On Pragmatic Failure In The Light Of Relevance Theory

Pragmatic failure arouses unpleasant feelings or even inflammation between participants and brings breakdown to communication. As a result, it severely holds back the communication between people. The study of pragmatic failure begins with Jenny Thomas. She first proposes the notion of pragmatic failure in her"Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure"in 1983. She classifies pragmatic failure into pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. During the last 20 years or so, pragmaticians have carried out contrastive research into many different pragmatic features in a very wide range of languages. However, there are some defects in those researches. This dissertation, by analyzing the nature and reason for cross-cultural pragmatic failure with the new cognitive scientific theory—Relevance Theory, intends to demonstrate the interpretative force of Relevance Theory on cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Why RT can be relied upon for a study of cross-cultural pragmatic failure is one of emphases of my dissertation. Wilson (1994:35) also mentioned in his Relevance and Understanding:"Relevance Theory is intended to match human performance in comprehension". Thus, it can be inferred RT can be relied on to give reasonable account for both failure and success on communication. I hold the interpretative force of RT in accounting for cross-cultural pragmatic failure consists in two aspects: relevance is a matter of degree; relevance is a rule of universality. A new elaboration to the nature and reason for pragmatic failure on the basis of RT is the second focus of my dissertation. Advertising language, as a true reflection of the time, is everywhere in our daily life and has a considerable effect on our behavior and action. It goes beyond saying that advertising translation in the present world has an abundant content and a rich pragmatic function. However, many translated advertisements have serious pragmatic failures because of different cultures, customs, social norms, and religions. Herein, considering its special characteristic, this dissertation performs the above research taking the cases of pragmatic failure in the EC/CE translations of advertisements. This dissertation also tries to summarize the ways to avoid the pragmatic failures in advertising translation and search for the Optimal Relevance by the Relevance Theory.