The Analysis Of Pragmatic Failures In High School Students’ English Practical Writing

Language is a tool of communication, but a successful communication requires not only a high level of language proficiency, but also pragmatic competence. In foreign language teaching, teachers mainly focus on teaching linguistic knowledge, ignore the pragmatic knowledge input. Thus, in the process of writing, pragmatic failures often occur. The general survey shows that many scholars pay more attention to pragmatic failures college students made in the oral communication, but less to pragmatic failures in high school students’ practical writing. Practical writing has a communicative function. New Curriculum also puts forward some requirements for high school students to acquire English practical writing skills. Clearly frequent occurrence of pragmatic failures is contrary to the demand of the New Curriculum.Therefore, based on the theory of pragmatic failures, the author analyzed the pragmatic failures high school students made in practical writing. Taking high school students’ English practical writing as research subjects, through text analysis and questionnaire, the study is to explore the types and causes of pragmatic failures in students’ English writing. In the light of the results, the author puts forward some suggestions for modern English teaching so as to improve students’ pragmatic ability to reduce or avoid unnecessary pragmatic failures.The findings of the study are as follows: pragmatic failures really can be found in high school students’ practical writing. Specifically, they embody in the four aspects: words, syntax, voice and discourse. By analyzing Pragmatic Failures in students’ writing and the questionnaire, the causes of practical failures can be summarized as: the lack of cultural awareness, the neglect of politeness principle, and the improper use of speech acts. Finally, in view of the research results and teaching reality, some suggestions about high school English teaching are put forward. It is expected to help reduce or avoid the pragmatic failures and to improve high school students’ English writing skills.