Pragmatic Failure and English language Teaching

李玲++雷宏友

【Abstract】The pragmatic failures made by the Chinese English learners in their daily communications with the English native speakers and the ways how to reduce the occurrence of the pragmatic failures are addressed in the paper. Additionally， some suggestions about the avoidance of pragmatic failure are proposed in English language teaching.

【Key words】pragmatic failures； cultural context； language teaching

Pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas and its nature is that the hearers can not understand the implications of the speakers utterances， even the cultural conflict happened. He Ziran indicated that pragmatic failures were not caused by the abuse of the grammar rules but the ways of the conversation which violate the native speakers expressing habits as well as thinking modes and the speaker can not express his intended meanings at the apposite time and context.

Thomas （1983） classified pragmatic failures into pragmaticlinguistic failures and sociopragmatic ones.

Pragmalinguistic failures refer to the communicating failures caused by the lack of pragmatic knowledge as well as the negative transfer of the learners mother language. In addition to this， the non-native speakers comprehending the communicative contexts based on their stereotyped ideas cultivated in mother tongue context will definitely make such troubles.

Example：（In an office， a foreign businessman shows his thanks to a Chinese secretary.）

Foreign businessman：Thanks a lot， thats a great help.

Chinese secretary：Never mind. Its my duty to do so.

The Chinese secretary embarrassed the foreign businessman. “Never mind” is used to response to the apology from the speaker and not suitable for accepting others appreciation. “Duty” means that the speaker does not want to do something. Instead， she should say “Dont mention it. Its a pleasure.”

Sociopragmatic failures relate to the failures that occurred in the dialogues when the people do not have a clear idea on the cultural differences between the East and the West.

Example：（Xiao Hong asked a foreigner to help her take photos and told him the operation instructions. Before starting， the foreigner made sure how to operate it.）

Foreigner：Shall I push this button？

Xiao Hong：Of course.

For Chinese people， “Of course” sounds quite right， because it is a close correspondence with the Chinese phrase“當然”， showing that the speaker are sure of something. While the foreigner thought that the student laughed at his ability of operating the camera and doubted his intelligence as well. Due to the cultural difference， “of course” implies that the speaker has explained the instructions clear enough， and any normal intelligent person can understand it. The proper way should be “Exactly”， or “Yes”.endprint

Negative transfers come up when the L2 learners habit thinking modes from his mother tongue are transferred into the target language and the target language speakers perceive that it is different from what the learners desire to express. Teachers should make great efforts to set up real-life situations to help the students minimize the negative transfers of mother tongue.

Language is both the carrier and the main expressional form of culture. Teachers can exploit contrastive analysis method to promote the students pragmatic competence by intentionally letting the students find out how the request is performed differently among the Chinese and the English in their inter-communication. Such contrastive analysis can arouse students awareness of the language difference and remind them of some possible problems in their use of the target language.

Pragmatic Competence calls for the learners to communicate in terms of concrete context. In order to help the students eliminate the pragmatic failures， the teachers should offer the proper teaching materials to improve their communicative competence， utilize the multi-media equipments to help them obtain the “authentic” linguistic materials， design proper exercises to foster their linguistic competence， encourage them to read more foreign publications.

References：

[1]Thomas，J.Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure.Oxford：Applied Lingustics，1983（2）.

[2]Zhang Jianzhong，Brief English teaching method，Guangzhou： Guangdong education publisher 1990.

[3]何自然.語用學概論[M].長沙：湖南教育出版社，1988.

【基金項目】陜西省教育廳項目“地方高校大學生EFL學習者文化身份焦慮研究”（16JK1810）；咸陽師范學院科研基金項目（15XSYK007）。

作者簡介：李玲（1970.7-），女，漢族，陜西銅川人，碩士，講師，研究方向：英語教學。endprint