Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure of Nonverbal Communication
跨文化交际中的语言失误(英语专业毕业论文_跨文化交际方向)
A Study of Social Pragmatic Failures in Cross-culturalCommunicationAbstract: Pragmatic failure is one of the main sources that give rise to cross-cultural communication breakdowns. Due to the different interpretations of politeness between Chinese and English cultures, pragmatic failures often exist in cross-cultural communications, resulting in communication breakdowns. This paper focuses on a study of politeness in its manifestations in Chinese and English cultures. It provides basic theories of politeness, cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural pragmatic failure, and points out the differences in interpretation of politeness between Chinese and English cultures, with the purpose of exploring the resources of those differences, so as to avoid pragmatic failures of politeness and effect successful cross-cultural communications. In brief, the findings of this paper support the view that pragmatic failures do exist in greeting, accepting gifts, table manner and many other aspects of daily communicat ion because of people’s different interpretations of politeness between Chinese and English cultures. Therefore, it is of great necessity to understand cultural differences, so as to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications.Key Word: politeness; cross-cultural pragmatic failure; cultural differences摘要：语用失误是造成跨文化交际障碍的主要原因之一。
从英汉语言赞语对比的视角谈语用失误
第15卷第4期呼伦贝尔学院学报No.4 V ol.15 2007年8月 Journal of Hulunbeier College Published in August.2007从英汉语言赞语对比的视角谈语用失误魏丽英 屈爱平 许德华(白城师范学院外语系 吉林 白城 137000 )摘 要：本文从语言形式、内容、应答模式等三个方面分析了英汉赞语的差异，以期在跨文化交际中避免语用失误，使交际得以成功。
关键词：赞语；语用失误；语言形式；应答模式中图分类号：H030 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-4601（2007）04-0073-03一、关于语用失误与赞语珍妮·托马斯（Jenny Thomas）在“跨文化语用失误(Cross-cultural Pragmatic failure)（1983）一文中首次提出了“语用失误”（Pragmatic failure）这一概念。
Thomas认为，在言语交际中，如果说话者没有按照标准的语法编码去遣词造句，他顶多被认为是说得不好”(speaking badly);但没有按照语用原则来处理话语，他就会被认为是表现不好(behaving badly),被认为是“不真诚的，存心欺骗的或者居心不良的人”。
对于什么是语用失误，国内外很多学者从不同的角度作了定义。
何自然（2002：348）指出：语用失误不是指一般遣词造句中出现的语言使用错误，而是说话人不合时宜的失误，或者说话方式不妥，表达不合习惯等导致交际不能取得预期效果的失误。
钱冠连（2002：195）认为：“说话人在言语交际中使用了符号关系正确的句子，但不自觉地违反了人际规范，社会规约或者不合时间空间，不看对象，这样性质的错误就叫语用失误”。
关于什么是赞语，Holmes在她的著作中给赞语下了一个广义上的定义：[(P.446):A compliment is a speech at which explicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, character -istic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer.]可见，赞语是对受话者所表达的一种肯定的评价。
跨文化商务谈判语用失误
｜ 中外互鉴跨文化商务谈判语用失误□范琳/文在经济全球化的趋势下，跨文化的商务交往日益频繁。
然而，具备基本的商务知识和所需的语言水平并不一定充分确保商务谈判可以有效成功。
从实际情况来看，不同文化背景、不同国家的交流人员在针对某些语言进行应用的过程中，往往都有不同程度的母语特征，在这样的应用环境下可能出现不同程度的语用失误等相关问题，甚至可能有重大误解，因此导致商务谈判不能平稳有序的运行，也无法出现比较良好的谈判效果。
所以要高度关注跨文化商务谈判过程中可能出现的问题，特别是在语用失误等方面要高度重视，明确交流过程中的语用失误等问题根源，这样才能更有效解决相关问题，对于商务谈判顺利进行有着积极意义。
1 跨文化商务谈判语用失误理论概述1.1 跨文化交际与商务谈判跨文化（inter-culture或cross-culture）是指具有两种不同文化背景群体之间的交互作用[1]。
跨文化交际学，这是一种全新的学科，主要是针对跨文化交际过程中所呈现出的矛盾进行深入分析，然后切实应对和处理，进而从根本上强化相关人员的跨文化交际交流能力。
在当前世界经济和文化一体化趋势越来越明显的背景之下，做好跨文化商务谈判是其中的关键所在。
要充分结合交易的相关条件着重做好协商，在具体的谈判过程中，要针对不同背景文化知识进行深入沟通和有效交流，明确不同内涵，进而充分结合相关交易条件而顺畅沟通交流。
然而在具体的交流过程中，因为不同国家的文化背景文化内涵有着十分显著的差异，甚至一定冲突，因此导致谈判过程中很可能出现误解，在这样的情况下就会产生“语用失误”[2]。
1.2 语用失误定义与类型语用失误是指说话者虽然使用了正确的句子符号关系，但说话方式、表达习惯有误，特别是指说话人无意识地违反人际规范，社会规范，对于相关交流对象、对方的地位身份或者谈判的场合、时间等等都没有高度关注，此类情况极有可能导致语言应用时违背了最初的目的。
违背语言中独特的文化价值观，最终导致沟通不能达到预期的结果或不能达成满意的沟通。
英语口语的语误分析与修正策略
英语口语的语误分析与修正策略作者：姚远杜剑来源：《教育界·下旬》2013年第09期【摘要】在当今英语教学中，分析语误的原因，采取何种措施来减少语误或避免语误的产生，是当前口语教学中面临的实际问题。
语误分析理论可以帮助教师和学生正确处理学生的语误，并对其加以适当的引导。
本文旨在分析几种英语口语中的语误，分析造成语误的原因，并提出修正策略。
文章以语误分析为理论指导，对英语学习者课堂口语中出现的语误进行分类、解释，指出有针对性的修正方法。
【关键词】口语语误分析纠错练习1 引言英语口语是英语国家的人民普遍应用的口头交流语言形式，它主要包括了主动型和被动型英语口语。
主动型英语口语是指语言表达的过程和释放，而被动型英语口语是指语言理解过程中的听。
在英语学习中，学习者常常会出现语音、语法和语用方面的语误（error），这些语误可能来自母语负迁移和语言学习的认知。
作为教学活动中的一部分，发现、分析和修正语误被认为是一件非常复杂的事情。
2 语误（error）和失误（mistake）2.1 中国英语学习者的特征大多数中国英语学习者花了长达十年的时间学习英语，掌握了词汇、语法以及文化背景方面的基础知识。
除此之外，学习者还利用业余时间收听各种英语听力材料。
但是学习者的英语口语水平不尽如人意。
其中最主要的原因是学习者过于专注英语听力、阅读以及写作，却忽视练习英语口语和发音。
因此，学习者在英语口语表达和交流能力方面的不足也就不难以理解了。
2.2语误与失误对于这类学生而言，他们应该树立更高目标，改善英语发音、提高语言组织能力和学会恰当得体表达的说话方式。
否则，就会直接导致学生的英语口语表达流利有余而准确不足。
语误是人类所特有的语言现象。
在行为主义者看来，学习语言就是养成良好的言语行为习惯。
学习者出错则证明他仍未养成良好的言语行为习惯，因此学习者的错误是应该杜绝的。
后来行为主义语言学习观受到猛烈的抨击，研究者对错误的态度也大有改观，他们不再把错误看做是语言学习失败的表现，而认为错误是学习者语言发展的特征。
旅游英语翻译的跨文化语用失误分析
旅游英语翻译的跨文化语用失误分析作者：汪翠兰来源：《文学教育》 2016年第8期汪翠兰内容摘要：英语的翻译与文化密不可分。
本文基于Jenny Thomas在《跨文化语用失误》中对语用失误的分类，从跨文化的角度，对旅游英语翻译中的语用-语言失误和社交-语用失误进行了分析和讨论。
讨论涉及到字面意义上的翻译，违反英语习惯用法的翻译，单词或词组的误用，以及文化词汇的翻译和违反礼貌原则的翻译等等方面。
关键词：旅游翻译跨文化分析作为一名从事旅游多年的导游翻译工作者，笔者经常带领游客参观各类景区景点，并参加了不同的旅游交易会，有机会看到许多景区景点的英文标识和宣传画册上的介绍说明。
在与国外游客交流的过程中，笔者了解到一些旅游英语用法的合理性和习惯性，以及一些失误翻译造成的误解性和不可理解性。
出于对旅游英语的爱好，笔者在本文中对遇到的一些典型语用问题进行了分析讨论。
在《跨文化语用失误》（Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure）一文中，Jenny Thomas 将语用失误分为两种：语用-语言失误（pragmalinguistic failure）和社交-语用失误（sociopragmatic failure）(Thomas, 1983). 语用-语言失误指学习者将本族语对某一词语或结构的语用意义套用到外语上造成的语用失误。
社交-语用失误指由于文化背景不同而犯的语用错误，牵涉到哪些话该讲，那些话不该讲，人际关系的远近，人们的权利和义务，与人们的价值观念有关。
当然，这种区分并不绝对，它会由于语境不同或说话者的角度不同而变化。
一.旅游英语翻译中的跨文化语用-语言失误分析1.照字面意义翻译引起的跨文化语用-语言失误分析在景区靠近水边的地方，我们会看到这样的警示牌：“小心掉到水里”，其英文翻译附后：“carefully falling into the water”这样的译文歪曲了原文的真正意图，不但没起到警示作用，反而误导了游客的行为，很容易造成不可弥补的错误。
跨文化交际中的语用失误
跨文化交际中的语用失误作者：何明霞来源：《商场现代化》2010年第11期[摘要]在跨文化交际中,来自于不同文化背景的人们习惯于通过自己的经验和阅历等来解读对方的话语,引起语用失误,导致跨文化交流的障碍。
本文从语用-语言失误和社交-语用失误两方面阐述了跨文化交际中的语用失误。
期待通过对这些区别的理解和掌握促进跨文化交流的有效进行。
[关键词]跨文化交际语用-语言失误社交-语用失误跨文化交际是指不同文化之间,在特定的语言和文化背景下所进行的交际活动。
在跨文化交际中,来自于不同文化背景的人们习惯于通过自己的经验和阅历等来解读对方的话语,导致跨文化交流的障碍。
