A Study Of College Students' Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure And Countermeasures In Teaching

Pragmatic failure is a frequently-discussed concept in linguistic research and English as foreign language teaching (EFLT). Learning a language means obtaining the ability of appropriately choosing linguistic forms for a specific context, or of correctly using the language in social interaction. Learning a foreign language means not only the cultivation of linguistic competence, but more importantly, the cultivation of cross-cultural communicative competence. Many investigations on pragmatic failure of the Chinese learners of English have been made by domestic researchers. 20 years has passed, the English learning environments in our country are improved greatly, and our EFL students are cultivated by communicative teaching approach rather than traditional pedagogy. Has the status of Chinese learners'pragmatic failure been improved with the improvement of these conditions? What are the typical types of cross-cultural pragmatic failure of college students who have been cultivated by communicative approach in China? What are the causes of cross-cultural pragmatic failure for college students? How can EFL teaching deal with students'cross-cultural pragmatic failure?Based on the notion of communicative competence and its significance role as the ultimate goal of EFL, this dissertation investigates the pragmatic failure of 125 non-English majors in Jilin Agricultural University, and then makes a contrast analysis with the result got by He Ziran 20 years ago. The investigation is undergone in the form of 2 questionnaires.The result of questionnaire 1 shows that college students'pragmatic failure has improved, and showed the types of pragmatic failure. Questionnaire 2 analyzes the countermeasures to help students improve communicative competence. And the importance of culture teaching in the classroom is also demonstrated.The present thesis consists of five chapters. In the first chapter, the author introduces the reason for choosing the topic. The second chapter is the theoretical foundation of the thesis, in which the author expounds the concept of pragmatic failure, and communicative competence, the relationship among the three factors, the definition of pragmatic failure, the knowledge needed for a pragmatically competent learner and the present situation of English as foreign EFLT in our country is. Chapter three is the methodology, and the process and the results of the investigation are introduced. Chapter four results of the investigation are introduced, the author discuss the result and answer the research questions. Chapter five serves as a conclusion.