The Appropriateness Principle And The Intra-Lingual Pragmatic Failure In Chinese Verbal Communication

Pragmatic failure as a common phenomenon in daily life causes different degrees of negative effects on communication. Though as an old topic in pragmatics, it has been widely studied by scholars home and abroad, there lacks systematic study about intra-lingual pragmatic failure. And among the present study about intra-lingual pragmatic failure, no study has been conducted by adopting the appropriateness principle which is taken as the highest principle of pragmatics by some researchers. Therefore, this study, employing the appropriateness principle to study intra-lingual pragmatic failure, has both practical and theoretical value in helping deepen the understanding of intra-lingual pragmatic failure and in verifying the explanatory power of the appropriateness principle.This study takes intra-lingual pragmatic failure as the research content. Based on the analysis of the Tact Maxim put forward by Leech(1983), the appropriateness principle put forward by Li Ruihua (1994) and Wang Xijie (1996) respectively, the Tact Principle put forward by Suo Zhenyu (2000), and relevant concepts to help understand the appropriateness principle, the author puts forward her own understanding of the appropriateness principle by adopting the frame of Li Ruihua's appropriateness principle and some subcategories of context in Wang Xijie's appropriateness principle as the theoretical framework to analyze intra-lingual pragmatic failure in Chinese verbal communication with data collected from daily communication and from the articles of some researchers.This study considers unconscious violation of the appropriateness principle as the cause for intra-lingual pragmatic failure and finds that intra-lingual pragmatic failure can be caused by the inappropriateness related to the language knowledge, the inappropriateness related to the communicator, the inappropriateness related to the communicative situation, or the inappropriateness related to the social and cultural norms. If people fail to use appropriate style, intonation, or fail to avoid words with negative propositional meaning, which results in the inappropriateness related to the language knowledge, intra-lingual pragmatic failure may occur. If people do not take the communicator's social features such as gender, age, identity, educational background, and belief, etc. or psychological features such as expectation and disposition, etc. into consideration, or fail to consider the factors related to the communicative situation such as time, place, topic, or the factors related to the social and cultural norms such as area, nationality, taboo and euphemism, etc. which results in the inappropriateness of language use, intra-lingual pragmatic failure may also occur. Therefore, a comprehensive consideration should be made during the communication to ensure the appropriate use of language and hence avoid and reduce intra-lingual pragmatic failure.At the same time, this study points out the importance of cultivating the pragmatic competence, the necessity of having an open mind, and suggests sincere apologizing as a way to rescue or reduce the negative effects of intra-lingual pragmatic failure.