英语本科毕业论文-礼貌用语在跨文化交际中的用语失误.doc

Abstract Pragmatic failures of politeness in inter-cultural communication have been very common phenomena and to a large extent are influencing smoothness and effectiveness of communication seriously, which are the focus of this paper confinedin intercultural communication between Chinese and English native speakers. This paper describes pragmatic failures in some categories of polite speech acts and gives a new approach to analyze the causes that lead to such failures.In terms of daily speech acts, such as greetings, compliment, farewell, refusal apology request and so on, pragmatic failures in practice are illustrated and simply discussed. In this paper, the main causes are classified into three categories, which are politeness transfer, different culture-based cognitive environment，and improper choice of context. The prototypical politeness of individuals in intercultural communication will be transferred into the communication consciously or unconsciously. The formation of cognitive environment is based on the native culture and the most relevant culture factors are always playing as reference points and prototype to influence the communication. The relevant context with optimal relevance will come up first in ones culture and plays to proceed the communication. Such different prototypical understanding of context in different cultures and languages inevitably result in communicative failures.To summarize from a new perspective, this paper explores politeness failures inInter-cultural communication, presents the discussion of causes in the light of cognitive view and provides a reference for English learning and teaching, as well as intercultural communication.Key Words: pragmatic failures, politeness, cognitive, prototype, relevance 摘 要 跨文化交际中的礼貌语用失误已经成为一个普遍的现象，在很大程度上严重影响着交际的顺利进行和有效性，这正是本论文研究的主要问题。本论文描述了几种礼貌言语行为中的语用失误，给出一个新的视角来分析导致这些失误的成因。本论文对日常言语行为中的礼貌语用失误进行了描述和简单地分析，例如对招呼语，称赞语，告别语，拒绝语，道歉语，请求语等中出现的礼貌语用失误进行阐述。在此基础上，本论文将其主要的成因分为三类，即礼貌迁移，以文化为基础的不同的认知环境和不恰当的语境选择。在跨文化交际中，个人类典型的礼貌观念会有意识或无意识地转移到交际中来，也就是说不适用于二语的礼貌规则会迁移到交际中，从而导致礼貌语用失误。认知语境的形成是以母语文化为基础的，最相关联的文化因素总是作为参考点和类典型来影响交际。不同的认知环境导致对关联的礼貌语境的不同理解，因此这种不同的理解会引起礼貌语。不同文化和语言中对语境的典型性理解和构建不可避免的会造成交际失误。总的来说，本论文突破传统的分析角度，从一个新的观点出发剖析跨文化交际中的礼貌语用失误现象，并在此基础上归结出三大成因，利用认知语言学的理论和观点来分析其成因，为英语的学习与教学，以及跨文化交际等方面提供了参考和借鉴。关键词：语用失误；礼貌；认知；类典型；关联Contents AcknowledgmentsiAbstract in EnglishiiAbstract in Chineseiv1 Introduction11.1 Overview on Politeness11.2 Overview on Pragmatic Failures11.3 Pragmatic Failures in Politeness22 Literature Review32.1 Review of Politeness Studies at Home and Abroad32.1.1 Politeness Study Abroad32.1.2 Politeness Study in China42.2 Studies of Pragmatic Failures at Home and Abroad42.2.1 Studies of Pragmatic Failures Abroad4The notion of pragmatic failure has been initially defined by British linguist42.2.2 Studies of Inter-cultural Pragmatic Failure in China52.3 Study in Pragmatic Failure of Politeness52.4 Review on Causes of Pragmatic Failures in Politeness63 The Study73.1 Specific Phenomena of Pragmatic Failures in Politeness73.1.1 Greeting Failures Description and Analysis73.1.2 Request failures Description and Analysis93.2 Effects of Politeness Failures on Intercultural Communication93.3 Cognitive Analysis of Causes for Politeness Failures103.3.1 Focus Causes103.3.2 Introduction of Prototype Theory and Category113.3.3 Introduction of Relevance Theory123.4 Cognitive Analysis on Focus Causes for Pragmatic Failures of Politeness133.4.1 Cognitive Analysis on Politeness Transfer by Prototype Theory133.4.2 Cognitive Analysis on Different Culture-Based Cognitive Environment by Prototype and Relevance Theory143.4.3 Cognitive Analysis or all Improper Choice of Context144 Conclusion15References171 Introduction1.1 Overview on Politeness As we all know, politeness is the key pragmatic principles in language use, especially in the inter-cultural communication between different groups. As a standard or a yardstick to measure a behavior or a speech act, politeness plays the same role in the world. However, due to some differences in language, culture, and some living environments, politeness in utterances differ dramatically from one community to another community sharing no universal language. In more and more exchanges，trade businesses and other interactive activities among different countries, different polite philosophy has brought various obstacles for inter-cultural communications. It is because of those clear discrepancies from different groups，distinct understanding of communication context and other factors that a great number of pragmatic failures in politeness have become the prevailing phenomena in inter-cultural communication. 1.2 Overview on Pragmatic Failures The concept of pragmatic failure is first advocated by the notable British linguist Jenny Thomas in her cross-cultural pragmatic failure in Applied Linguistics in 1983 (Thomas,1983, p123-135).She holds that in the inter-cultural communication, when the hearer cannot understand the semantic meaning of what the speaker says or gives an inappropriate response to what the speaker means, this leads to communication failure, which is referred to as pragmatic failure. 