中英交际中语用失误现象分析

毕业论文系 别 ：外语系专 业 （ 班 级 ）：作 者 （ 学 号 ） ：指 导 教 师 ： 完 成 日 期 ： 2016 年 4 月 日An Analysis of Pragmatic FailureIn Chinese-English Communication蚌埠学院教务处制Content摘 要.1Abstract.21 Introduction.31.1 The Purpose and Significance of the Study .31.2 The Content of the Research.32 Literature Reviews.42.1 Foreign Research .42.2 Domestic Research.43 Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication.63.1 The Definition of Pragmatic Failure.63.1.1 Pragmalinguistic Failure .73.1.2 Sociopragmatic Failure .83.2 Main Causes of Pragmatic Failure.103.2.1Positive Transfer .103.2.2 Negative Transfer.113.3 Strategies to Avoid and Reduce Pragmatic Failures.133.3.1 Strengthening Awareness of Foreign Culture.133.3.2 Cultivating Pragmatic Competence .143.3.3 Improving Target Language Thinking.154 Conclusion .17Acknowledgement.18Bibliography .19蚌埠学院本科毕业论文1中英交际中语用失误现象分析摘 要：随着经济和技术的快速发展，把我们带到了一个全球化的时代。随之，不同文化背景的人际交流也越来越频繁。在跨文化交际过程中，交际者深受本国文化的影响，往往会将本国文化和语言知识带入交际行为，语用失误由此产生，导致无法正确地理解对方的交际意图和表达自己的真实想法，从而导致交际失败。除了文化差异，语用失误产生的原因还包括二语习得、人们的价值观以及汉语文化的言语行为方式套用英语等等。本文主要从语用迁移语用正迁移和语用负迁移的角度来解释语用失误。本文由引言、文献综述、正文及结论四个部分组成，主要阐述语用失误的定义、分析语用失误产生的原因，并提出避免或减少语用失误的策略，从而树立英语学习者的自信心，推动英语学习。如何改进学习方法来提高语用能力以及减少语用失误的产生是本文要解决的问题。关键词：语用失误；语用负迁移；语用能力徐琴琴：An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication2An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English CommunicationAbstract: With the rapid development of economy and technology, we are brought into a globalization era. Then, there are more and more interpersonal communications with different cultural backgrounds. In the process of intercultural communication, communicators are influenced by their own culture and they often tend to put their own cultural and linguistic knowledge into the communication, resulting in pragmatic failure. Then they cannot be able to correctly understand each others communicative intentions and express their true thoughts, resulting in communication failure. Besides the cultural differences, there are many other causes of pragmatic failure, such as second language acquisition, peoples values, and the speech act of Chinese culture in English. This thesis mainly explains the pragmatic failure from the perspective of pragmatic transfer-positive transfer and negative transfer. The paper consists of four parts: introduction, literature review, text and conclusion. It mainly elaborates the definition as well as the main reasons of pragmatic failure. And it also puts forward some strategies to avoid or reduce pragmatic failure so as to set up English learners self-confidence and promote English learning. The main problem in this paper is how to enhance the pragmatic ability by improving learning methods and reduce pragmatic failure. Key words: pragmatic failure; pragmatic negative transfer; pragmatic competence蚌埠学院本科毕业论文3An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication1 IntroductionJeanne Thomas first proposed the concept of “pragmatic failure” in 1983 in the “cross cultural pragmatic failure in the article” and laid a theoretical foundation for cross-cultural pragmatic failure and the reason. Pragmatic failure is evitable in the cross cultural communication. This paper mainly discusses the reasons for the pragmatic failure, especially the main reason- pragmatic negative transfer. 1.1 The Purpose and Significance of the Study Pragmatic failure is a common phenomenon in Chinese-English communication. The paper focuses on daily communication from the perspective of pragmatics in the Sino-British communication field to define Jenny Thomass two types of pragmatic failures-one is pragmalinguistic failure, and the other is sociopragmatic failure. In addition, the paper also cites cases of pragmatic failure as well as analyzes the causes. The purpose of the paper is to avoid misunderstanding in Chinese-English communication, so as to improve target language comprehensive application ability. And we all know that in the era of globalization, if we want to take an invincible position in the world, we must understand foreign culture. So we have to not only learn to understand pragmatic failure encountered in intercultural communication in education but also find ways to avoid pragmatic failure and improve Chinas cultural soft power. 1.2 The Content of the ResearchThis paper elaborates the pragmatic failure from Thomas dichotomy, including analyzing the causes of pragmatic failure from different angles, elaborating the main causes of pragmatic failure-negative transfer and offering several suggestions to avoid pragmatic failure in language in English Chinese communication.徐琴琴：An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication42 Literature Reviews2.1 Foreign ResearchG. Kasper (1981) published the “interlingua” from the perspective of the pragmatics. And this is a preliminary attempt to the second language acquisition research. It is a symbol of the second language acquisition from the perspective of pragmatics for language scholars .It is a symbol of the two language acquisition from the perspective of pragmatics. Jenny Thomas, the first person who put forward the concept of “pragmatic failure” and analyzed the reasons, laid the theoretical basis. Pragmatic failure is divided into two types: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.After entering the 1990s, in the Interlingua pragmatic research fields gradually attend some scholars like Kasper, Richard Schmidt, Larry Selinker and Bulm Kulka, etc. And their Interlingua pragmatics research tasks and scope gradually set down.Since the 21st century, Interlingua pragmatic study has made some new progress. G. kasper and Kenneth R. Rose wrote the book in the second language pragmatic development which is a system research on the development of pragmatic competence and acquisition of pragmatic competence.2.2 Domestic ResearchFirst, domestic scholars attribute the first cause of pragmatic failure to the cultural differences. Jia Yingzhi (2015), from faith and value concept, code of ethics of the differences, diversification of social relations and cultural context, implied meaning of the expression errors, several aspects of the natural environment, explains the reasons for pragmatic failure.Second, Wang Li and Ann Kam (2014) explain the causes of pragmatic failure from the perspective of second language acquisition, cultural difference, and negative transfer. They think that the causes of pragmatic failure include linguistic presupposition, different ways of thinking and cultural background differences and negative transfer of mother tongue.Third, the process of intercultural communication involves both cultural conventions and language