著名语用学家Jenny Thomas 将人们在言语交际中无法达到完满的交际效果的差错称为语用失误(pragmatic failure:the inability to understand what is meant by what is said)。
按照Thomas在Applied Linguistics上发表的论文“Pragmatic Failure in Cross Cultu ral Communication”中的理论阐述,语用失误分为语用-语言失误(pragma-linguistic failure)和社交-语用失误(socio-pragmatic failure)。
一、语用-语言失误语用-语言失误是指语用者在交流过程中因为对双方所使用的语言的形式和功能缺乏恰当理解而无法完美表达用意,产生的失误。
Thomas认为,当说话人在某一表达中使用的语用方式与将该语言作为母语使用的说话者在这一表达中经常使用的语用方式不同时,就会产生失误。
因此,语用语言失误从另外一个角度上讲,是指说话人不能够得体地使用他所知道的语言结构规则,更确切地说,是指他在表达自己的特定意图或实施具体的言语行为时,不能够使用本族语者在同样场合使用的语言结构而造成的失误。
何自然对造成语用语言失误的原因分析包括:违反以英语为母语的本族人的语言习惯;误用英语的表达方式;套用母语的表达结构;忽略某些句式在特定场合下可能带来的特殊含义等。
跨文化交际中的语用失误
跨文化交际中的语用失误Pragmatic Failures in Cross-cultural Communication内容提要英语学习者由于对英语国家的社会文化背景了解不足或者不能够结合语境来理解和使用英语，以致于在跨文化交际中产生语用失误，也就是措辞不得体甚至不达意。
近年来，大学英语教学在强调提高学生的语音、词汇、语法等语言能力的同时，也强调要培养学生在理解和使用英语时避免语用失误，从而进行成功有效的交际的能力。
关键词：语用失误社会文化背景语境英语教学一、什么是语用学和语用失误？语用学是研究语言的理解和使用的学问（Leech, 1983）。
要做到真正理解和恰当使用一门语言，仅仅懂得构成这门语言的发音、词汇和语法是不够的，我们还必须懂得这种语言与理解和使用这种语言的人之间存在的各种各样的关系，如词语的字面意义和隐含意义、话语的前提、说话人的意图、听话人的推断等等。
跨文化交际是指不同文化背景的人们之间的交际（Gudykunst, 1984）。
跨文化交际中有一个语言的文化差异的问题。
对于中国学生来说，英语是外语，说英语时往往或多或少的带有汉文化的痕迹。
英国语言学家Malinowski（1923）说过，语言深深地扎根于文化现实和该民族人民的习俗,语言研究离不开这一宽泛的语言行为环境。
要理解语言，归根到底要懂得说话人的整个文化背景和生活方式。
因此我们在英语使用过程中，无论是正确的理解或正确的表达，都需要注意根据语境选择合适的词句。
而在语言理解和表达中非常重要的一个问题就是要防止语用失误。
语用失误不是指一般的语言运用错误,而是说话不合时宜的失误，或者说话方式不妥、表达不合习惯等导致交际不能取得预期效果的失误。
Thomas（1983）认为，在言语交际中，说话人没能根据标准的语法模式去遣词造句，他顶多被认为是“说得不好”（speaking badly）；但没有按照语用原则来处理话语，他就会被认为是“表现不好”（behaving badly）。
中英文广告互译中的语用失误研究及对策
第一章绪论……………………………………………………………………………．１ 第一节文献综述……………………………………………………………………．１ 一、语用失误………………………………………………………………………１ 二、广告翻译的研究现状…………………………………………………………４ 第二节研究背景……………………………………………………………………．６ 第三节研究目的和意义……………………………………………………………．．７ 第四节研究方法和语料选取………………………………………………………．７ 第五节论文结构……………………………………………………………………．７ 第二章理论框架………………………………………………………………………９ 第一节顺应理论……………………………………………………………………．９ 一、顺应理论简介…………………………………………………………………９ 二、顺应理论的基本性质………………………………………………………一１ ０ 第二节目的论………………………………………………………………………１ｌ 本章小结……………………………………………………………………………一１ ２ 第三章中英广告互译中的语用失误………………………………………………一１３ 第一节中英广告中的语用语言失误………………………………………………１３ 一、商标翻译中的语用语言失误………………………………………………．１３ 二、标题及口号语翻译中的语用语言失误……………………………………．１４ 三、广告正文翻译中的语用语言失误………………………………………．１５ ＿ 第二节中英广告中的社交语用失误………………………………………………１６ 一、广告商标翻译中的社交语用失误…………………………………………．１６ 二、广告标题及口号语翻译中的社交语用失误………………………………．１７ 三、广告正文翻译中的社交语用失误………………………………………．１
跨文化交际中的语用失误现象
跨文化交际中的语用失误现象浙江电大工商学院许鹤鸣讲师摘要：During inter-cultural communication, people from different parts of the world would easily get some misunderstandings which are called cross-cultural pragmatic failures. Generally speaking, pragmatic failures exit in our lives very often such as using Chinese-English, understanding the literal meaning of sentence while ignoring its real meaning, using improper expressions in cross-culture communications and etc. This paper would focus on the causes of the pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication.引言在跨文化交际活动中，往往出现文化语用失误(pragmatic failure)，或称语用违例（pragmatic violation），是英国语言学者托马斯(Thomas)在80 年代初提出的。
原因是在跨文化交际活动中，双方对彼此的社会文化传统缺乏了解，人们总是习惯于用自己的说话方式来解释对方的话语，而事实上不同的文化背景下人们说话方式或习惯不尽相同，从而影响有效的交际，导致交际失败。
Thomas指出，语用失误（pragmatic failure）的内涵是“不能理解所说词语的含义”。
而且Thomas将跨文化语用失误分为语言语用失误(pragmalinguistic failure)，和社会语用失误(sociopragmatic failure)两种。
跨文化语用失误的分析
跨文化语用失误的分析预览说明:预览图片所展示的格式为文档的源格式展示,下载源文件没有水印,内容可编辑和复制The Analysis Of Pragmatic FailuresIn Cross-cultural Communication1.IntroductionWith the globalization of the contemporary economy and society, intercultural communication becomes more and more frequent. However, different cultural backgrounds lead to different language conventions and rules. That will cause misunderstanding even obstacles in thecross-cultural communication. In order to avoid making ridiculous mistakes during communication, people should have cultural awareness and use the language appropriately to make the communication successful. That is the competence of cross-cultural communication. As we all know that through many years of English learning, most Chinese students may have little problem in grammar and vocabulary, but only a small proportion of them can achieve pragmatic competence. So it is necessary to know the pragmatic failures in the cross-cultural communication (Leech, G .N. Principles of Pragmatics [M]. New York: Longman, 1983: 32,150).About the pragmatic failures, Chinese scholars have done much work and people can see such articles in various periodicals. It was first raised by Thomas, J.He believed that pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication is a common phonemon( Thomas, J.(1983) Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure [J].Applied Linguistics, vol.4 (2):91- 112). However, those articlesjust discuss or list the different types of the pragmatic failures and analyze the possible reasons causing pragmatic failures.The thesis aims to study problems and causes in cross-culture communication and this paper also analyzes the differences between English and Chinese learners and then offers some methods. This paper wants to provide the readers with some basic knowledge about the language difference between English and Chinese. Meanwhile, it can help the English learners to develop their language skills to make a smooth cross-cultural communication.2. Problems in Cross-culture CommunicationScio-pragmatic failure occurs when people do not have fully understanding abou t each other’s cultural difference in cross-cultural communication thus they choose an improper way to communication with each other and cause a communication