1.3 Pragmatic Failures in Politeness Pragmatic failures in polite utterances are unavoidable. Participants as native speakers and those as non-native speakers encounter all kinds of violation of polite principles. To be more specific, misunderstanding of language use, culture factors, context and other related elements will present shortage of politeness. Failures in politeness are most reflected in the speech acts to display the intended meanings and to convey the expected ideas. So, the main issue to be discussed in this thesis is narrowed to the specific pragmatic failures in polite speech acts, and causes analysis is focused on the cognitive view. 2 Literature Review 2.1 Review of Politeness Studies at Home and Abroad 2.1.1 Politeness Study Abroad Polite speech acts，functionally, is to avoid failure or misunderstanding in communications, in order to achieve the purpose of the speaker or the expected result. It is just considering this point that linguist Grice advocates his famous four conversational maxims and the Cooperative Principle (CP) to reveal the ways or the mechanisms by which people interpret implicature to accomplish their conversations. His theory has been seen as pragmatic principles in conversations for interpersonal communications，but to a large extent and from the point of functions, it cart also be viewed as a study on politeness. Grices formulated the conversational maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner respectively, known as CP.Besides the CP sought by Grice，Leech has done a detailed study on the Politeness Principles(identified as PP)，who formulated six politeness maxims as tactMaxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim(Leech, 1983:132).Polite strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (p1-212) give a new dimension to the politeness study space. His theories of politeness strategies are bald-on record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record, among which positive and negative politeness are central to politeness.2.1.2 Politeness Study in China In China, scholars have made some modifications of the Western politeness theories.Among them, the most worth mentioning is ProfGu Yueguo (p237-257)，who summarizes four essential elements of Chinese politeness：respectfulness；modesty, attitudinal warmth and refinement. Later on, Gu (1992) elaborates these four essentials into five maxims of politeness in Chinese, They are Self-denigration Maxim; Address Term Maxim; Refinement Maxim; Agreement Maxim; Virtues-word deeds Maxim.2.2 Studies of Pragmatic Failures at Home and Abroad2.2.1 Studies of Pragmatic Failures AbroadThe notion of pragmatic failure has been initially defined by British linguist Thomas in her paper of crosscultural pragmatic failure. Thomas defines it as “the inability to understand” what is meant by what is said (Thomas, 1983:p91-112). In other words, it means that the speakers utterance is interpreted or understood by a hearer as different from what the speaker intends to be interpreted. So often pragmatic failure occurs in interactions between native and non-native speakers, and it also can be found in cross-cultural communications between native speakers. Actually, it occurs whenever the communicator could not use language appropriately or interpretlanguage correctly. Besides, on the basis of the nature of the failures, Thomas classified pragmatic failure into two categories: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.2.2.2 Studies of Inter-cultural Pragmatic Failure in ChinaChinese famous scholar Mr. He Ziran (何自然, 2002: p213-168) argues that the umbrella notion of pragmatic failure can refer to any failure that speakers have not accomplished the expected effect in language communications. He remarks that it is not the wrong grammatical structure that leads to inadequate expression of meaning and sense.Chen Xinren (陈新仁, 2004: p158-196) has also explored pragmatic failures from the aspect of pragmatic competenceHe holds that the skills of using language can be seen as pragmatic competence. Language grammar stipulates the correct form and structure of language, and semantic codes regulates that the form must take some meaning or sense.2.3 Study in Pragmatic Failure of PolitenessFrom the view of violating Grices Politeness Principles, in Cao Chunchun (1 998)s Pragmatic Failure and Politeness Principle, he analyzes pragmatic failures in communication practice between American and Chinese in China. He agrees with Leechs maxims of Politeness Principle and based on this theory, he analyzes further the common failure. Li and Fan (1 998)s The Analysis of Pragmatic Failure of Greeting Language delves into the possible reasons for different kinds of “inappropriate greetings” with Chinese learners and proposes pedagogic improvementfor teachers on both verbal and nonverbal actions. On three layers: wording, contents and pragmatic principles, he distinguishes expressions between Chinese and English greetings, and figures out the possible specific causes for both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failures and he also gives some valuable suggestions on pedagogic improvement.2.4 Review on Causes of Pragmatic Failures in PolitenessReviewing all the causes of pragmatic failures in politeness proposed by linguists and scholars, we call generalize into four categories politeness with their The four causes are introduced as follows：The first one is the culture and language difference. The second one comes up with language transfer in language acquisition. The third reason is teacher-induced errors. The fourth one is violation of pragmatic principles.3 The Study3.1 Specific Phenomena of Pragmatic Failures in Politeness Pragmatic failures are covered in addressing, greeting, compliment, farewell, refusal, apology, request and other related daily polite speech acts. Here, more specified ones will be presented and discussed in details 3.1.1 Greeting Failures Description and AnalysisWhen people meet each other, greeting seems to be the most natural way. But the ways in which people of the two cultures engage themselves in such speech acts can be different.First, Chinese people like to talk about eating very much. In China, a question like “Chi Guo Le Ma? 