben implicitly states the request that he wants to take Jules‘s
jacket. A jacket represents a something or good which is taken by Ben, thus, this
purpose of request is called request for goods. Jules intends to give her jacket to Ben in order to clean up the mess on the jacket.
b. Request for initiation of action
