A Study On Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure And English Teaching In High Schools

We use language to exchange information and to establish and maintain smooth, harmonious interpersonal relationships. This description of language makes us consider language not only in terms of its structure, but also in terms of its communicative functions. Hence language learning involves both"usage"and actual"use"related to specific contexts. It has been reported that pragmatic failures are the main cause of communication failures due to the pragmatic differences"in ways of thinking, rules of speaking, social values, lexical connotations and other factors"(Chen & Huang, 2002:272).Pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas as the inability to understand what is meant by what is said. According to her, pragmatic failure is an area of cross-cultural communication breakdown and pragmatic failure has occurred on any occasion on which H (the hearer) perceives the force of S's (the speaker's) utterance as other than S intended she or he should perceive. In recent years, many Chinese scholars and teachers have begun to realize that in Sino-American communication, pragmatic failure occurs mainly because of the lack of cultural knowledge. Guided by the ultimate goal in ELT, this thesis aims to explore students'problems in cross-cultural communication---pragmatic failure and its causes, and suggests solutions to these problems.Based on the analyses of pragmatic failures, this thesis attempts to highlight the importance of culture teaching in English language teaching, so that students can communicate with native speakers more effectively. It shows where the teacher should lay emphasis in language teaching, and it also deals with how to improve students'cross-cultural awareness and how to foster the students'pragmatic competence.This thesis consists of seven parts.The first part serves as an introduction, which indicates the objective of ELT in...