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1、Pragmatic Failure in Intercultural Communication and English Teaching in Senior Middle School ContentsAbstract(English)iAbstract(Chinese)ii1. Introduction12. Pragmatic Failure22.1 The definition of pragmatic failure22.2 The types of pragmatic failure22.2.1 Pragmalinguistic failure22.2.2 Sociolinguis
2、tic failure23 .Literature review in foreign countries and our country33.1 Literature review in foreign countries33.2 Literature review in our country34. Pragmatic failure committed by senior middle school students44.1 Pragmalinguistic failure44.1.1 Inappropriate transfer of expressions44.1.2 Inappro
3、priate transfer of speech act strategies54.1.3 Inappropriate use of target language expressions64.2 Sociolinguistic failure74.2.1 Cultural and value judgements74.2.4 Pragmatic failure due to social factors95. Potential Sources of Pragmatic Failure105.1 Cultural differences105.2 Pragmatic transfer115
4、.3 Lack of pragmatic knowledge126. Recommendations on Developing Pragmatic Competence136.1 Raising Chinese learners cultural awareness136.2 Instruction in pragmatic knowledge136.3 Creating an interactive learning environment147. Conclusion15References16AbstractThis paper analyzes the phenomena of pr
5、agmatic failure committed by senior middle school students in their daily conversations in intercultural communication, and discusses the nature and causes of pragmatic failure in intercultural communication situations. After gaining a better understanding of the phenomena, recommendations are made
6、on how to raise the pragmatic awareness, and develop the pragmatic ability of senior middle school students of English in the EFL (English foreign language ) classroom so as to increase their intercultural communicative competence in English. Keywords: Pragmalinguistic failure, sociopragmatic failur
7、e, intercultural communication, pragmatic competence, English teaching 摘 要这篇文章分析中学学生在日常交流中常犯的跨文化交际语用失误的现象，并且讨论在跨文化交际中语用失误的本质和原因。在了解了跨文化交际语用失误之后，提出在中学英语教学中怎样提高中学学生的跨文化交际语用失误的意识，以及如何在课堂里培养中学学生的语用能力。 关键词：语言本身的语用失误；社交语用失误； 跨文化交际；语用能力； 中学英语教学1. IntroductionWith the globalization of the world economy, int
8、ercultural communication is becoming more and more important. As an international language, English is the most widely used throughout the world. In China, English as a school subject is becoming increasingly more important. More and more Chinese students are going to English-speaking countries to f
9、urther their studies. However, even though they have little difficulty understanding the literal meaning of utterances when confronted with authentic communication situations, they may not interpret the utterances correctly, or express themselves appropriately. Intercultural communication sometimes
10、breaks down in real-life conversations, not because of the non-native speakers errors in syntax, or their inaccurate pronunciation in the target language, but because of their pragmatic incompetence, which leads to pragmatic failure. In other words, they may be unable to use language effectively in
11、order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context. As Rintell & Mitchell (1989) point out, it can cause misunderstandings or create offence when learners can understand only the literal meaning of words and do not know the rules of use for interpreting those words. Pragmatic
12、failure belongs to the field of cross-cultural pragmatics, a new branch of pragmatics which has developed rapidly in the past twenty years. Several research studies about pragmatic failure in speech acts have been conducted in EFL classroom settings in China (He & Yan, 1986; Hong, 1991; Gu, 2003; Ch
13、en, 2005; Zhang, 2005), but few have been done on Chinese Learners of English in the target language community. On the basis of a literature review and a small-scale, exploratory study in the host environment, this paper attempts to analyze the phenomena of pragmatic failure committed by senior midd
14、le school students in their daily conversations with native English speakers. The purpose is to gain a better understanding of the phenomena in order to make recommendations on how to raise the pragmatic awareness, and develop the pragmatic ability of senior middle school students in the EFL classro
15、om. Specifically, beginning with an understanding of pragmatic failure, the paper conducts a review of pragmatic failure committed by senior middle school students in intercultural communication situations. It goes on to discuss the potential sources of pragmatic failure. Then the paper reports the
16、small-scale, exploratory study which was carried out in the target language community. Finally some teaching ideas are recommended. 2. Pragmatic Failure 2.1 The definition of pragmatic failureThe concept of pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas (1983) to define the inability to unders
