论文总字数：31392字

摘 要

近年来，随着世界经济和科技的快速发展，跨国交流正变得越来越普遍。然而，来自不同国家的人们在交流时，常常因为不能合理表达自己的想法而导致语用失误。本论文旨在研究跨文化交际中的语用失误，以及应对策略。论文就此话题分了三个部分讨论：首先，为了对语用失误有较好的理解，简要介绍了跨文化交际中语用失误的基本知识：语用失误的定义和语用失误的特征；其次，找出导致语用失误的原因；再次，就增强避免语用失误的能力给出建议，以帮助英语学习者与他人交流。

关键词：语用失误，跨文化交际，策略

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................i

Abstract (English)........................................................................................................ii

Abstract (Chinese)......................................................................................................iii

I. Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 The purpose of this paper 1

II. Literature Review 2

2.1 Previous studies at home and abroad 2

2.2 Problems in previous studies 3

III. Cross–cultural study on pragmatic failure 4

3.1 Classification of pragmatic failure 4

3.1.1 Intercultural pragmatic failure in addressing 4

3.1.2 Intercultural pragmatic failure in greeting 5

3.1.3 Intercultural pragmatic failure in complimenting 6

3.1.4 Intercultural pragmatic failure in inviting and apologizing 8

3.2 Reasons for pragmatic failure 10

3.2.1 Cultural difference 10

3.2.2 Negative transfer of the mother language 11

IV. Strategies to English Learners 12

4.1 Improve intercultural awareness 12

4.2 Bond cultural instruction with language learning 12

4.3 Develop a good habit of learning English 13

V. Conclusion 15

References 16

I. Introduction

1.1 Research background

With the world increasing globalization, intercultural communication is becoming popular than ever before. English is the most widely used language in the world. Carrying the culture of English speaking countries, English is a window helping people around the world get to know about those countries. For numerous English speakers, English is a practical tool of communication. However, when people in different countries who possess different culture and value coming cross real communicational situations, some of those speakers cannot communicate the utterances correctly and properly, although some of them can understand the words’ literal meaning with little difficulty. The problem of pragmatic failure has been holding an important position in the study of intercultural communication.

1.2 The purpose of this paper

This paper analyze a great number of detailed intercultural phenomena of pragmatic failure exist commonly in daily dialogues, including intercultural communication in addressing, greeting, complimenting, inviting and apologizing, discuss the cause of pragmatic failure existed in authentic cross-cultural communication cases. At last, strategies of cross-cultural communication will be given in order to prevent pragmatic failure happening.

This thesis is target for helping people evade mistakes in intercultural communication and communicate more successfully and effectively. The existence of pragmatic failure in intercultural communication asks English language learners to improve their communicative capabilities and avoiding pragmatic mistakes, and not simply acquire word and grammar. Moreover, this thesis analyses the effective acquiring of EFL( English as foreign language) learners, and hope can give some help to them.

II. Literature Review

2.1 Previous studies at home and abroad

“The term ‘intercultural’ usually refers to the meeting of two cultures or two languages across the political boundaries of nation-states. They are predicated on the equivalence of one nation-one culture-one language, and on the expectation that a ‘culture shock’ may take place upon crossing national boundaries (Kramsh,K. 1998). In this thesis, “intercultural” or “cross-cultural” means the meeting of English-speaking countries’ culture and Chinese culture.

According to Jenny Thomas(1983), a British linguist, in her work Applied Linguistics, pragmatic failure means the mistakes that were made in language communication when communicators cannot reach a satisfied communication result. Empirical study shows that non-native speakers may make pragmatic mistakes even when they grasp a great number of words and a great deal of grammar knowledge.

Thomas written in her work that the English pragmatic failure have two kinds, pragmalinguistic failure and socio-pragmatic failure. Pragamalinguistic failure happens when the English foreign language learners have not express themselves in a semantically appropriate and native-like way. Socio-pragmatic failure happens when speaker fail to understand some kind of cultural or social customs of English speaking countries.

