A Study Of Pragmatic Failures Of PEP Primary English Textbooks:Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

The ultimate goal of teaching English as a second language is to develop the students' communicative competence to speak English decently and freely in daily communication.Besides mastering English grammars and useful expressions,students have to master a variety of pragmatic rules of English,which can reduce or avoid pragmatic failure and lead to a successful communication.English learning in primary school is the key stage to cultivate students' communicative competence and play a great role in students' forthcoming English study,including inspiring and maintaining interest.Textbooks are the important carriers for English learning in primary school,so they can affect the development of students' pragmatic awareness and pragmatic competence.After being compared with the authoritative dictionaries and English native textbooks etc from the perspective of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory,twenty-five pragmatic failures are found and collected in the contents of compulsory education curriculum standards experimental textbooks for third grade to sixth grade(Latest Edition of 2013)which include eight books.Analyzing pragmatic failures in the textbooks can not only help the publishers revise the contents of the textbooks,but also can help teachers realize the importance of cultivating students' decent communicative competence.Teachers should creatively use the textbooks and help students better grasp communicative norms in the English cultural context and better understand the cultural psychology of the English people,which can help to improve students' communicative competence.The first chapter of the thesis discusses the background,the purpose and the significance of this study and explores the necessity of analyzing pragmatic failures in the textbooks.Chapter Two makes an overview of the related study at home and abroad and defines the study's direction,that is,to analyze pragmatic failures in the textbooks on the theoretical basis of adaptation theory.Chapter Three focuses on the introduction of the design of this study,including study questions,study objects and procedures.Chapter Four analyzes pragmatic failures in the textbooks in details from the perspective of language users,the social world,the physical world and the psychological world.Chapter Five makes a summary and points out the limitation of the study.Chapter Six puts forward some suggestions on the compilation of textbooks for publishers and creative use of materials for teachers based on the result of this study.