17、tand what is meant by what is said. Ziran He (1997) points out that pragmatic failure is not the general performance errors in using words or making sentences, but those mistakes which fail to fulfill communication because of infelicitous style, incompatible expressions and improper habit. Qian (199
18、7) explains that although the speaker uses sentences which are grammatically correct, they unconsciously violate the norms of interpersonal relationships and social norms in speech, or take no notice of time, hearer and context. For example, Where are you going? is cordial greeting form among the Ch
19、inese, but if used to show friendliness to native English speakers; it is likely to be regarded as an intrusion of privacy. Wolfson (1983, 62) points out, In interacting with foreigners, native speakers tend to be rather tolerant of errors in pronunciation or syntax. In contrast, violations of rules
20、 of speaking are often interpreted as bad manners since the native speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity. 2.2 The types of pragmatic failure2.2.1 Pragmalinguistic failureHongs study (1991) shows pragmalinguistic failure is closely linked with language itself, referring to the
21、 case that learners unconsciously transfer native expressions into English ignoring their pragmatic meaning, or use other inappropriate expressions of the target language. 2.2.2 Sociolinguistic failureSociolinguistic failure, in contrast, is closely related to cultures defined by Thomas (1983:99) as
22、 social conditions placed on language use stemming from cross-culturally different perceptions of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behaviour. It involves lack of awareness of the conventions and the socio-cultural norms of the target language, such as not knowing the appropriate registers and
23、 topics or taboos governing the target language community (Seran & Sibel, 1997). 3. Literature review in foreign countries and our country 3.1 Literature review in foreign countriesPragmatic failure refers to the errors in our speech communication because of failing to accomplish a perfect communica
24、tive effect. In 1983, a British linguist Thomas came up with the pragmatic failure. In his opinion, pragmatic failure is not simply the wrong use of language, namely, grammatical mistakes, occurred in common usage but it refers to inappropriate speaking, improper manner of speaking and expressions n
25、ot conforming to the custom, which results in not being able to achieve the expected effect. This is a profound analysis of the essence of pragmatic failure. After that, other scholars also made research into pragmatic failure. Some principles and theories they have formed, such as speech act theory
26、, the theory of conversational implication, relevance theory, the politeness principle, the cooperative principle etc, which provided a basis for our study on the pragmatic failure.3.2 Literature review in our countryIn our country, the study on pragmatics and pragmatic failure started in 1980s. In
27、1980, Hu Zhuanglin（胡壮麟）, who works in Beijing University, published a thesis on Pragmatics in the third issue of Foreign Linguistic. In 1988, He Ziran（何自然） published A Survey of Pragmatics; after that, He Zhaoxiong （何兆熊）published An Introduction to Pragmatics and Jiang Wangqi （姜望琪）published Contempa
28、rory Pragmatics. At the same time, they took an active part in investigating and making researches on current situation of Chinese students pragmatic competence and pragmatic failure. For example, Gu Tongqing(辜同清) and Hong Gang(洪岗),etc. had already made a study on the college students pragmatic fail
29、ure. They put forward types of pragmatic failure which was probably caused by the pragmatic differences between Chinese and English. And they also pointed out some methods or ways to improve Chinese students pragmatic competence. But on the whole, most studies focuses on theories, while studies with
30、 combination of both quality and quantity are less.4. Pragmatic failure committed by senior middle school studentsSome researchers (He & Yan, 1986; Hong, 1991; Gu, 2003; Chen, 2005; Zhang, 2005) in China have explored the pragmatic competence of Chinese learners of English. Their most common instrum
31、ent of research is a multiple-choice discourse completion task (MDCT), with a questionnaire which requires the students to judge the appropriateness of the utterance. These studies generally show that the Chinese learners pragmatic competence is far from satisfactory. Pragmatic failure is mostly cat
32、egorized and analyzed according to different communicative acts such as greeting, addressing, responding to compliments, and accepting invitations. Different from the previous studies, mainly based on the theoretical framework of Thomas (1983), the model in this paper for the categorization of pragm
