Intra-cultural Pragmatic Failure In Daily Conversations-A Preliminary Study Based On The Model Of Cooperation-Relevance-Adaptation

Pragmatic failure remains a significant research topic. Since Jenny Thomas (1983) first proposed the term"pragmatic failure", scholars both at home and abroad have conducted researches into pragmatic failure from different perspectives. Different responses to the question"what is pragmatic failure?"reflect, to a certain degree, the researchers'different standpoints on the generative mechanism of pragmatic failure. Thomas points out that pragmatic failure is the"inability to understand what is meant by what is said". She stresses that pragmatic failure occurs when the hearer misunderstands the speaker's utterance.Thomas'definition on pragmatic failure has provoked criticism among some scholars. For instance, Qian (2002) argues that according to Thomas, pragmatic failure seemingly arises owing to the incompetence of the hearer while it has nothing to do with the speaker. Qian states that pragmatic failure occurs when the speaker uses grammatically correct sentences while unconsciously violating the norms with regard to interpersonal relationship, social conventions or failing to behave in accordance with time and space or not taking the hearer into consideration. He (1997) contends that pragmatic failure does not refer to errors in diction, but failure to fulfill communicative aims because of infelicitous styles, unidiomatic expressions and improper habits.As stated above, Thomas thinks that pragmatic failure occurs when the hearer fails to perceive correctly the force of the speaker's utterance, while He and Qian think that pragmatic failure occurs when the speaker fails to produce appropriate utterance. In reality, communication is a process of meaning production and interpretation, and in this process, both the speaker and the hearer are involved. Therefore, pragmatic failure should be defined from two perspectives: the speaker and the hearer.This thesis defines pragmatic failure as the failure resulting from the speaker's unconscious inappropriate production of utterances or the hearer's unconscious faulty interpretation of utterance in inter-culture or intra-culture. Because of the pragmatic failure, the effect of communication cannot be satisfactory as expected or even worse, communication breaks down or ends in failure.Most previous researches have concentrated on inter-cultural pragmatic failure, and the researches attribute pragmatic failure to cultural differences. Qian (2002) claims,"Pragmatic failure includes inter-cultural ones and intra-cultural ones."The research scope of this thesis is restricted to intra-cultural pragmatic failure in daily conversations.Most of the previous studies on pragmatic failure are conducted from the perspective of the speaker; aspects on the hearer are often neglected. This thesis considers that although pragmatic failure is mainly caused by the speaker's inappropriate utterances pragmatic failure owing to the hearer's misunderstanding should also be taken into consideration.Various perspectives have been adopted to investigate into the causes of pragmatic failure. This thesis is based on the C-R-A Model (Cooperation-Relevance-Adaptation Model) proposed by Liao (2005). The C-R-A Model integrates the merits of the three most influential pragmatic theories, i.e., Cooperative Principle, Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory, and tentatively develops new insight into interpreting some pragmatic phenomena, including pragmatic failure (Liao, 2005).C-R-A Model holds that verbal communication is a verbal-cognitive process of making adaptation in the communicators'experiential framework. In the process, cooperation is prerequisite; relevance is necessary condition and adaptation is regulatory mechanism.This thesis finds that pragmatic failure may happen if the speaker provides less relevant utterances unconsciously, or if he fails to estimate the interpreters'cognitive ability, or if the speaker and the hearer have different understanding of implied premise, or if they fail to adapt to the context. When the hearer has incomplete experiential framework or certain mentality such as self-inclination mentality or self-protection mentality, pragmatic failure may also occur.This thesis puts forward some measures to reduce pragmatic failure in daily conversations after analyzing the pragmatic failure samples and it attempts not only to deepen our understanding of pragmatic failure, but also to help people communicate more effectively.