Abstract
With the rapid development of globalization and frequent contacts among different countries, cross-cultural communication is getting more and more important and becomes one of the most prominent and significant activities today. Communication breakdowns still happen all the time when we try to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds.
Pragmatic failure is one of the several factors which influence cross-cultural communication. Pragmatic failure is a term given by British linguist Jenny Thomas to “the inability to understand what is meant by what is sad”. Thomas (1983) divided pragmatic failures into two types, pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure refers to the inability in interpreting the linguistic meaning caused by mistaken beliefs about pragmatic force of utterance, and it is generally categorized into the following three kinds of failures: failures in literal meaning, failures in structure and failures in style, which mainly revealed as confusing the literal meaning with pragmatic meaning, overusing complete structure and violating the language rule of speaking. While sociopragmatic failure refers to the expressive inappropriateness resulted from the misunderstanding or the ignorance of social or cultural differences. It falls into two main aspects: failures in culture and failures in social norms. The causes for these two pragmatic failures, according to Thomas, are negative transfers, which include negative transfer of social norms, negative transfer of conventional value, negative transfer of politeness, inadequate instruction guidance and inadequate exposure to actual use of the target language. In order to avoid pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication, the author puts forth such suggestions as strengthening cultural awareness, avoiding negative stereotyping, and cultivating cross-cultural communicative competence from the aspects of grammatical competence, pragmatic competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence.
Key Words: cross-cultural communication pragmatic failures
communicative competence
摘 要
随着全球化进程的加快，跨文化交际已越来越成为当今世界的重要活动之一。但由于不同地域的人之间存在各种文化上的差异，不同文化背景的人之间的交际障碍仍然存在，交际失败经常产生。
语用失误是影响跨文化交际的因素之一。语用失误一词是由Jenny Thomas于1983年在Applied Linguistics发表的文章Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure中提出的。她认为语用失误是由于听话人没能理解说话人的意图而引起的。在文中她区分了语言语用失误和社交语用失误。语言语用失误即因语言使用不当而造成的失误，一般有语义失误、句式失误和语言形式失误，这些失误主要由于混淆字面意思与实际表达意思，滥用完整句式和违反言语行为规则造成的。而社交语用失误则主要是由于不了解社会文化习俗而造成的失误，主要有文化失误和社会规范失误。Thomas认为，负迁移是引起语用失误的最直接原因，其包括语言层上的负迁移和文化规约上的负迁移,以及不恰当的教育指引和不恰当的目标语的实际使用。为了避免跨文化交际中的语用失误，作者提出这样的建议，提倡人们应该加强文化意识，从语言能力，交际能力，社交语言能力及策略能力方面培养综合的跨文化交际能力。
关键词 : 跨文化交际 语用失误 交际能力
Contents
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………..i
Abstract (English)……………………………………………………………………ii
Abstract (Chinese)…………………………………….…….…………………………iv
Contents……………………………………………………………………………..v
- Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1
- Cross-cultural communication……………………………………………………2
2.1 Definition …………………………………………………………………..3
2.2 Factors affecting cross-cultural communication……………………………4
- Pragmatic failure…………………….………….………….………………………..5
3.1 Definition……………………………………………………………………5
3.2 Classification……………………………………………………………..6
3.2.1 Pragmalinguistic failure…………………………………………….6
3.2.1.1 Failures in literal meaning……………………………………6
3.2.1.2 Failures in structure………………………………………..8
3.2.1.3 Failures in style………………………………………………9
3.2.2 Sociopragmatic failure………………………………………………10
3.2.2.1 Failures in culture……………………………………………10
3.2.2.2 Failures in social norms……………………………………..11
- Causes for pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication ………………….12
4.1 Negative transfer of the social norms……………………………………..12
4.2 Negative transfer of conventional value………………………………..13
4.3 Negative transfer of politeness…………………………………………….15
4.4 Inadequate instruction guidance………………………………………….16
4.5 Inadequate exposure to actual use of the target language………………17
- Suggestions for avoiding pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication…17
5.1 Strengthening cultural awareness…………………………………………17
5.2 Avoiding negative stereotyping………………………………………….18
5.3 Cultivating cross-cultural communicative competence…………………….19
5.3.1 Grammatical competence…………………………………………..20
5.3.2 Pragmatic competence……………………………………………….20
5.3.3 Sociolinguistic competence………………………………………….21
5.3.4 Strategic competence………………………………………………..22
- Conclusion………………………………………………………………………23
References…………………………………………………………………….………..25
