On The Analysis Of Pragmatic Failures In Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication activities go with man's history, but as a subject it only emerged several decades ago. The scholars at home and from abroad have conducted a great many researches from different perspectives. This thesis attempts to make analysis on the pragmatic failures of the Chinese-English intercultural communication from the viewpoint of sociolinguistics and pragmatics by the application of the Theory of Relevance, to probe into the profound relationship of language and culture, and, of language and communication, in order to seek for effective approaches to valid verbal communication and avoiding, at least, lessening pragmatic failures as a result of the negative transfer of LI knowledge and native culture.Chapter one summarizes the history and present state of intercultural communication as a subject, and defines its nature and scope, illustrates the factors affecting intercultural communication (1C) and suggests models of 1C by comparison of intracultural and intercultural communication. A survey of the related studies on the conflicts and failures in intercultural verbal communication by the scholars at home and from abroad is supplied.Chapter two makes a specific introduction to a variety of pragmatic failures in light of Thomas' theory. Clarify the distinctions between pragmatic failures and pragmatic errors. Expound diverse pragmatic failures from the perspectives of pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic failures. In terms of pragmalinguistics, failures in literal meaning, failures in structure and failures in styles are illustrated; in terms of sociopragmatic failures, failures in culture and failures in social norms are explained.Chapter three attempts to demonstrate the main causes of pragmatic failures-pragmatic transfer-from the perspectives of language, cultural conventions, thought patterns, and language learning. And expound the effects of negative transfer of one's L1 knowledge and native cultural conventions.In the following two chapters, macro analysis of the pragmatic failures from the perspective of linguistic context and cultural context is made respectively. Communication is a dynamic process of coding and difference. The comprehension and production in communication activities demands a sufficient understanding of the context situation in sense of both language and culture. Lack of either might bring on pragmatic failures. In chapter four, the failures are illustrated from a macro viewpoint of linguistic context in terms of word level, sentence level, and discourse level.Chapter five analyzes the effects of cultural context on pragmatic failures. The analysis is made from seven aspects: the contrast of high-context with low-context is emphasized as the distinct differences between Chinese and English culture. Geography and history, religion and custom, attitude and worldview, thought patterns, value system and face system are analyzed in details, which affect the fulfillment of communication to more or less extent.On the basis of the findings in chapter four and five, in chapter six I make further analysis from micro viewpoint on some specific speech acts as compliments, apology and appreciation, inquiry, showing regards and addressing. It is revealed in the analyses of these speech acts that pragmatic failures often occur because of negative transfer of LI knowledge and native culture.Chapter seven suggests the solutions to avoiding pragmatic failures in terms of strengthening cultural awareness, avoiding negative stereotyping, and cultivating intercultural communicative competence from the aspects of linguistic competence, communicative competence, cultural competence, sociolinguistics competence and strategic competence, to meet the needs of multicultural times.