Mental Lexicon And Pragmatic Failure In Cross-cultural Communication

The study of mental lexicon has already been an independent and flourishingresearch interests. Plenty of psycholinguists have studied it to explore therepresentation of second language. So far, many models of representation ofsecond language are built. However, few studies were applied to inquire into thepragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication.An effective and successful cross cultural communication is to use languageappropriately in real situations. Although it is meaningful in theories, someproblems arose expressions that are hard to understand or ambiguous, which maycause some misunderstandings between speakers and hearers. Thereforecommunication with people from other cultural background is not effective,which is when pragmatic failure occurs.Pragmatic failure is the most commonphenomenon among the failing causes of cross-cultural communication. A greatmany linguistic studies with respect to pragmatic failure were carried out fromthe perspective of culture or expressions, and the main cause of pragmatic failureare often attributed to cultural difference of cultural diversity. Few researchesregarding the causes of pragmatic failure has been done in the field ofpsycholinguistics. This paper attempts to interpret pragmatic failure and probeinto its psychological factors from the perspective of mental lexicon especiallyL2mental lexicon.The author attempts to probe the causes of pragmatic failure in the field of mental lexicon especially in the field of L2mental lexicon, and concentrates on thediscussion that how the mental lexicon especially L2mental lexicon leads to thepragmatic failure. Firstly, the author elaborates the organization, lexical access,notion, variables that influence lexical access, and those of L2mental lexicon,also the L1transfer especially the negative transfers, then introduces the severaldefinitions of pragmatic failure given by several scholars, the classifications, andthe usual pragmatic causes. Meanwhile, the author has read and collected plentyof materials with reference to pragmatic failure, and analyzes the relationbetween L2mental lexicon and the usual pragmatic causes of pragmatic failure inthe respects of which are mentioned above.By sorting out and analyzing the great deal of collected materials, the author hasfound out that the mental lexicon does exert influence on cross-cultural pragmaticfailure by many factors such as representation, lexical access, and meaningconstruction no matter what language level a language learner is on. It may causethe misapplication of expressions and even the failure of the wholecommunication. In a sense, this study will be of great significance both in theoryand practice. Nevertheless, it is a new attempt for the author to study pragmaticfailure in the field of mental lexicon and L2mental lexicon in the hope ofimproving pragmatic competence of language learners in China, and sincerelyhope that it could promote people’s cognitive recognition of cross-culturalcompetence in China.