Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
According to the teaching aims and demands of Chinese college, some requirements to students have been designed as follows: (1) acquiring the certain ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation; (2) cultivating the self-regulated learning habits and the comprehensive competence; (3) cultivating the knowledge of Chinese and western culture and the competence of intercultural communication. The former two requirements are the basis for the third requirement. That is to say the cultivation of cultural communicative competence is an essential aim for non-English major students.
Pragmatic failure is common in intercultural communication. The study of pragmatic failure is essential for successful intercultural communication and language teaching. On the one hand, the study of pragmatic failure is beneficial for people from different cultures to know each other and realize that the cultural difference may cause pragmatic failure. It's important for students to know what kind of strategies should be adopted to avoid pragmatic failure. On the other hand, it reminds us that only having the knowledge of language forms is not enough to achieve successful intercultural communication, which suggests that it necessary to emphasize on the language knowledge and pragmatic competence. The study of pragmatic failure is an essential part to cultivate students’ intercultural communicative competence.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study
Politeness is an essential factor to maintain social relationships and an important part of the world culture. However, the politeness principle varies indifferent culture, and the politeness expressions of each culture are also different. The misuse of politeness expressions is likely to cause obstacles in intercultural communication.
Different cultures vary in how they use the polite expression, which may lead to the serious communicative conflict. In cross-cultural communication, if a non-native speaker makes mistakes in pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary, at most, the native speakers consider that the language is not well mastered. However, if there is a mistake in the use of politeness expressions, the native speakers will make an incomplete or even wrong evaluation of the speaker's personality and quality. In social communication, politeness is one of the important factors which guide people's usage of language form and communication strategy. Only by understanding pragmatic politeness differences, using politeness expression correctly, and avoiding pragmatic mistakes, can communicators achieve effective intercultural communication.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definitions of Intercultural Pragmatic Failure
As cross-cultural communication becomes more and more frequent and common, communicators from different cultural backgrounds want to achieve the purpose of their communication. To achieve this goal, they should possess not only linguistic competence, but also the awareness and ability of intercultural communication. Intercultural communication in this study refers to the communication between the Chinese speakers and the English speakers, and the communication of any people who have differences in language and cultural backgrounds. The research focus of intercultural communication is cross-cultural comparisons of certain phenomena to discover differences between them, such as how a particular speech act is conducted in different cultural language communities (Wang, 1998).
Cross-cultural pragmatics is based on pragmatics, focuses on the comparison of surface morphology, structure and conversational implicature of different languages, deepens into the deep cultural connotation of language, and pays attention to cultural differences and pragmatic strategies used by pragmatic subjects in the dynamic communication, which reflects a strong theoretical and systematic nature. In the book A New Introduction of Pragmatics, He (1995) put forward three principal points in the study of intercultural pragmatics: intercultural pragmalinguistics, intercultural sociopragmatics, and interlingual pragmatics. Through the study of intercultural pragmatics, scholars can more clearly recognize faults and conflicts in intercultural communication.
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2.2 Classifications of Pragmatic Failure
Thomas (1983) divided pragmatic failure in intercultural communication into two categories: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.
Pragmalinguistic failure refers to the pragmatic meaning given to a discourse by a non-native speaker which is different from the pragmatic meaning that the native speaker usually means, or the non-native speaker inappropriately transfers the speech act strategy of his native language into the second language. In intercultural communication, pragmalinguistic failure arises when “the pragmatic force mapped by S onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2.” (Thomas, 1983, P99). For example, the responses to “thanks a lot” are “don't mention it”, “you are welcome” or “it’s my pleasure” in English. However, some students may incorrectly use “it’s my duty” instead of “it’s my pleasure” in intercultural communication, which will leave a sense to the hearer form the western culture that the kindness was not voluntary but was compulsory.
In intercultural communication, communication collapse caused by differences in speech patterns or speaking habits such as how to express information, organize arguments, and convey politeness is pragmalinguistic failure. The two main reasons for pragmalinguistic failure are improper language transfer and inappropriate teaching methods. Pragmatic failure is language problem in fact. Therefore, Thomas (1983) even considered the habitual usage of the language can be taught to non-native language learners as a part of the grammar. The textbook Beyond Language: Intercultural Communication for English as a Second Language published by Levine and Adelman in 1982 is a good example.
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Chapter Theoretical Framework ................................ 12
3.1 Definitions of Politeness ........................................ 12
3.2 Theories of Politeness Principles Abroad ............................ 13
3.3 Theories of Politeness Principles at Home ................................. 15
Chapter Four Research Methodology ............................. 18
4.1 Research Questions ............................ 18
4.2 Research Subjects ................................. 19
4.3 Research Instruments ............................. 19
Chapter Five Results and Discussions ...................................... 23
5.1 Analysis of the Questionnaire Results ........................................ 23
5.1.1 Results and Causes of Pragmatic Failure in Addressing .... 25
5.1.2 Results and Causes of Pragmatic Failure in Greeting ........ 27
Chapter Six Strategies to Avoid Pragmatic Failure of Politeness Expressions in Intercultural Communication
6.1 Cultivation of Cultural Empathy
For the smoothness of cross-cultural communication, pragmatic empathy is applied to facilitate the understanding of each other in communication. According to Gudykunst (1997), affective competence is an important part of the effective communication, which mainly refers to empathy. Empathy is not equivalent with sympathy. Empathy and sympathy both refer to the complete understanding of others. However, sympathy refers to the evaluation from the native cultural perspective. Jia (1997) has pointed out that the sympathizers follow the “Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you or whatsoever ye would that men should not do to you, ye do not do so unto them” (Jia, 1997, P483-484), while empathy refers that thinking oneself into other people's minds and imagining oneself into the other people's place. People having the competence of empathy follows the “Platinum Rule: do unto others as they themselves would have done unto them” (Ibid. P484). In this sense, empathy refers to the evaluation from the target linguistic cultural principles.
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Chapter Seven Conclusion
7.1 Major Findings and Research Implications
syntactic and textual aspects may lead to the difficulties in intercultural communication. In addition, the incomprehensive teaching design is another factor causes pragmatic failure. The teaching procedure of the foreign language may not systematically reflect the pragmatic principles and cultural differences in Chinese and western countries, which may lead to the pragmatic failure in intercultural communication.
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