【标题】 A Study of Pragmatic Failures in Intercultural Communication
【作者】杨琴
【关键词】 语用失误 跨文化交际 英语教学
【指导老师】谷 茂
【专业】英语教育
【正文】
1. Introduction
Intercultural communication is the communications among people from
different culture backgrounds. Culture is concluding everything in everywhere. It is the deposit of knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, actions attitudes, meanings, hierarchies religion, nations of time, role, spatial relations, concepts of the universe and artifacts acquired by a group of people in course of generations through individual and group striving. It is omnipresent multidimensional and all pervasive.
People from different culture background live far away from each other for
quite a long time so that it is common for them to develop different life-styles, different ideas on the world-views and values, different
abilities to adapt to life in different environments, and formed so-called “culture” in different regions and areas in the world.
Therefore, when they communicating, one group of people may be affected by another group of people’s words, and feel uncomfortable, puzzled, surprised, or even shocked. Communication with people from different cultures can be fascination or frustrating because of these differences. The confliction just couldn’t be avoided in global interactions. This paper aims to make a tentative study of pragmatic failures and analyze the sources of the pragmatic failure of Chinese students and the deficiencies in English
language teaching in fostering students’ pragmatic competence, and then try to find out some strategies to improve students’ pragmatic competence.
2. Pragmatic Failure
2.1Definitions of Pragmatic Failure
Jenny Thomas (1983) defines pragmatic failure as the inability to
understand what is meant by what is said.1 According to Professor He Ziran (1997), pragmatic failure is caused by the speaker who cannot speak appropriately in a specific situation, or cannot use English accustomed to
the different cultural communication, which leads to the hearer’s misunderstanding of the speaker’s intention. G.Leech (1983) said “the
transfer of the norms of one community to another may well lead to pragmatic failure”. In other words, pragmatic failure refers to communication
breakdown resulting from being unable to realize a variety of pragmatic differences. We do not use the term “error” to refer to pragmatic failure
because it occurs when the learner expresses himself in an inappropriate manner. Different from grammatical errors, pragmatic failure may be regarded as a fact that a non-English native speaker is being deliberately impolite, unfriendly or even rude.
2.2 The Classification of Pragmatic Failure
Thomas classifies pragmatic failure into two types: pragmalinguistic
failure and sociopragmatic failure.
Pragmalinguistic failure occurs when learners do not express themselves in a linguistically appropriate manner. One kind of such failure arises when two languages share the same expression but use it in different situations.
For example, it is common in Chinese to give a response to thanks by saying “mei guan xi”. If we translate “mei guan xi” into English
as “Never mind”, the English addressee would not be able to interpret the utterance as an acknowledgement of thanks. Though the literal meaning of “Never mind” is equal to the Chinese “mei guan xi”, the communicative
conventions behind the two expressions are different.
Sociopragmatic failure arises when learners produce socially inappropriate
behavior. Different culture has different assessment towards “size of
imposition”, “relative rights and obligations” and thus affecting linguistic choice. For example, people living in western culture tend to verbalize their gratitude and compliments more than the Chinese speaker and
that they tend to accept thanks and compliments more than the Chinese.
The distinction between pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure is not always clear out. The same pragmatic failure may be taken either as a pragmalinguistic failure or as a sociopragmatic failure from different perspectives. For example, “Have you had lunch?” is a common
way of greeting at mealtime in Chinese. By saying it, the speaker has no intention to invite the addressee to dinner. If it is used to greet a native
speaker of English, he or she would think that the speaker wants to invite him or her to dinner. Though the literal meaning of this utterance is the same in English and Chinese, the illocutionary force in using the utterance
is different. Thus, it can be regarded as a pragmalinguistic failure. Because of the differences of the illocutionary force of this utterance, the English addressee may be annoyed, thinking that it is impolite of the Chinese to give the indication of inviting him or her to dinner without
taking further actions, thus it can also be considered as a sociopragmatic failure.
3. The Potential Pragmatic Failure of the Chinese Students
3.1 The Pragmalinguistic Failure of the Chinese Students
Chinese students often failed because they tend to transfer the utterances from Chinese to English, which are equivalent in literal meaning or structure but different in use or pragmatic force, or because they fail to
recognize the communicative value of the utterances with slight different
pragmatic functions. They produce pragmalinguistic failures because of their failure to recognize the intended meaning of those utterances to which two illocutionary forces may be assigned by the native speaker in different contexts, and so on.
3.1.1 Failure to Use Correct Utterances
1. Some English words cannot find their pragmatic equivalents in Chinese. In other words, some English words seem equivalent to some Chinese words, but they are just partly equivalent, because they have different pragmatic
force.
For example: “Next” in “Let’s go out next Sunday.” is equivocal to be
used here, because it has two meanings, “Sunday in this week” and “Sunday
in the following week”. But Chinese students often just know the sentence means “Sunday in the following week”.
2. Even when an English word has its equivalence in Chinese, sometimes there is some cultural difference in the meaning of the word. In other words, people in different cultures have different ideas or affective implication even about a same object, e.g. “Dog” in Chinese culture is not so lovely
as that in English culture.
For example: “Welcome to our bedroom when you are free.”
This is a sentence used by a female student to invite a male foreign teacher, which greatly surprised the teacher, for “bedroom” is a private place in
the west culture. So it would be better to change “bedroom” into “dorm”
or “room”.