A Chinese linguist Hu Zhuanglin published a thesis on pragmatics, which marked the study and research on pragmatics and pragmatic failure began in our country in the late of twenty centuries. After that, He Ziran and Zhuang Yan’ investigation and analysis on the current situation of Chinese students’ and English teachers’ pragmatic failure. The results shows pragmatic failure may probably caused by lacking the knowledge of socio-pragmatic and pragmalinguistic. Other Chinese linguists, for example, Hong Gang and Gu Tongqing.etc. suggested that English and Chinese’s pragmatic differences might lead to kinds of pragmatic failure. And they also pit forward some methods to improve Chinese students’ pragmatic ability.

2.2 Problems in previous studies

A lot of studies have been made in discussing the influence of pragmatic failure on intercultural communications. Different researchers have their own points of view. However, almost all those studies emphasis on the reason of pragmatic failure or the classification of pragmatic failure. There is few strategies given to English learners. Thus, this thesis not only discuss the cases of pragmatic failure, and the reasons caused this phenomenon, but also give examples from masterpiece and strategies for English learners to avoid mistakes in intercultural communications.

III. Cross–cultural study on pragmatic failure

3.1 Classification of pragmatic failure

In this part, the author researches into intercultural pragmatic failures, which occurs in daily communication between Chinese people and western people, from addressing, greeting, complimenting, inviting and apologizing.

3.1.1 Intercultural pragmatic failure in addressing

Intercultural pragmatic failure in addressing was discussed first.

(My friend, Pi Xiaoyue told me her experience in America. She saw an old lady carry a lot of luggage cross the road labouredly, so she said)

Pi: “Old Grandma, may I help you?”

The old lady: (Unhappy) “No!”

Pi: “surprised and puzzled”

In Chinese, it is polite to address the old 奶奶（NaiNai），爷爷（YeYe），婆婆（PoPo）, and it is more respectful to add “老”（Lao）. In China, people can address someone according to seniority, power relations, rank and profession. For example, 刘姥姥（Liu Lao Lao）(曹雪芹，1791), 孙掌柜（Sun Zhang Gui）(老舍，1935)，陈局长（Chen Ju Zhang）(老舍，1935) that are respectful address terms to others. In China, “old” in addressing means knowledgeable, experienced and venerable. It is opposite in American culture where “old” equals to dying out of date and lacking of ability.

By contrast, in American culture, people more often address others’ first-names, except some traditional and specific ones such as judge, doctor and professor, etc. In their mind, it is natural and intimate to call each other’s first name. “Recently in America, there has been a strong tendency toward first-naming. First-naming, originally a sign of considerable intimacy between close friends, relations, neighbors classmates and colleagues, has now extended itself to strangers, people of asymmetrical age and status” ( Chaika, 1982). It is also appropriate to add “Mr. /Mrs./ Ms” before the family name. But calling their family-name directly is not proper, because in the early time of twentieth century, plutocrats addressed their serving men by their family-names. If somebody’ name is not known, “ Sir, Miss or Madam” can be use as its substitute.

In Chinese, people always ask their children to address seniors with the title of relative relations such as 李叔叔（Li Shu Shu）, 孙阿姨（Sun A Yi）, even though the relative relation may not exist between them; in America, if they are addressed that way, people will be awkward. It is very common that children in western country call their senior by their first names.

The address system in China is more sophisticated than that in America. In China, people are used to asymmetrical addressing that shows vertical social relationships. A symmetrical addressing shows that the social relationship is parallel and equal (Jia Yunxin, 1997).

3.1.2 Intercultural pragmatic failure in greeting

Intercultural pragmatic failure in greeting is another important category. R. A. Hudson put forward that interpersonal communication consists of three parts, including greetings, business and farewell. As Hudson indicated, greeting is a very important part of the communicative process and exists in every culture. Due to the distinctions between two customs or cultures, greeting in different cultures are different, so pragmatic failure would occur if the communicators do not know such differences.