breakdown. Oatery (See Hu Wenzhong, 1998)said that the Chinese and western interpersonal relationships in eight aspects in daily conversations, namely, addressing people, initiating conversations, arranging a visit or activity ,conversation topics, greeting others , visiting someone, leave-taking, the use of “Thank you”Now, I will choose some typical commonly problems to discuss in following parts.2.1 GreetingsConventional greeting is a kind of effective means to build and keep social contact. In China, most people tend to greet acquaintances or some people with "Have you had your dinner?" or "Have you eaten?" In Chinese opinion, the questions in the example are natural and normal, but if you greet the nativespeakers of English this way, it will certainly cause pragmatic failure and they might think you are inviting him to dinner. In fact, it is a Chinese way of greeting when people meet. It has the same meaning with the word "hello" in English. This phenomenon results in a question for us to think over: Why are Chinese are used to using "Have you had your dinner?" or "Have you eaten?” as greeting? Let me take for example the reality in China before Liberation. China was one of seriously famine-stricken countries in the world .Many people were starved to death at that time. Worse still, between 1959 and1961, about 40 million people died of starvation throughout China. That was really a hard time for the Chinese people. Later on, under the leadership of China's Communist Party, the agriculture improved, and people started to lead a happier life. So, Chinese people think that food is the foundation of life. So it is very natural for us to use "Have you had your dinner?" as a greeting. But when we greet English people, we should not act this expression; instead a "Hello" would do.2.2 Compliments and ThanksWe can also see the cultural differences in view of the ways people express gratitude and compliments. Chinese value of politeness is different from foreign one.People in the West tend touse their gratitude and compliments more than Chinese people, and the Chinese tend to accept thanks and compliments less directly and frankly than the westerners do. To English-speaking people, who is willing to use the remark like” Thank you" to accept the praise from other people. It is assumed that the compliment is sincere and that the praise is for some worthyachievement or things. Therefore, there should be no show of no pretended modesty,false humility. However, modesty is one of the traditional virtues for Chinese people. The customary response to a compliment would be to say that one is not worthy of the praise, or that what one has done is hardly enough. Acceptance of a compliment would imply lack of manners. So we should pay attention to the difference in accepting compliments and thanks.2.3 Color WordsThough for people all over the world the colors are the same, different nations have different preference towards colors. In different culture, colors indicate different analogical meanings and associations, which are quite opposite sometimes. This difference will bring difficulties to two parties in understanding and communication . Some languages have only two color terms: black and white. The third term is red, if a language has three color systems. A term that may include yellow orange but that has a focal point very close to the “red” of English In add ition to the exact fact that different languages may have different divisions of color, different language showsl different color related association. For example, since he was made director, the company has been running in the black, instead of the red. In our traditional mind, black always represents something bad or inferior, while red means joy. However, in this example in the black means to make profit, and in the red means lose the money.2.4 In other fieldsCultural differences can be embodied in many other fields. Such as religious beliefs, values, taboos, etc. In terms of religious beliefs, China is deeply influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism while US and some other western countries promoteChristianity （Helen Oatey .The Customs and Language of Social Interaction in English）. As for values, it is most evidently reflected in the attitudes towards privacy. In western countries where individualism is encouraged,individual privacy is especially protected and respected by others. However, the concept of privacy is rather weak in China where collectivism is advocated. As for taboos, people who have just met each other for the first time would frequently touch on topics like age, sex, income, marital status which is regarded to be very impolite and offensive in western culture. Moreover, Chinese people created many idioms, some of which can be translated word-to-word into English, while some are not. For example, the idiom "挥金如土" is translated as "spend money like water". These are also caused by different cultures. If we do not take the different cultures into consideration, we are very likely to have pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication.3. Causes Of Pragmatic FailureThere are various causes of pragmatic failure. The main reasons may be: students’ inappropriate transfer of the mother language and students’ tendency of judging or interpreting behavior different from others according to their own cultural standard and the inappropriate teaching methods. Conflict of different value system