3.In the use of language, different words are given different styles. And many Chinese students lack the sensitivity in style, which causes pragmatic
failures.
For example: “Conflagration!” A Chinese student studying abroad cried when he found his neighborhood on fire.
In fact, conflagration is a written word, which is not suitable to be used at the urgent moment, and should be replaced by “Fire!”
4. The students are often confused about the use of some phrases. Such as “never mind”, “of course” are the phrases often misunderstood and misused by Chinese students.
For example 1): A: “Thank you.”
B: “It doesn’t matter.” or “Never mind.”
When somebody says “Thank you,” the Chinese students would often respond with “It doesn’t matter.” or “Never mind.” In fact, both of the terms
are response to apologies, not to thanks. So it would be better to say, “It’s my pleasure.” or “You are welcome.”
For example 2): A: “Is the station far away from here?”
B: “Of course!”
“Of course!” is often translated into Chinese “dang ran (当然)”. So the
friendly Chinese would like to express the meaning “Yes, it’s sure.” with
the phrase “Of course!” But “Of course!” used here sounds like “How
foolish the question is!” “当然” in Chinese is similar in meaning to the English utterance “Of course”, but they are different in use. In English it is appropriate to answer a question with “Of course” which confirms
the addressee’s plan, such as “Are you coming to my birthday party?” However, it is inappropriate to answer with “Of course” the questions,
which ask for the opinion of the addressee about an object, like a) below, or ask for information about something like b) below.
a) Is this a good restaurant?
b) Is it open on Saturdays?
In English “Of course” were used to answer questions like the above implies that the question asked is so evident than only an idiot would ask. But in Chinese, it is quite appropriate to answer the above questions with “当然”, which expresses an enthusiastic affirmative answer to the question.
3.1.2 Failure to Interpret Illocutionary Force
1. Chinese students often find it difficult to interpret those utterances, to which two illocutionary forces may be assigned by native speakers of English in different contexts.
For example: during the break, student A feels thirsty, so he asks student B
A: Have you got something to drink?
B: Yes, thanks.
In this dialogue, A’s utterance is a request, but B takes it as an information-seeking question.
2. Students always think that “Imperative sentence is used to
order”, “Interrogative sentence is used to express a question”, etc.
For example 1): A teacher asked a student, “Could you answer me the
question?” The student answered, “Yes, I could.”
The student took this as an interrogative sentence answered with “Yes”
or “No”. He didn’t know it was a request. Its illocutionary force is: “Please answer me the question.”
For example 2): A teacher said to a student who was late for the class, “Can
you tell me what time it is now?” The student said, “Yes, it’s 8:20.”
The student fails to know the pragmatic force of the utterance or the purpose of the speaker, and just takes this sentence as a question.
3.1.3 Failure to Use Polite Expressions
1. Politeness is what people from different cultural backgrounds all try to observe and maintain.
For example: “Hi!” A student greeted a professor when they met on the way. “Hi”, which is an informal word is often used to greet friends or relatives, so it is not proper to be used to greet his or her professor. We can say, “Good morning!” or “Good afternoon!” instead.
2. Pragmalinguistic failures may also be caused by using complete
sentences of responses to simple questions such as B’s utterance below:
A: Have you bought your pen?
B: Yes, I have bought my pen.
Such a complete response sounds petulant or testy to native speakers of English, though the Chinese students do not have any intention of showing
such emotion. This kind of pragmalinguistic failure is often caused by inappropriate teaching techniques such as pattern drills of complete sentence.
In some contexts, it is not polite to give too complete responses. Compare the following pair of sentences:
1) I was sorry to hear about your Grandma.
2) I was sorry to hear about your Grandma was killed in the car accident.
Sentence 1) properly expresses the feeling of sympathy, while 2), due to the completeness of the utterance, are tactless.
3. Sometimes the students know how to make a grammatical sentence, but they don’t know how to make an appropriate sentence from the angle of grammar.
For example: When a student lost his way to the station, he asked a passer-by, “Can you show me the way to the station?”
“Could you show me the way to the station?” is better to be used here. “Can, could” has the same meaning of expressing “request” in the
sentence, but their illocutionary force of present tense and past tense are different, the past tense “could” sounds more polite than the present tense “can”.
3.1.4 Inappropriate Transfer of Chinese Customary Utterances to English
Some Chinese students often transfer Chinese customary utterances to English, which may puzzle the native English speakers.
Example 1): A teacher goes into the classroom. The students greet the teacher, “Good morning, teacher.” The teacher responses “Good morning,
students.”
“Teacher” and “students” are transferred from Chinese expressions, which are certainly not appropriate in English.
Example 2): A Chinese wanted to find a toilet in a foreign friend’s house, he asked, “Could you tell me where the toilet is?”
The proper expression is “Could I wash my hands before dinner?” or “Do
you mind if I use the bathroom?”
Example 3): When a student and her teacher want to go out of the classroom, the student said to her teacher politely, “You go first.”
In fact, the native speakers often say: “After you.”
Example 4): A: “Would you like a cup of tea?”
B: “Yes, thank you.”
“Yes, thank you.” (shi de, xie xie 是的,谢谢) is a right expression in
Chinese, but not appropriate in English. English response should be, “Yes,
please.” or “No, thank you.”
When making a call, somebody says, “Who’s speaking?” you need to answer
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