吃过了吗? (T：Have you had your meal ?)” is frequently heard around meal time. However, they are normally unacceptable to westerners. They will think that you are worrying their health.Second, Chinese people prefer to greet others by commenting on what the addressee is doing or is going to do. In China, if B is cleaning his car, A may greet himher by saying “Ca Che La? 擦车啦? (T: You are cleaning your car, arent you?) ” Nevertheless, the comment in Chinese seems to be difficult for Westerners to understand, for they regard it meaningless and unnecessary to talk about the obvious.Third, Chinese people are inclined to ask some questions which are deemed as an invasion of westerners privacy. It is typical for the Chinese to ask such questions like Hai, “Qu Naer Ya? 嗨，去哪儿呀?(THi，where are you heading for?)” but, native speakers of English are quite sensitive to such questions. They regard them as requests for information about their personal lives.Fourth, Chinese people tend to use terms of address as greetings. In China, terms of address are frequently used as greetings. For example, the official titles as “Li Kezhang李科长(Chief Li)”, or “Wang Zhuren王主任(Director Wang)”can be uttered to show respect and deference by indicating ones rank or position; kinship terms like “Shushu叔叔(uncle)”, “Ayi阿姨(aunt)” are heard to show the intimacy. However, it is rare for native speakers of English to greet each other by merely using terms of address.3.1.2 Request failures Description and AnalysisAccording to Searles description of request: a directive speech act which accounts as all attempt to get the hearer to do an act which the speaker wants the hearer to do, and which the speaker believes that the hearer is able to do, and which it is not obvious that the hearer will do in the normal course of events or of the hearers own accord (Searle,1969:66). Some English learners are green to the forms, sentence patterns to deliver the request. Often they use imperatives to make a request，like “Tell me, do you go to Shanghai?” communication is more likely to be terminated .In English，people use polite mood and polite language forms to express a request, like “ Could you pass me the book?”, “Would you mind opening the window?” and etc.Another point of failures in request is the topics or questions that the speaker may ask. Some English learners in China may ask: “How much do you earn monthly”. By asking this, they may threaten the hearers privacy. In the view of westerners, personal affairs and privacy, from political tendency, marriage status, regional beliefs, age, to personal income and the like, all belong to the domain of privacy. And therefore，touch on those topics may cause conversation failure and suchtopics shall be paid more attention to in cross-cultural communications.3.2 Effects of Politeness Failures on Intercultural CommunicationPragmatic failure is presented in all kinds of speech acts in the practice of cross-cultural communication and is embodied in the specific language use. Inappropriate use of language means impolite in association with native English speakers. Some native speakers will be tolerant to the grammatical errors the non-native speakers make but few of them will indulge the impoliteness. Misuse of language often leads to failure of communication in a broad sense. Narrowly speaking, in the business trade, impoliteness caused by pragmatic failure will result in loss of millions of money. A key persons impoliteness will destroy a country maybe just because the key persons words sounds threatening to hisher counterparts in the diplomatics. Unintentional misuse of English may make a very promising elite lose the opportunity in all international enterprise or miss the chance to be a student of Harvard university. To sum up, pragmatic failure brings at least a great number trouble to the effect of international communications, So that in order to avoid such negative influence, English learners are suggested to pay more attention to the language pragmatic usage in different cultural background and on different occasions.3.3 Cognitive Analysis of Causes for Politeness Failures3.3.1 Focus Causes First, politeness transfer. According to behaviorism theory about second language acquisition, the process of language learning is the same as the learning process of other behaviors in life. When intercultural communication occurs，the accustomed politeness as the prototypical reference point in the first language will first come into the mind of the hearer to react to the speaker, which may conflict with those in counterparts language, In such a case, pragmatic failures will come out as obstacles.Second, different culture-based cognitive environment in inter-cultural communications. Culture relevant factors contribute considerably to the misundersandings of politeness or other kinds of failures. Culture diversity forms distinct thinking styles, values concepts and distinctive cognitive environment, and in turn builds various assumptions, some of which may be inappropriate for another cognitive environment in a specified culture. Therefore, culturebased cognitive environment is counted as a crucial cause for the politeness failures.Third, improper choice of context. In order to achieve idealized communicative effect with interlocutors sharing no common cognitive environment, the relevant context plays its powerful role in facilitating the success of such a verbal conversation. The improper choice context can indicate impoliteness in the native speakers world and thus is considered as another primary factor.All the three causes will be explained by means of cognitive perspectives so it is necessary to look at the leading cognitive theories to be used.3.3.2 Introduction of Prototype Theory and Category “Categories are formed around prototypes, which function as cognitive reference points”(Unger