and students’ insufficient exposure to the target culture as well as a lack of comparative studies of the two cultures can also lead to pragmatic failure. In the following parts,I just choose some possible reasons to be discussed.3.1 Inappropriate TransferenceNegative transfer of the mother language is the most important reason for pragmalinguistic failure (何自然、阎庄，1986(l): 52-57). EFL Learners transfer the linguistic pattern of their mother tongue into the target language which looks syntactically and semantically similar, but convey a rather many of the Chinese EFL learners’ errors result from the negative transfer of Chinese （Odlin, T. Language Transfer [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 7）.Here is a typical examples for you. When a foreigner visited his Chinese friend, the Chinese host offered him a cup of tea and said, “Please have a cup of tea.” On this occasion, the foreign guest maybe thought his friend was insincerely. In English, “please,” means the speaker want to get benefits from the hearer. But in Chinese, we can use “请”( qing, please) both in offering and requesting situation to show politeness. And here in this situation, we should use “Would you like acup of tea?”So if we express our own method in a wrong way, it may cause some troubles.3.2The Difference Of Society and CultureDomestic researchers considered cultural difference as the primary factor leading to Scio-pragmatic failure .Moreover, according to Halliday, the outstanding English linguist, language is a social behavior and a form of behavioral potency. The whole social environment constitutes a cultural environment. Culture is just the behavioral potency which realizes the meaningful potency through linguistic form and the meaningful potency converts into vocabulary grammatical potency through linguistic system. We can also see that speech behavior is restricted by social culture environment to a great extent. If we always explain the verbal behavior of people from other cultures according to our own cultural standards, it will inevitably lead to unnecessary misunderstandings and even conflict.Therefore, only paying attention to wording and phrasing, complying with grammatical rules and ignoring social and cultural differences are bound to result in pragmatic misuses and failures. We should emphasis the importance of society and culture and respect the difference.3.3 Improper Teaching TechniquesIt is easy to teach students some linguistic elements, but it takes much more efforts and time to convey how and when to use them appropriately. In teaching, we have many materials that emphasize language rules too much, but seldom strengthen the communicative functions. Much practice is often limited to syntactic considerations and phonological. Although students need to understand some pragmatic principles that charge the performance of speech acts in real communication, some teachers still teach students linguistic knowledge only. Due to using some inappropriate teaching materials, pragmalinguistic failure may occur. Look at these sentences patterns, such as “How old are you?” or “How much do you earn?”etc. Students are required to recite and use them as possible as they can. So, they have the wrong impression that when they meet a foreigner, after greeting, they should use expressions listed above to begin a conversation. In fact, they may touch some taboo topics for English native speakers. Violating a taboo can be quite offensive. Mentioning a certain topic in public would be shocking or cause strongdisapproval.To reduce pragmatic failure, language teacher should develop students’ cross-cultural communicative competence, which sets new and higher requirements for both teachers and students. It is desirable for English teachers to be more learnedin the areas of linguistics, literature, and criticism and so on.4. Measures to Avoid Cross-cultural Pragmatic FailureThe finally purpose of learning a foreign language is to be able to communication with native speakers of this country. However, in China many learners think that learning a foreign language means learning the vocabulary and grammar of this country. Finally, more and more people are unable to communicate with the native sp eakers’ .Moreover,being deeply influenced by their native culture backgrounds, people communicate with their own cultural values, thinking patterns, communicative modes, and linguistic knowledge which lead to pragmatic failures. In that situation, people can neither correctly understand the intensions of other people nor appropriately convey their original thoughts. In intercultural communication, pragmatic failure’s frequent occurrence br ings lots of obstacles of understanding each other which has a bad effect on communication .How can we reduce pragmatic failures in intercultural communication? Through the analysis above, I do believe that there are some methods for both EFL teachers and learners. As for teachers, they should teach cultural knowledge, teach with comparisons and teach in contexts. As for students, they should adjusting study attitude, update the schema storage frequently and broaden the general knowledge of both cultures. So we have to cultivate our communicative competence to avoid pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication. So far, there is no systematic way of developing students’ cross-cultural communicative competence, but some possible solutions could be worked out (Stephen, C. Levinson. Pragmatics [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001).This chapter would like to make some suggestions on improvingstudents’ cross-cultural communicative competence.4.1suggestions for Language TeachingAs we have seen, the pragmatic failures taking place in all the cases could have been avoided if the non-native speaker had had a meta-pragmatic capacity. As Kasper & Schmidt (1996: 160) say "pragmatic knowledge should be teachable”. There are numerous stu dies that prove this is so and instruction helps language learners in acquiring pragmatic competence .This shows that teachers are so important for students to avoid pragmatic failures.So I am going to talk the teaching methods from the following aspects.4.1.1 Teaching Cultural KnowledgeNowadays, more and more EFL teachers find that a lot of Chinese students who get high marks in exam can not fully understand others or make him or herself fully understood when communicating with foreigners. That is to say, only charging vocabulary and grammar is far from a good English learner. Hu Wenzhong finds that cultural mistakes made them (native speakers) more uncomfortable than grammatical mistakes. So teaching cultural knowledge is also of great importance which has two functions: improving students’ cross-cultural awareness and developing students’ communicative competence. Teachers can pay more attention to the culturally-loaded words or expressions especially those which have no direct equivalents in Chinese, for example, the lost generation, Adam’s apple and so on. During te aching cultural knowledge, there are two principles: first, laying emphasis on cultural teaching is not to say that linguistic knowledge can be ignored. The teacher should balance both sides and make the linguistic content more closely to the practical use in daily life. Second,teachers should make cultural teaching nonjudgmental. We must realize, as Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres has once stated: all people have the right to be equal and the equal right to be different. We should respect cultural div ersity and never say that others’ culture is inferior or superior just because it is different from ours.4.1.2 Teaching with Schemata ComparisonsRobert Labo points out that when the negative transfer happens during the foreign language studying, the learners are able to know the reasons of the problem through comparing the differences between two kinds of cultures. In short, only through comparing those two kinds of cultures, can students realize the differences. Comparative teaching way can work as the core of constructing culture schema structure and make the bring context into lovely. Through comparison and analogy that the relationship can be created between new information and original schema sothat students can know more about different cultural schemata. For example, when we come to western women’s social status, we can make a comparative study of the different aspects of educational background, political status, economic condition, etc. In western countries, especially in America the moral culture of equal rights has been deeply rooted in people’s hearts. American women are not always passive, but usually active; they turn compliment into rebellion. While in China, ethics is an impo rtant part of China’s traditional culture. In traditional society, Confucianism, the mainstream of social consciousness, expects a woman just to be a good wife and a devoted mother. Through the comparative study, students can build a more comprehensive sch ema of women’s social status of bothcultures which can promote mutual understanding.4.1.3 Teaching in ContextsMost English teachers in China still adopt the traditional language teaching method which considers forms and rules of language only but seldom concerns about how to use the forms and rules in the right place and at the right time. It’s better for teachers to create real contexts as much as possible during teaching. First, teacher should supply authentic teaching material. There is a joke I was told several years ago. Once, a Chinese student had an accident on freeway in America and fell off the cliff with his car. When the traffic police came and shouted: “How are you?” the student answered ,with no hesitation: “I’m fine. Thank you! And you?”. Af ter hearing that, the police left and the student lost his life. The reason why the student make such a response is that almost all the answers in text book to that question “How are you?” is “I’m fine. Thank you! And you?” Though it is just a joke, it reveals the problem of our unreal, impersonal and inactive teaching material which is helpful to the study of grammar rules but harmful to the cultivation of students’ pragmatic competence. Under the current Chinese exam-oriented education mode, teachers put more emphasis on the result of written test. It is better to add t he test of students’ pragmatic competence. As teachers, it is impossible for them to choose textbook and change the test system. The effective solution they can adopt is to make good use of classroom teaching. They can make the teaching student-centered an d carry out various activities which are close to students’ lives and relevant to their interests at class. For example, role-acting ,speech contest, English debating and so on. It aims to arouse students’ initiative to use all the resources around themsu ch as movies ,Internet, books,from which