A Study Of Sociopragmatic Failure In Etiquette

Language can not be separated from its cultural and social context. Language use, on the one hand, shows the requirement of communication on a specific culture and society; and on the other hand, a series of norms and rules have been formed due to the national and cultural restrictions. Politeness , in particular, linguistic politeness, is a means of maintaining and establishing relationship with other people. In civilized society, people, in speech interaction, aim to be polite, though the actual realization of speech acts is imperfect, for cultural differences result in diversified connotations of politeness. A good-willed speech act may be considered ill-mannered in a different culture, which causes communication break-down, or even offence to the other side. Jenny Thomas (1983) divides English pragmatic failure into two categories: one is pragmalinguistic failure; and the other is sociopragmatic failure. The latter is the focus of the discussion in the thesis. To analyze sociopragmatic failure, the thesis starts with the pragmatics and intercultural communication theories, such as Cooperative Principle of Grice, Brown and Levinson's Face Theory, Leech's Politeness Principle, Gu Yueguo's Chinese Politeness Principle, and cultural value orientation theories. On the basis of the above-mentioned theories, sociopragmatic failure is analyzed as follows: In intercultural communication, the two sides in speech interaction observe certain maxim of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, which is required by their respective culture. As a result, misunderstandings of conversational implicature arise between them, which lead to communicative failure. China is a collectivism-oriented society, while the western world is an individualism-oriented society. The analysis of the diametrically different cultural value orientations helps to interpret Chinese and Anglo-American's pragmatic behaviors in communication. There are different temporal orientations in Chinese and English culture, which can not be ignored when one studies the phenomenon of sociopragmatic failure. Social cultural factors cause differences in speech acts between Chinese and English such as in address, greeting, and request. First, in address, in sum, (1) under some circumstances, westerners prefer to be addressed by their first name; (2) Chinese have a tendency of generalizing kinship terms; (3) westerners worship power and ability, and they expect those to be practically reflected in other's addresses to them. Secondly, English greetings have been elaborated, for there is a set of pragmatic systems in it, which need to be paid attention to. Finally, in request, westerners tend to apply indirect strategy, while Chinese adopt either direct or indirect strategies . After probing into the sources of sociopragmatic failure, the thesis put forward solutions to the problem. Major causes are the inadequate knowledge of and insufficient exposure to the target cultures, as well as the lack of awareness of intercultural differences. To improve the situation, both learning and teaching strategies have been explored. The strategies are focused on the development of learners' pragmatic competence and the appropriateness of language use. The conclusions reached are based on the above research work:(1) Learners should consciously develop cultural awareness and sensitivity, and be exposed to the target culture as much as possible.(2) Teachers ought to endeavor to create an environment in which learners can learn the sociocultural functions of language.(3) The pragmatic systems of English communication should be included in textbooks, and the differences on Chinese and English pragmatic rules should be stressed. (4) Learners should fully understand their own culture when they acquire the target culture. To be bilingual, one must be bicultural.