The Pedagogical Implication From The Pragmatic Failure Survey In High School Students

Pragmatic failure is an obstacle in communication. The study of pragmatic failure of high school students is conducive to the improvement of their English communicative competence, the reduction of misunderstanding and conflicts in communication in English and the enhancement of the friendship with English native speakers. Pragmatic failure (Thomas,1983) includes pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure includes two aspects, misusing English expression which is not in accordance with native language habits and copying the semantics and structure of mother language to English expression; Social pragmatic failure refers to the failure of the choice of language form due to a lack of understanding of the English language culture background. However, Thomas’s definition and classification of pragmatic failure is ignoring the pragmatic failure in nonverbal communication (Li Yuansheng,2004), which is improper using of body language, paralanguage, object language, and environmental language.The research questions are as follows:(1) What is the current situation of high school students’pragmatic failure? (2) What kinds of pragmatic failure are high school students prone to commit in communication in English? (3) What are the potential reasons for pragmatic failure committed by high school students in communication in English? (4) Does the teaching of basic pragmatic theories have a positive impact on the reduction of high school students’English pragmatic failure?This research is based on pragmatic failure theory. The subjects are from two classes of grade two of Rizhao Experiment High School. This research studies the pragmatic failure of high school students in verbal and nonverbal communication by questionnaire. By comparative study of pretest and post-test, the research results show as follows:(1) The current situation of high school students’pragmatic failure is serious. (2) High school students commit English pragmatic failure in both verbal and non-verbal communication. Pragmatic failure in verbal communication includes pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure; pragmatic failure in nonverbal communication exists in body language, paralanguage, object language and environmental language. (3) The reasons of high school students’pragmatic failure mainly are cultural differences, negative transfer of mother language, the lack of pragmatic knowledge, etc. (4) The teaching of basic pragmatic theories has a positive impact on the reduction of high school students’English pragmatic failure, especially the reduction of students’sociopragmatic failure.Based on the results above, four pedagogical suggestions are provided:the teaching of basic pragmatic theories; cross-cultural knowledge teaching; the cultivation of students’ pragmatic awareness; teachers’self-improvement.This study aims to emphasize the importance of the reduction of pragmatic failure and the improvement of high school students’English acquisition in high school English teaching.