Research On Pragmatic Failure Of High School Students And The Countermeasures

As a significant research topic in interlanguage pragmatics and cross-cultural communication, pragmatic failure has been studied by many scholars at home and abroad. These studies have attained rich achievements and are significant to foreign language teaching and learning. However, most of these studies have been based on college students or the whole Chinese students in general while few have taken high school students as their subjects; Furthermore, the previous studies have mainly focused on the pragmatic failure in verbal communication and overlooked that at the level of nonverbal communication (Li Yuansheng, 2004). Last, these previous studies have probed into the causes of pragmatic failure from researchers'perspective while few explored the reasons from learners'perspective.The present thesis intends to examine high school students'pragmatic failure in both verbal and nonverbal communication and probe into the causes of pragmatic failure from learners'perspectives. The theories used in this study mainly include Jenny Thomas'(1983) pragmatic failure theory, cross-cultural communication theories and some related pragmatic theories.This study attempts to answer the following research questions:(1) What is the current situation of high school students'pragmatic competence?(2) What is the relationship between high school students'pragmatic competence and linguistic competence?(3) What pragmatic failures are high school students prone to commit in cross-cultural communication?(4) What are the reasons for the pragmatic failures the high school students produce?To answer these questions, two methods are employed in this research: test and questionnaire. The test is supposed to examine the present situation of high school students'pragmatic competence, explore the relationship between pragmatic competence and linguistic competence, and reveal the pragmatic failure they are prone to make in cross-cultural communication. The questionnaire aims to give an overall but superficial understanding of the possible causes of pragmatic failure from learners'perspective. The author selected two groups of subjects from a key middle school in Shandong province—one group including 57 senior-one students and the other group including 58 senior-three students.All these research questions are answered at the end of the study. (1) High school students'pragmatic competence is still at a poor level, no matter which grade they are in. (2) High school students'pragmatic competence does not necessarily develop together with their linguistic competence. (3) High school students commit pragmatic failures not only in verbal communication but also in nonverbal communication. (4) The reasons for pragmatic failure high school students produce include the following aspects: cultural differences between China and English-speaking countries, negative language transfer, classroom teaching causes, inadequate learning environment and learning techniques.According to the analysis of pragmatic failure and its causes, four pedagogical countermeasures, including enhancing culture teaching, incorporating pragmatic principles in FLT, providing authentic materials and encouraging teachers'self-improvement, are provided to improve learners'culture awareness and enhance their pragmatic competence.In conclusion, based on pragmatic failure theory, cross-cultural communication theories and some related pragmatic theories, this research investigates the current situation of high school students'pragmatic competence, explores the relationship between pragmatic competence and linguistic competence, and points out the necessity and pedagogical countermeasures of enhancing high school students'pragmatic competence.