A Study On Pragmatic Failure In Cross-cultural Communication

With the rapid development of science and technology, people from different regionsand cultural backgrounds communicate more and more frequently with each other. Becausedifferent nations have different cultures, and culture is closely related to communication,cross-cultural communication has become one of the most important activities in thecontemporary world. However, in cross-cultural communication, because of communicators’different social norms, values, thought patterns and the like, pragmatic failures inevitablycome into being, thereby affecting the smooth going of cross-cultural communication.Pragmatic failure is first proposed by Jenney Thomas in1983to refer to “the inability tounderstand what is meant by what is said.”(Thomas,1983:91) She divided pragmatic failureinto pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure, and analyzed the cause of pragmaticfailure. From then on, a lot of scholars and linguists have done further research on pragmaticfailure from different perspectives.This thesis mainly discusses pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication by usingthe method of comparative analysis. It presents manifestations and causes of pragmatic failurein cross-cultural communication and provides some coping strategies of pragmatic failure incross-cultural communication. Most of the former scholars pay more attention to pragmaticfailure in verbal communication, but less attention to pragmatic failure in nonverbalcommunication. As nonverbal communication is an inseparable part to the wholecommunication process, this thesis analyzes pragmatic failure both in verbal communicationand in nonverbal communication. Besides, most of the former researchers attach importanceto sociopragmatic failure and the descriptions about pragmatic failures are on the level ofspeech act, such as appellation, greetings, farewell, and apology. Thus, this thesis alsodescribes pragmalinguistic failures from the perspectives such as sound, vocabulary andgrammar.This thesis is made up of five chapters:Chapter one introduces the concepts and characteristics of culture, communication, andcross-cultural communication.Chapter two elaborates the concept and classification of pragmatic failure, and thenintroduces previous researches on pragmatic failure both abroad and at home. Someinadequacies of the previous researches on pragmatic failure are also listed in this chapter. Chapter three describes the manifestations of pragmatic failure in cross-culturalcommunication from the perspective of pragmalinguistic failure, sociopragmatic failure andpragmatic failure in nonverbal communication.Chapter four analyzes the causes of pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication,including cultural values, thought patterns and negative transfer of culture.Chapter five proposes some strategies for lessening or avoiding pragmatic failure, andprovides some methods to enhance communicators’ cross-cultural communicativecompetence.