The Study Of Pragmatic Failure: From The Perspective Of Cultural Differences

Culture and communication are inseparably linked. To be an effective intercultural communicator one must pay attention to the social, psychological, and cultural aspects of communication. Some words or phrases have negative meanings, which are acceptable to some from one cultural group, but not others. Intercultural communication occurs whenever a person from one culture does something that is given meaning by a person from another culture. Intercultural miscommunication refers to the miscommunication between participants from different cultural backgrounds. The author attempts to investigate the reason why the pragmatic failures occur, and sensitize people to realize interaction similarities and differences in cross-cultural contexts and eliminate the misunderstandings and pragmatic failures that arise in intercultural communication.The thesis is divided into five chapters:Chapter One serves as an introduction that gives a brief account of the importance of avoiding the pragmatic failure in the intercultural communication, the purpose and the layout of the thesis.Chapter Two focuses on the definition of the pragmatic failure, and explores the process in which the pragmatic failure occurs in the intercultural communication, disclosing that the cultural difference is the key factor of making the pragmatic mistakes.Chapter Three surveys the definitions of culture, communication, and intercultural communication, and examines the relationship between them.Chapter Four deals with how culture results in pragmatic failures in the intercultural communication.Chapter Five concludes the whole thesis by pointing out that people should realize interaction similarities and differences in cross-cultural contexts and eliminate the misunderstandings and pragmatic failures that arise in intercultural communication.