A Tentative Research Into Causes Of Pragmatic Failures By Senior High Students

Language is an abstract system used for human communication. We use language to exchange information and to maintain smooth, harmonious interpersonal relationship. This description of language makes us consider language not only in terms of its structure, but also in terms of its communicative functions. Hence language learning involves not only "usage", but actual "use" related to specific contexts as well. "Learning a language involves cultivating its pragmatic competence." (He Ziran, 1997) In China, however, the lack of English learning environment and grammar-oriented teaching approach lead to learner's pragmatic failures in real communication in high frequency.Thomas(1983) defines and classifies pragmatic failures. She thinks pragmatic failures occur because the meaning the speaker wants the hearer to understand deviates from what the hearer really understands. There are two kinds of pragmatic failures: pragmalinguistic failures and sociopragmatic failures. The former deals with language itself while the latter with culture and its related content. Committing failures in pragmatics indicate that he is not competent in pragmatics. The less the learners experience pragmatic failures, the more their pragmatic competence they acquire. Importance has been attached to whether learners' pragmatic competence grows in agreement with their linguistic competence..In order to examine how well Senior High students have developed their pragmatic competence, what are the pragmatic failures they are prone to commit in cross-cultural communication, a research investigation was conducted in No. 13 Middle School in the form of questionnaire. The results reveal that there is a great gap between ideal intentions and the actual English teaching in Senior High which has much room for improvement in respect to developing students' pragmatic competence. They are 5 main causes of pragmatic failures that Senior High students of English are likely to produce in cross -cultural communication: (1) EFL curriculum in Senior High needs reforming urgently and adding courses such as pragmatics, cross-cultural communication; (2) some high school English teachers are not proficient in the culture of the target language, let alone the students; (3) due to improper teaching methods, some students show little interest in English; (4) many teachers focus on language forms, i.e. vocabulary and grammar and students only mechanically recite the words, phrases and sentences, it follows that they don't know how to use it appropriately; (5) the students lack culture awareness;At the end of the study, some suggestions and practical remedies on how to cultivate students' pragmatic competence are put forward: (1) developing culture oriented courses, having more extracurricular activities and assessing students'pragmatic competence; (2) stressing teacher's self-development, paying attention to teaching techniques, introducing pragmatic principles, integrating pragmalinguistic knowledge into discourse teaching, grammar teaching and vocabulary teaching to enhance the students' cultural awareness and their comprehensive capability for using English.