A Study Of Pragmatic Failure Of Politeness Expressions In Intercultural Communication

Politeness is a social and cultural phenomenon in different ethnic groups,which can reduce speech conflicts,promote interpersonal communication,and establish,maintain and consolidate harmonious and positive relationships.Therefore,politeness has universal social significance.The existence of politeness is objective,but its meaning and connotation vary from culture to culture.Different cultures have different understanding and emphasis of politeness principles.Different countries have different politeness expressions of the speech acts because of their different geographical environments,historical and cultural backgrounds and thinking patterns.In intercultural communication,people will evaluate the non-native speakers’ speech acts by the politeness principle generated by their native culture,which is likely to cause pragmatic failure and communicative failure.More specifically,different culture varies in how they use the polite expression,which may lead to the serious communicative conflict.Only by understanding the differences in politeness principles in different cultures,using politeness expressions correctly,and avoiding pragmatic mistakes of politeness expression can we achieve effective intercultural communication."Pragmatic failure" was firstly proposed by the British linguist Jenny Thomas.She(1983)maintained that pragmatic failure is "the inability to understand what is meant by what is said"(P91).In intercultural communication,pragmatic failure happens once the real purpose of the speaker was misunderstood by the hearer.Pragmatic failure is common phenomena in intercultural communication and an important cause of intercultural communicative failure.If a non-native speaker has pragmatic failure in pronunciation,grammar or vocabulary,at most,the native speakers may consider that the language is not well mastered.However,if there is the pragmatic failure in the use of politeness expressions,the native speakers will make an incomplete or even wrong evaluation of the speaker’s personality and quality.The study of pragmatic failure is significant to the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence and foreign language learning.On the one hand,the study of pragmatic failure is beneficial for people from different cultures to know each other,and they may come to realize that the cultural differences may cause pragmatic failure.Furthermore,it’s important for intercultural communicators to know what strategies should be adopted to avoid pragmatic failure.On the other hand,it reminds learners of foreign language that it is not enough to have the mere knowledge of language forms to achieve successful intercultural communication,which suggests that it necessary to emphasize on not only the linguistic competence but also the intercultural pragmatic competence.In this sense,the study of pragmatic failure is an essential part in intercultural communication.This study focused on Chinese non-English major students’ pragmatic failure in intercultural communication,which aimed to find out the causes for the pragmatic failure of politeness expressions and the influences of cultural difference(especially the politeness principles)on politeness expressions.This research methods adopted in this research were questionnaires and structured interviews.The questionnaire investigated the condition of the pragmatic failure of the politeness expressions of 100 first-year non-English major students from Zhuhai College of Jilin University.The questionnaire contains the politeness expressions of 7 speech acts,including addressing,greeting,parting,request and refusal,the response of apology,and compliments and its responses.The structured interview was conducted to understand the college English teachers’ views on student’ pragmatic failure of politeness expressions,and find out the strategies to avoid pragmatic failure and cultivate students’ intercultural competence.It is revealed in this study that Chinese non-English major students had pragmatic failure of politeness expression in intercultural communication to some extent.The causes included not only the politeness expressions influenced by the cultural differences but also other factors,such as the negative transfer of the native culture and the non-systematic foreign language teaching in terms of pragmatic competence.In conclusion,this study has proposed three strategies to avoid such pragmatic failure.Firstly,the cultivation of cultural empathy is essential for students to avoid the pragmatic failure of politeness and to achieve the effective intercultural communication.Secondly,from the pedagogical perspectives,teachers can adopt the explicit cultural introduction and the implicit cultural instruction to help students understand the differences of culture and values.Last but not least,students should optimize the learning resource and immerse themselves in the authentic target language contexts,which might facilitate the non-English major students to find their pragmatic failure of politeness expressions,learn the authentic usage of politeness expressions and improve the intercultural communicative competence,so that they can avoid such pragmatic failure in the future intercultural communication,and improve their intercultural communicative competence.