The Study On Pragmatic Failures Of Dialogues Of PEP Primary English Textbooks

Abstract:Because of the influence of educational concept and teaching level, and the limitation of examination system, English knowledge is always put in the first place in English teaching in our country for a long time, while cultivating students’English pragmatic competence is ignored. Although many students have a good master of English knowledge, they still can’t communicate with others in English fluently and properly. When they have the opportunity to communicate with native English speakers, either can’t communicate fluently, or even though they can, but often make some pragmatic failures and affect the communication effect. English learning in primary school is of great importance to students’forthcoming English study, and is the starting point for teachers to cultivate students’ pragmatic competence. As an important medium and carrier for English learning, textbooks play a significant role in cultivating students’ English pragmatic competence.Published by People’s Education Press, compulsory education curriculum standards experimental textbook of English (started from grade three) for third grade to sixth grade include eight books, and dialogues are the main form of the textbooks content. Fifty-nine pragmatic failures are found and collected in the textbooks, after being compared with the authoritative dictionaries and English original dialogues books etc. On the basis of predecessors’ studies, these pragmatic failures are divided into four types:the way of speaking is inappropriate; dialogues are not in conformity with the English idiomatic expressions, or communicative situations, or communication purposes. These pragmatic failures may hinder students from understanding western culture correctly, as well inputting English forms and rules exactly, affecting students to experience the real situation and use language flexibly etc. The textbook editors can take some measures to decrease or avoid pragmatic failures, such as, western culture can be imported into the texts to improve students understanding of western culture; excellent western textbooks can be selected and adapted to the textbooks to increase the target language input; real and diversified daily life situation can be created for the textbooks dialogues.