On Pragmatic Failure In Cross-Cultural Communication

The 21^st century is an age of change. The development of science and technology has made communication across the world more convenient. In a sense, we can reach each other more easily. A plane ticket can bring us to anyone anytime we want. However, are we really closer to each other? The answer is no. Communication breakdowns still happen all the time when we try to communicate with people from different cultural background. Pragmatic failure is one important reason for these communication breakdowns.Cross-cultural pragmatic failure has been an important area of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication studies ever since the term was first used by British linguist Jenny Thomas in her 1983 paper, Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure, published on Applied Linguistics. Thomas defined pragmatic failure as "the inability to understand what is meant by what is said" (1983). She distinguished pragmatic failure from linguistic error as the latter is more easily forgiven by native speakers while pragmatic failures not only cause communication breakdown but also portray the speaker badly as a person. Thomas divided pragmatic failure into two types, using the distinction proposed by Leech. The first type, pragmalinguistic failure, can be regarded as part of the grammar and is easy to overcome while the second type, socio-pragmatic failure involves the speaker's knowledge of the language and system of belief, thus making it more difficult to deal with.In this thesis, the author will introduce the basic concepts used in the study of cross-cultural pragmatic failure, make a brief review of past studies in this area, and use pragmatic theories to analyze some examples of pragmatic failures occurred in cross-cultural communication. Finally the author will come up with some suggestions on how to avoid pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication.The purpose of learning a foreign language is to be able to communicate with others in this language. In other words, to acquire a language is to cultivate one's...