The Study of Pragmatic Failure Caused by Chinese and Western Cultural Differences.docx

1、The Study of Pragmatic Failure Caused by Chinese and Western Cultural DifferencesSJ006-1CHANGZHOU INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY毕 业 论 文 题目：The Study of Pragmatic Failure Caused by Chinese and Western Cultural Differences 二级学院（直属学部）： 外国语学院 专业： 英语 班级： 09英二 学生姓名： 张怡 学号： 09070230 指导教师姓名： 陈婧 职称： 副教授 评阅教师姓名： 职称：

2、 2013年 5月The Study of Pragmatic Failure Caused by Chinese and Western Cultural DifferencesbyZhang YiUnder the Supervision ofMs. Chen JingSubmitted in partial fulfillmentOf the requirements for the degree ofBachelor of ArtsSchool of Foreign LanguagesChangzhou Institute of TechnologyMay 2013 Table of

3、Contents Acknowledgements.iAbstract & Key words in English.iiAbstract & Key words in Chinese.iiiIntroduction.11. Discussion of Key Terms in the Paper.21.1. Pragmatic Failure.21.2. Cultural Differences.31.3. A Brief Literature Review.32. Classifications of the Pragmatic Failure.42.1. Pragmalinguistic

4、 Failure.42.2. Sociopragmatic Failure.62.3. Pragmabehavioral Failure.83. Pragmatic Failures Caused by Cultural Differences.103.1. Different Customs.103.2. Different Thought Pattern.113.3. Different Values and Code of Conduct.124. Countermeasures to Pragmatic Failure.144.1. Socialinguistic Competence

5、 Enhancement.144.2. Cultural Awareness Strengthening.15Conclusion.15References17AcknowledgementsThis thesis has been benefited a lot from the insights and assistance from many authors and scholars whose names have been listed in the bibliography. First of all, I would like to take this opportunity t

6、o express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Ms. Chen Jing for her generous and patient guidance to help me finish my thesis and for her patience and carefulness in observing each draft of my thesis. Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to my roommates and my friends, who give me precious suggesti

7、ons and generous assistances all the time.Finally, my gratitude is reserved to my parents for their care, encouragement and understanding throughout my writing of the thesis.iAbstract: With the globalization of economy, cross-cultural communication is increasing rapidly in the whole world and it is

8、becoming an important part in our daily life. Pragmatic failures frequently announce their presence in cross-cultural communication, which has drawn the attention of language learners and linguists. This study has been undertaken to analyze the pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication so as

9、 to have a further understanding towards the cultural differences. The purpose of this study is to help the foreign language learners and the people who are involved in cross-cultural negotiations reduce misunderstandings that caused by pragmatic failures, to improve their pragmatic competence and t

10、o facilitate their cross-cultural communication. Apart from introduction and conclusion, this paper consists of four parts. Part one is a discussion of the key terms and part two centers around the classifications of the pragmatic failure. Part three analyzes the pragmatic failure caused by cultural

11、 differences, and part four provides the countermeasures to reduce pragmatic failure.Key words: pragmatic failure; cultural differences; cross-cultural communication ii摘要：随着经济的全球化，跨文化交际在世界范围内迅速发展起来并成为人们生活的重要组成部分。语用失误在跨文化交际中非常普遍，引起众多语言学习者及语言研究者的关注。为了对文化差异有进一步的理解，本文将着重分析跨文化交际中的语用失误。本文的主要目的是帮助语言学习者和身处跨

12、文化交际中的人们减少因文化差异而导致的语用失误甚至是误解，提高他们的语用能力，促进跨文化交际。除简介及结论外，本文由四个部分构成。第一部分主要介绍文中所涉及的一些专业术语。第二部分通过举例分析了跨文化交际中的三类语用失误，即语言语用失误和社交语用失误和行为语用失误。第三部分讨论了造成跨文化交际语用失误的三个主要原因。第四部分提供了一些避免跨文化交际语用失误的策略。关键词：语用失误；文化差异；跨文化交际iiiIntroduction Nowadays, with the rapid development of worldwide transportation and communication