33、atic failure will be shown and analyzed with examples from literature in the following section. (Some examples are reconstructed to be in the same format. ENS: English Native Speaker; CLE: Chinese Learners of English） 4.1 Pragmalinguistic failure4.1.1 Inappropriate transfer of expressionsDeparting f
34、rom linguistic stipulations, some senior middle school students might translate an utterance from their first language into the target language. At the lexical level, they might take it for granted that the Chinese words are equivalent to those of English in cultural connotation and then transfer th
35、e habit of Chinese language use into intercultural communication contexts. Example 1 Situation: The drug stores in a town are usually open on Sundays. An English visitor didnt know that, so he asked the Chinese guide. Visitor: Are the drug stores open on Sundays? Guide: Of course. (The visitor seeme
36、d embarrassed.) (Lin, 2005, 58) Of course indicates enthusiasm in a Chinese context, meaning Yes, indeed it is in English, but in the example it would be abrupt and impolite because it seems to imply that the English native speaker is ignorant or stupid, and only an idiot would ask such a question (
37、Thomas, 1983). 4.1.2 Inappropriate transfer of speech act strategies Austin (1962, 145) defines speech acts as all things we do with words when we speak. Production of words or of sentences is considered as the performance of speech acts. Some Chinese learners might not use English expressive ways a
38、nd mechanically apply the conventionalized L1 communicative strategies to the target language as the following examples show. Example 2 Situation: A Chinese student was at a native speakers home. ENS: What would you like to drink? Tea or coffee? CLE: No, no, no. No trouble, please. (The host did not
39、 serve him anything to drink.) (Xia et al, 1995, 152, cited in Wang, 2004, 9) In Chinese culture when the host offers something to drink or eat, the guest will usually refuse at first by saying no whether s/he would like to take it or not. Then the host must keep on asking the guest to accept the of
40、fer until s/he accepts it. In contrast, the native English speaker generally expects that the guest will give a truthful reply, and does not serve any drink or food if the guest says no. As a result，the Chinese guests improper reply left him thirsty because the strategy he subconsciously used is not
41、 appropriate in the target language. Example 3 ENS: Thanks a lot. Thats a great help. CLE: Never mind. (Gu, 2003, 87) Chinese speakers usually respond to others thanks by saying Mei Guan Xi, but it can be expressed in English by It doesnt matter., Never mind. or Thats all right. In English, these ex
42、pressions are not always interchangeable. Example 3 shows that the Chinese learner didnt respond to the compliment appropriately. 4.1.3 Inappropriate use of target language expressionsThe meaning of linguistic forms used to perform certain speech acts may change when they are translated literally fr
43、om Chinese to English. When Chinese learners dont know the exact meaning of a certain word or expression, they may regard the literal meaning as its connotation and use it in the context improperly. Example 4 Situation: The conversation was between a female college student of English and a male Amer
44、ican student of literature. They had known each other for some time. (After a talk with each other for a moment) ENS: Bye! CLE: Wait a moment, please. Have you seen my letter? ENS: CLE: The letter? ENS: What? CLE: Letter? ENS: I think Ive lost it. CLE: Oh, you break my heart! ENS: (embarrassed) What
45、? (Both felt embarrassed) (Wang, 2004, 7) This example shows that the Chinese learner of English was not aware of the association between break ones heart and love affairs, which put both of them in an embarrassing situation. Wang (2004) reports that the Chinese student learnt later that the phrase
46、is often used when someone is deserted by their lover, but she thought that it meant make somebody feel sad and disappointed. 4.2 Sociolinguistic failure4.2.1 Cultural and value judgmentsIn intercultural communication, being unaware of each others respective social and cultural tradition, the interl
47、ocutors may participate in the communication with their own cultural values and use their own cultural systems to interpret the new situations they experience. Example 5 Situation: An American teacher was talking to a Chinese student. ENS: Your English is excellent. CLE: No, no! My English is very p
48、oor, and it is far from being perfect. (Ma, 2004, 40) In the example, the Chinese learner used polite and modest expressions of accepting a compliment in Chinese. S/he had transferred the Chinese appropriate politeness strategy of self-denigration to English as a way of showing modesty. This kind of response may be perceived as embarrassing because it implies that the native English speakers compliment is questionable. Example 6 Situation: After a Chinese person stayed in her Canadian friends house, she was ready to leave. Chinese: Im sorry I t