students can get various contexts, So that students can construct real cognitive image schemata from muti-culture perspectives.4.2suggestions for language learningSince English is widely used in the fields of politics, commerce and culture, the right use of English is highly demanded in addition to the good command of English skills such as listening,reading,and,writing.Since,we,having understood the major causes to pragmatic failure in c ross-cultural,communication.In order to cultivate learners’ pragmatic competence, I shall discuss the following aspects to adhere to in the process of English language learning.4.2.1 Adjusting Study AttitudesUnder the exam-oriented education mode, most Chinese EFL learners hold the view that the purpose of learning English is to master new words and grammar rules which can help them get high mark in examinations. The way they learn English is just reciting vocabulary and grammar rules as many as they can. But the ultimate goal of learning a language is to have the ability to use this language in communication in right places and at right times which needs both linguistic competence and communicative competence. A ccording to Dell Hymes’ (1972) theory of communicative competence, students should pay attention to four aspects:a. possibility: whether or not something is formally possible. It is concerned with whether a language permits a sentence as grammatically possible.b. feasibility: the ability to produce sentences which can be understood by the human brain.c. appropriateness: the ability to use correct forms of language in a particular situation.d. performance: the fact that the utterance is completed. Linguistic competence is only a corner of iceberg. In order to perform like native speakers, all the EFL learners should first adjust their purpose of learning a second language and spare no effort to develop their communicative competence.4.2.2 Updating the Schema Storage FrequentlyAccording to J.Mandler ( Understanding Pragmatics [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1979), schema is just a cognitive structure including slots and default values which are used for filling the slots. Whenever the slot is filled, a schema is formed. Due to the hierarchical feature of slot, schema is highly flexible. Whichever default value is modified, the stored schema should make some changes accordingly. With the more and more bodily interactions with the world, the default values are changing all the time. The process of acquiring knowledge in fact is a process of enlarging and updating the existed schemata. So the schemata stored in our mind are dynamic rather than static. For example, after seeing maple, the color slot of leave is turned from green and yellow to green, yellow and red. Due to the inadequate general knowledge reserve and limited pragmatic competence, the schema stored in mind can never be enough to satisfy our needs. Students should renew reserved schemata and construct new schemata so that the schema storage can be more substantial and comprehensive.4.2.3 Improving the Understanding of Both CulturesAccording to the analysis above, we know that pragmatic failure will occur when the interlocutors have no cross-culturalawareness which describes the sensitivity to the impact of culturally-included behaviors in various kinds of language use including communication. Valdes once states the four goals of cultural instruction:a. developing a greater awareness of the target culture anda border knowledge about the target culture;b. acquiring a command of the etiquette of the target culture;c. understanding differences between the target culture and the students’ culture;d. understanding the values of the target culture.As we all know, language is not only a tool of communication but also a bridge which connects the native culture with the outer world. It helps us know almost every corner on the earth and at the same time, it provides a channel for other nations to have acquaintance with us, a great nation with long history. So during the second language learning process, students should consciously enlarge their cultural deposits of not only the target culture but also our own culture such as politics, religions, literature, values, conventions, and so on. By doing this, students can have the awareness of cultural differences and schema diversities so that they can activate the appropriate schema in real-context cross-culture communication.5. ConclusionAs the globalization of world economy grows faster and the Internet tears down national boundaries, cross-cultural communication is becoming an indivisible part of our daily life. More research on cross-cultural communication. Pragmatic failure is urgently needed to explain and prevent communication breakdown in cross-cultural communication. In this thesis theauthor has attempted to do an analysis of this issue and come up with some suggestions for avoiding pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication.Analysis in the third chapter has shown us that the main causes of pragmatic failures are the lack of communicative competence. Communicative competence consists of grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. Though we can learn the grammatical rules of another language; we still need pragmatic competence in cross-cultural communication. For cultivating pragmatic competence we must first know and respect the fact that people have different cultures which will