13、 networks, the modern world is characterized as a global village. Living in this global village, people all over the world keep contact with each other. They share news, ideas, values and other information. Therefore, cross-cultural communication has become indispensable today.Cross-cultural communi

14、cation refers to communication between people from different cultural backgrounds. However, there are some causes which lead to the intercultural miscommunication, such as linguistic mistakes and pragmatic failures. But pragmatic failures are worse than linguistic mistakes. They may cause uncomforta

15、ble feelings between speakers of different cultural backgrounds. Just as 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 of speaking are often interpreted as bad manners, s

16、ince the native speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity.” In a word, much attention should be paid to the inter-cultural communication. Only by understanding cultural differences, learning pragmatic failures, strengthening cultural awareness, and applying communication strategi

17、es properly can we make a successful cross-cultural communication. This paper aims to make a study of pragmatic failures in communication, to analyze the reasons why people make such kind of pragmatic failures, and to provide some effective methods for people to develop the cross-cultural communicat

18、ive competence. Also this paper aims to help people have a basic knowledge of pragmatic failure and provide some strategies to improve peoples competence in cross-cultural communication.1Apart from introduction and conclusion, this paper consists of four parts. Part one introduces some basic definit

19、ions of the terms in this study and part two focuses on the three types of pragmatic failure with fresh examples. Part three analyzes the pragmatic failures caused by cultural differences, and part four provides some effective methods to avoid pragmatic failure.1. Discussion of Key Terms in the Pape

20、r This section consists of three parts. The definition of pragmatic failure is discussed first, followed by the discussion of the cultural differences and a brief literature review.1.1 Pragmatic FailuresIn cross-cultural communication, people from different cultures speak the same language, but thei

21、r communication may break down due to pragmatic differences in ways of thinking, rules of speaking, social values, lexical connotations and other factors.Pragmatic failure is first proposed by Thomas (1983:91) to refer to the inability what is meant by what is said. Thomas uses the term “failure” ra

22、ther than “error” because, although grammar can be judged according to prescriptive rules, the nature of pragmatic patterns is such that it is impossible to say that pragmatic force of an utterance is wrong(Thomas,1983:648).According to Professor He Ziran (1997:57), pragmatic failure is caused by th

23、e speaker who cant speak appropriately in a specific situation, or cant use English accustomed to the different cultural communication, which leads to the hearers misunderstanding of the speakers intention. Leech (1983:105) said “the transfer of the norms of one community to another may well lead to

24、 pragmatic failure”.2Pragmatic failures, which arise when speakers cant produce appropriate utterances or cant reach properly to an utterance or context, are quite common among English learners in China. Pragmatic failure is not caused by the aspect of wrong grammar, or inappropriate syntax, but mai

25、nly due to the unsuitable speaking manner, or speaking at unsuitable time or failure to keep up with the native speakers expressive habit and so on. It is pragmatic failure that is an important source of cross-cultural communication breakdowns. A competent language user, especially for a non-native

26、English speaker, should know the rules of language use and understand the culture of the target language in order to avoid the pragmatic failures.1.2 Cultural DifferencesAccording to Zhu Hongbo and Zhang Liang (2001:73), culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, insti

27、tutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generations.The culture of each society is not identical, and people in the same society are distributed in different regions, divided into different groups. Although these people live in the same social and natu

28、ral environment, their social activities and relationship networks are far from each other. Such difference leads them to have different understandings of the environment and society and form different values and different rules of behavior. In cross-cultural communication, cultural difference inevi

29、tably creates barriers to effective communication, because people comply with different sets of norms and rules of social interaction. For example, the Chinese English learners may be quite familiar with the English grammatical rules, but they may ignore the fact that the native English speakers res

30、pond to compliments and apologize differently, engage in different forms of polite interaction, adopt different ways of making requests and so on. 1.3 A Brief Literature ReviewMany experts and scholars home and abroad have made significant researches into the field of pragmatic failures in communica

31、tion.The logician H.P. Grices theory of conversational implicature is the foundation of modern pragmatics. But it is Jenny Thomas that first proposes the notion of pragmatic failure in her Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure in 1983, defining it as “the inability to understand.”(Thomas, 1983:93)3Compared with Wes