Americans greet others with “Hi!” “Hello!”“Good afternoon!” and “How are you?” they also use “lovely weather, isn’t it? ” the neutral topic of weather to start the talk. In English, The greetings are often neutral. While Chinese native speakers greet others with respect to their current situation for example (Have you eaten?) “吃了吗?”,（Where are you going?）“上哪儿去?” and (Are you walking? ) “散步呢?”. In America, the greetings like (“Have you eaten”) “吃了吗” and (Where are you going?) “上哪儿去?” will surprise them and even make them feel awkward, because in their culture, questions mentioned above infringe people’s privacy.

There is an example given by Qi Yuncun. An instructor from the U.S.A who taught in Shanghai heard that there would hold an “English corner” in a small park, and she went there. When someone asked about her feeling, she answered unhappily that it seemed she had gone into a police office because they always asked her some questions like ‘What is your name ’, ‘How old are you?’, ‘How many children do you have?’, ‘what does your husband do’ and ‘How much do you earn?’ ”. These questions are considered as the violation upon the privacy of an individual in the U.S.A. But “In China, showing concern about other people is considered polite, and it is usual for two person (especially when one is an old person) to start asking about these personal questions like others’ age, occupation and even income, even though the two person just met each other. By asking all these questions, Chinese people want to shorten the so-called distance among their interlocutors and themselves.

Taboos ought to be handled carefully in greeting, there are many taboos in each language. Due to distinct standards to measure taboos exist in specific cultures, pragmatic failure may occur if communicators do not know the taboos in their interlocutor’s culture.

3.1.3 Intercultural pragmatic failure in complimenting

Refer to compliment, it is a kind of polite speech behavior usually used in daily communication. The study shows that the speech act of compliment is not easy as it seemed, and relates to many aspects of social culture (Li Yuee amp; Fan Hongya, 2002).

Firstly let’s look into the concept of compliment. Compliment as a noun means “expression of praise, admiration, approval, etc ” ; compliment as a verb means to “pay a compliment to a person or something; present with as mark of courtesy ” ( Hornby，2002) ．

Leech (1983 ) pointed out that compliment is the application of approbation， which minimizes dispraise of the self, meanwhile maximizes praise of the other. The motive of using compliments is to establish a nicer interactive relationship between the speaker and the hearer who will get a good mood, and do better (He Gang, 2002) .

The rules of compliment between American culture and Chinese culture are different, which shows in the following examples:

A (American) ， B (Chinese)

A: “You have got a nice sweater． ”

B: “Thank you, my mother bought it for me in Hangzhou. Do you like it? ”

A: “Oh, yes. It looks fine and I love the pretty color. ”

B: “Well if you really like it, I will ask my mother to buy one for you. ”

A: “Oh…”

Due to specific languages formed in specific cultural backgrounds, the compliment of one language may be understood as another meaning in another language, which usually lead to different comprehension and measurement of speech act. The America-A just complimented the Chinese-B, and A is no intended meaning, but B think it is an indirect request.

There is a great difference in response to complimenting between American culture and Chinese culture. Usually, Chinese people use a self-denial or self-derogation to respond the complimenting, which reveals their politeness and modesty, and in China, it is a sort of morality. “It is arrogant and disrespectful to accept the compliment absolutely ” ( Fu Hongjun, 2000) .

An American’s response to the complement is to show agreement. The agreement means to accept the compliment and thank the compliment sender or display his happy and joyful feeling or express compliment or praise to the interlocutor reciprocally.

In intercultural communication, pragmatic failure may occurs easily if the differences in response to compliment between Chinese culture and American culture are not known to two parties of verbal interaction.

( A Chinese student who was studying in America was complimented at a banquet by an American)

An American Guest: “That is a lovely dress you have on”

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