A Study Of The Causes For Pragmatic Failures In Senior High School Students’ English Compositions

English writing can reflect students’ integrating English language skills and take a critical role in communication.In recent years,English writing has received more and more attention.Related research on English writing is increasing vastly,aiming to explore some feasible and effective methods to improve the overall level of students’ English essays.Although there is much research on this area where educators have put in a lot of effort,the actual effect is still not satisfactory.The students’ English writing level is still not high in general,and especially pragmatic failures in students’ compositions are subsistent.Based on the correction of students’ compositions during the educational practice,the author has found that the phenomenon of pragmatic failures is still not enough to draw the attention of students and teachers.With the new college entrance examination reform,the implementation of recent curriculum reforms,and new textbooks,the proportion of college entrance examination English for students’ writing has increased.The new textbooks and new curriculum standards also emphasize cultivating students’ pragmatic competence.Still,exam-oriented education influence a lot,and the specific implementation has not yet reached the requirements of the new curriculum standards.Undoubtedly,pragmatic failure is one of the manifestations of inadequate pragmatic competence,and pragmatic failure may leave a bad impression on communicators,fail to achieve the expected communicative effect,and even lead to communication breakdown.In view of the above,it becomes particularly indispensable to study the pragmatic failures in students’ compositions and find out the causes of their pragmatic failures.This thesis conducted a questionnaire survey of 300 students of Grade 11 in the Qiushi District of Kunming No.10 Middle School to get a general understanding of their opinions on English writing.Secondly,the author interviewed six English teachers in Grade 11 respectively and made a survey and analysis of their writing teaching.In the end,300 essays were selected from the students in three exams for text sorting and analysis.Through the data analysis and discussion,it is found that pragmatic failures in students’ compositions are not uncommon.The results from this study reveal that there are more pragmatic-linguistic failures than socio-pragmatic failures in students’ writing compositions.Pragma-linguistic failures are mainly classified into four types:inappropriate wordings and collocations;Chinese construction of sentences;omission and misuse of discourse markers;illogical sentences.There are two types of socio-pragmatic failures: failures caused by neglecting the differences in cross-cultural idiomatic expressions and failures caused by not realizing cultural background differences.Through a combination of students’ questionnaire surveys and teachers’ interviews,along with the analysis of the students’ compositions,it has been explored that some of the reasons leading to students’ pragmatic failures are mainly in the following aspects: 1)influence of negative Chinese transfer on English writing;2)lack of cross-cultural knowledge and consciousness;3)insufficient training and instruction;4)inadequate pragmatic awareness in English teaching and learning.Based on the existing problems,this thesis also puts forward some concrete and feasible suggestions for teachers and students respectively.It intends to provide some references for teachers’ instruction and students’ learning,with a view to improving students’ pragmatic competence and reducing pragmatic failures with their joint efforts.In so doing,the study may help learners achieve better interpersonal communication and interaction in English.