specification. “In the communicative use of mother language or other misunderstanding, results can not effectively express their thoughts and intentions, and even 蚌埠学院本科毕业论文5cause misunderstanding” (Song Yuelan, 2001).Fourth, the speech act of Chinese culture in English leads to pragmatic failure, such as greeting, salutation, request, invitation, compliment, and apology and so on.In addition, Lu Wenhua and Lu Jianji (1993) also explain the causes of pragmatic failure from the perspective of teaching. “Our teaching does not consciously and systematically reflect Chinese pragmatic rules and culture, this piece of blank making it possible for students to interfere in their mother tongue in the teaching.” The language teaching content of the primary stage is often very simple. About the causes of pragmatic failure in communication, researchers have given some explanation from many angles, but there seems no effective way to improve the pragmatic competence. Therefore, it is also the direction of future research.徐琴琴：An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication63 Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English CommunicationIn Chinese-English communication, it is evident to find that to express our thought correctly in the second language is difficult. Different nations have different cultural conventions. As long as the obedient utterance meaning is different from what the speaker wants to convey, there produces a pragmatic failure. Pragmatic failure occurs in the Chinese-English communication, which influences the quality of communication because communicators may not be able to master enough foreign knowledge and its background or may not acknowledge the cultural feature of a foreign nation. So the research of pragmatic failure has become an important problem and has realistic value in the contemporary linguistic study.3.1 The Definition of Pragmatic FailureThe study of pragmatic failure begins with the famous British pragmatists, Jenny Thomas (1983) who defined and classified the pragmatic failure: the inability to understand what is meant by what is said. Therefore, we can conclude that the pragmatic failure in the cross-cultural communication refers to the speakers who fail to understand the implied meaning of the discourse timely and accurately in different cultures, so it leads to misunderstanding and even conflict. In our country, the study of pragmatic failure begins from He Ziran and other pragmatists. They have made a survey of the differences in English and Chinese from the perspective of Thomas view in 1984, and they have made a number of explanations about the concept of pragmatic failure. In particular, the speaker unconsciously violates the norms and social conventions, or doesnt consider some factors related to the hearer such as the identity and status. It leads to interruption or failure of communicative action. And the desired effect or a perfect communication effect cannot be achieved in the communication, which is called pragmatic failure. (He Ziran, 1997) .In Chinese-English communication, pragmatic failure is particularly important. Thomass pragmatic failure is divided into two types: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. 蚌埠学院本科毕业论文73.1.1 Pragmalinguistic FailurePragmalinguistic failure means that the second language learners speech acts are correct, but in the usage of the language, there is an error. That is to say, in the process of peoples daily verbal communication, pragmalinguistic failure can be defined as inappropriate and incorrect use of the language rules-grammatical forms. Namely, it means that native speakers dont understand the way of expression in English and they usually use different structures of language to express the same pragmatic functions. For example:(1) The students help the teacher to carry some books on the sixth floor.Teacher: Thanks a lot. Thats a great help.Student: Never mind.For this simple dialogue in daily life, as we all know, students have to say “youre welcome”, or “it doesnt matter.” But, in English, “Youre welcome” is not commonly used some other expressions, like: “it doesnt matter” or “not at all” are often used. Generally, the following expressions, such as “You are welcome”, “Dont mention it” and “Never mind”, etc. are rarely used. There are slightly differences between each other in usage. For example, when people do something wrong, they will feel guilty and request to be forgiven by the hearer. So the hearer often has to say “Never mind” to comfort them. If the slight differences between these expressions are not understood or mastered, there will be an error. In this case, teacher doesnt do anything wrong, and she doesnt need to apologize, so if students say “Never mind”, its obviously inappropriate. The cause of this case may be the confusion and misusing the synonymous expressions in English, and the violation of the English native peoples pragmatic habits.(2) A school leadership introduced a new American teacher to everybody:“Ladies and gentlemen, Im delighted to introduce a very pretty girl to you, Miss Brown. She is a very good teacher from the U.S.A.”. We can find that this is another example of pragmalinguistic failure. If you want to use English to introduce somebody, you should follow the English habit (including pragmatic habit), which means using concise and objective words, including somebodys identity, qualifications. However, the school leader introduced the American female teacher to others with his subjective comments, and the content of “introduction” lets the others feel embarrassed. On the contrary, if the American leader introduces the female teacher to everybody with a few similar words as the followings, 徐琴琴：An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese-English Communication8it will become much more appropriate: “Ladies and gentlemen, Im delighted to introduce to you a new teacher from the U. S. A., Miss Brown. She is a doctor of American Literature with experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language”.3.1.2 Sociopragmatic FailureSociopragmatic failure means that with their native language in the “politeness principles”, such as profit and loss concept, social distance and the corresponding responsibilities, etc. people understand or express the words of the target language and native language in the context of the same activity.(1) About politeness: For example, an American invites one of his Chinese friends who studies in America to go to his home to eat dinner. After the dinner, they have a conversation.Chinese: I must go nowAmerican: Oh, must you? Cant you stay a while longer?Chinese: No, I must