A Study Of Non-English Major Students’ Pragmatic Failures In Intercultural Communication And Their Strategies

With the rapid development of globalization, human beings have increasedchances for communication with people from other countries. Due to the differencesin culture, they inevitably suffer from breakdown in intercultural communication,which results in misunderstandings, distrust, even conflicts. This phenomenon, whichis called pragmatic failure, aroused the interests of more and more scholars at homeand abroad.This thesis attempts to grasp the current situation of non-English major students’pragmatic failures, systemically analyze the causes of pragmatic failure inintercultural communication, and propose some strategies for them to minimize thepossibility of pragmatic failure for complete and effective interculturalcommunication.Based on Thomas’s pragmatic failure theory and from the perspective of bothverbal behavior and non-verbal behavior, this thesis reclassifies pragmatic failuresinto three categories: pragma-linguistic failure, socio-pragmatic failure, andpragma-behavior failure.In order to grasp the current situation of non-English major students’ pragmaticfailures, a research with a test of pragmatic failure in intercultural communicationbetween Chinese and Americans is conducted by80non-English major students fromChengdu University. The result of the research shows that their linguistic competenceand pragmatic competence are certainly related but not proportional totally. Culturelearning can help language learners cultivate their cultural awareness and improvetheir pragmatic competence to minimize the possibility of pragmatic failure inintercultural communication.By application of pragmatic transfer theory which is firstly put forward byKasper, this thesis divides the causes of pragmatic failure in interculturalcommunication into negative pragma-linguistic transfer and negative socio-pragmatic transfer, and then makes further analysis of them. Based on Austin’s Speech ActTheory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, and Leech’s Polite Principle, which are thebasic theories of pragmatics, this thesis ascribes pragma-linguistic failure to negativepragma-linguistic transfer. Language can’t exist without culture. There are manydifferences between China and western countries, especially English speakingcountries, such as geography, history and religion. As the main thought, together withhumanism in English culture,“Ren” and “Li” in Chinese culture have great influenceon value system and pattern of thought of native Chinese speakers and native Englishspeakers respectively. According to a lot of examples, this thesis concludes that thedifferences are the deep causes of socio-pragmatic failure.In the light of the causes of pragmatic failure in intercultural communication,unlike many previous studies, this thesis proposes some operable suggestions andremedies for non-English major students to enhance pragmatic competence andcultural awareness from the perspective of English learners instead of Englishteachers.