The Pragmatic Failure Of "Criticising" By Indonesian Learners Of Chinese: A Survey And Analysis

The research of the pragmatic failure is important in pragmatics, for it exists in every level of the language system. Researches in pragmatic failure have often focused on comparing the differences in such speech acts between different cultures as greeting, introducing, suggesting, saying goodbye, requesting, commanding, offering, apologizing, etc.According to the research findings obtained by the author so far, however, the speech act of criticising still needs further exploring in terms of the research scope, depth, subject and conclusion. Therefore, based on the findings of the past studies, the theory of pragmatic failure in its broad-sense (including grammatical errors), the theory of the speech acts, the theory of the relative face orientation construct, and a questionnaire to investigate the speech act of criticising by Indonesian learners of Chinese in China and by Chinese college students, the present thesis focuses on a comparison and analysis of the similarities and differences in the pragmalinguistic failure and the sociopragmatic failure between Indonesian and Chinese students.Firstly,the author describes the features of the pragmalinguistic failure as appeared in the questionnaires given to the Indonesian learners.Secondly, the author compares and analyzes the similarities and differences in some common situations between the Indonesian learners and the native Chinese. Then, on the basis of the theory of speech acts and the theory of the relative face orientation construct, the author classifies and compares the similarities and differences in the pragmatic strategies of criticising adopted by the Indonesian learners and the native Chinese, and describes the features of the sociopragmatic failure by the Indonesian learners as appeared in the questionnaires, in the hope of broadening the field of the research into inter-language.Finally, the author further explores the pragmalinguistic failure and the sociopragmatic failure from the perspective of the similarities and differences between the Indonesian grammar and Chinese grammar, the cultural factors, and the"Ideal Social Identity", and proposes some countermeasures to help the Indonesian learners conquer the pragmatic failures. Hopefully, such endeavors will give pedagogical hints to the instruction of Chinese criticising to foreign learners.