guide them to do things in different ways. A good attitude is the start for everything. Then we can have cultural training to help people to communicate more efficiently.In intercultural communic ation, pragmatic failure’s frequent occurrence brings lots of obstacles of understanding each other which has a bad effect on communication. Since intercultural communication is an inevitable trend, research on pragmatic failure in intercultural communication has become a hot issue of both theoretical significance and practical value. The theoretical significance of this dissertation is that it has adopted a cognitive perspective of analyzing pragmatic failures in intercultural communication. This dissertation supplies some strategies for both EFL teachers and students to reduce or avoid intercultural communication pragmatic failures. It is the practical significance of this study. As for teachers, they should teach cultural knowledge, teach with schemata comparisons and teach in contexts. As for students, they should adjusting study attitude, update the schema storage frequently and broaden the knowledge of both cultures.Due to the poor theoretical ability of the author and the complexity of this problem, thesis of intercultural communication pragmatic failure from the perspective of language learning and language teaching are far from being complete. And the analysis of nonverbal communication pragmatic failures is oversimplified. In the future, more advanced methods should be adopted to get the comprehensive level of Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic competence, and more theories will be employed to analyze this hot issue which may provide more solutions to reduce pragmatic failures as well as practical teaching methods to promote EFL students’ pragmatic competence.Fortunately, it is good to see that more people have realized the importance of not being just grammatically competent. As more and more attention is paid to the communicative competence of speakers. We believe that the barriers of cross-cultural will be removed sooner or later.References:1.Hu, Wenzhong . Encountering the Chinese: A Guide to Americans [M].—Yarmouth, ME:International Press, 1998.2.Helen Oatey .The Customs and Language of Social Interaction in English (《与英美人交往的习俗和语言》)[M].上海3. Kasper & Schmidt .Developmental Issues in Interlanguage[M].Second Language Research ,1996:160.4.Leech, G .N. Principles of Pragmatics [M]. New York: Longman, 1983: 32,150.5.Odlin, T. Language Transfer [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 76. Stephen, C. Levinson. Pragmatics [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 20017.Thomas, J. (1983) Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure [J].Applied Linguistics, vol.4 (2):91- 112.8. J.Mandler. Understanding Pragmatics [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 197911. 何自然,阎庄. 中国学生在英语交际中的语用失误[J].北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1986(l): 52-57.12. 邓炎昌，刘润清.语言与文化：英汉语言文化对比[M].外语教学与研究出版社，2003.13. 戴炜栋,何兆熊.新编简明英语语言学教程[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2002:84.14. 贾于新.跨文化交际学[M].上海外语教育出版社，1997.。
Pragmatic Failure in the Cross-Cultural Communication 跨文化交际中的语用失误
Pragmatic Failure in the Cross-Cultural communication
ห้องสมุดไป่ตู้摘要
随着中西方文化交流的不断扩大，跨文化交流越来越被人们所重视。不同语言和文化背景的人们要成功的进行交流，语言是基础，但语言背后的文化同样重要，有些英语学习者由于对英语国家的社会背景了解不足或者不能够结合语境来理解和使用英语，以至于在跨文化交际中产生语用失误（也就是措辞不得体，甚至不达意）。如果语言不负载文化就只能是一堆毫无意义的符号。成功的跨文化交际不仅需要外语学习者具备良好的语言能力，而且也需要了解中西文化之间的差异，所以增强对目的语的领悟力是必要的。另一方面，由于语用失误反映出语言学习者的文化背景与价值取向。也就是说，语言学习者是受不同文化背景和价值取向的影响而出现语用失误的，人们不能过于武断的指责或给它贴上“错误”的标签。其中一种理智的解决办法就是通过教师的引导，教授他们一些文化知识帮助学习者了解目的语文化与其母语文化的区别。比如英语词汇包含它特有的文化信息，像有关数字、颜色的词语在语用意义上与中文不同。此外，教师应该让学生重视委婉语和禁忌语的使用。
ABSTRACT
Since China’s opening to the outside world，the cross-cultural communication becomes more and more important, if people of different languagesand backgroundswant to communicate smoothly ,language is the foundation ,and the culture whichattached tothe language is also important. Some English learners often make the pragmatic failures(expressing improperly or evenmaking the wrongly understanding) during the cross-cultural communication, for they have little knowledge about the English speaking countries’ background or they don’t know how to understand and use English according to the conversation context.If thelanguageseparatedfrom culture, it is just a pile of symbol.The successful cross-cultural communication needs not only the foreign language learnerstohave the good ability of using language but also to know the differences of the Chinese and western cultures. So a good understanding of the target language is necessary.In the other hands, because of the pragmatic failure is a kind of phenomenon which reflects the language learners’culture background and valueorientation. That’sto say, language learners make the pragmatic failure for they have different culture backgrounds and valueorientation, people should not over criticize itartificiallyoraffix toa stag“wrong”on it.One of the sensiblewaysto solve this problem is to guide the learners by teachers, they can help students to distinguish their mother language’s culture from the target language’scultureby teaching some knowledge of culture. For example, English vocabulary contains its ownculture, like the vocabulary about number and color have different pragmatic meanings in Chinese. Furthermore, teachers should ask them to pay attention to the usage of theeuphemismand thetaboo.
跨文化交际的语用失误研究(英语论文)
跨文化交际的语用失误研究A Study of Pragmatic Failure in Intercultural Communication摘要本论文尝试从一些基本的语用学理论入手对比分析不同文化差异引起的语用失误现象，以便从更科学和系统的角度了解不同文化、不同社会、不同群体的人们是如何以不同的标准来进行他们各自的言语行为。
本文重点从言语交际失误方面展开对语用失误的研究，主要包括语用语言失误和社交语用失误两种。
并且通过对这两种语用失误的分析，作者提出了一些针对语言教学的启示。
关键词: 跨文化交际；文化差异；语用语言失误；社交语用失误；语言教学启示AbstractThis thesis attempts to analyze pragmatic failure according to some basic pragmatic theories, in order to understand people more scientifically and systematically who come from different culture, society and community how to operate interaction based on different standards. The thesis will emphasize on verbal communication which concludes pragmalinguistic failure and socio-pragmatic failure. And through analyzing on the two kinds of pragmatic failures, the author puts forward some enlightenment for language teaching.Key words: Intercultural Communication; Cultural Differences; Pragmalinguistic Failure;Socio-pragmatic Failure; Enlightenment for Language TeachingChapter One IntroductionIntercultural communication activities go with the history of mankind, but as a subject it only emerged several decades ago and a great many researches from different perspectives have been conducted on it by scholars at home and abroad. The thesis attempts to make analysis on the pragmatic failures in the intercultural communication from the view point of sociolinguistics and pragmatics.Chapter two explains several important issues. The first is to give the definition and characteristics of culture and communication, which lead to the conclusion that culture, communication and language are inseparable. The second is an overview of intercultural communication. The study of intercultural communication is a multi-discipline, and it compasses every aspect of communication.Chapter three discusses two types of pragmatic failure in verbal-communication, namely: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. In terms of pragmalinguistic failure, failures in lexicon and grammar are illustrated; in terms of sociopragmatic failure, failures in what to say and how to say.Chapter four gives some enlightenment to improve language teaching approaches and concepts. In recent years, researchers have made great efforts to improve foreign language teaching, and it is thought that the pragmatic competence of foreign language learners has been improved a lot. However, pragmatic failure still haunts the language learners and teachers because it is closely concerned with culture, communication and language, which are indispensable in academic and social life.Chapter Two A Brief Survey of Some Specified Issues in InterculturalCommunication2.1 The Definitions of Classroom Questioning2.1.1 CultureCulture is such a vast and large concept that it is hard and difficult to give an exact definition that is accepted by all people. It is said that there have been at least over 150 definitions about culture, but none of them can cover all the aspects of culture. The following definitions are some of the well-known ones.Edward T. Hall gave a detailed descriptio n as “Culture is man’s medium; there is not one aspect of human life that is not touched and altered by culture. This means personality, howpeople express themselves, including shows of emotion, the way they think, how they move, how problems are solved, how their cities are planned and laid out, how transportation systems function and are organized, as well as how economic and government systems are put together and function.”(Hall, 1959, p.97)Bates and Plog proposed a descriptive definition “Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought, artifacts, and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques used to make the artifacts.” (Bates & Plog, 1990, p.152)From the above definitions, we have seen culture is ubiquitous multidimensional, complex, and all-pervasive. In many ways, Hall is correct: culture is everything and everywhere (Samovar & Porter, 2000, p.34). For the purpose research on pragmatic failure in intercultural communication, the author would like to understand culture as a particular way to satisfy human’s basic needs. According to a psychologist Abraham Maslow, human being shares five basic needs: the physiological needs, the safety needs, the belongingness needs, the esteem needs and the self-actualization needs. The five basic needs of human being are shaped and affected unconsciously by culture and gradually we take it for granted and treat them as cultural-rooted habits. Take food as an example, people from one culture might think the food eaten by another cultural group is not delicious and even disgusting. Just like Chinese think it good for health to eat dog meat, while the thought of eating dog disgusts western people because dogs are treated as people’s best friend s in their culture. But no matter how different culture has its ways of doing things in daily life, it cannot be simply judged by the right-or-wrong question. It is interpreted as different people do the same things in different manners.2.1.2 CommunicationThe word “communicate” originate from the Latin word “commonis” that means “common”. So the premise of communication is that the participants should share the common knowledge. As is the case with culture, communication is complex and multidimensional. When people decode the signal and obtain the message, it is important for them to interpret messages in terms of cultural orientation. And Samovar defines communication as “it happens whenever meaning is attributed to behavior or to the residue of behavior” (Samovar, 1981, p.75). His definition tells us communication can go on through our conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional behavior. People are communicating everywhere all the time in various manners for different purposes.In order to clarify how communication actually operates, there are several characteristics ofcommunication need to be fully understood. First, communication is changing all the time. During the process of communication, participants are unconsciously affected by the input of new messages. So, there will be changed in some way, which means everyone will be a dynamic individual in his whole life. Second, communication is irreversible. Once messages are received and decoded it is impossible to eliminate the result and the sender’s only choice is to modify or implement the former messages. Therefore, once pragmatic failures occur in the process of communication it is not an easy job to erase some negative results and influences completely. Therefore, the study of pragmatic failure will be helpful to minimize misunderstanding in international communication.2.2 Intercultural Communication2.2.1 Definition of Intercultural CommunicationIt is an undeniable fact that we live in a global village nowadays. Intercultural communication occurs every day with the rapid economic and cultural development of society. It involves the interaction of cultures from different nations. As an independent subject, intercultural communication only emerged a few decades ago. Hall put forward the term intercultural communication first in his book The Silent Language. It can be simply defined as interpersonal communication between members of different cultures. The term has been expressed in many ways, such as intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication, the study of intercultural communication, and the study of cross-cultural communication. Among them, intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication are more widely adopted. Though the term cross-cultural communication was adopted earlier by scholars, now the former receives more preference.In many cases, intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication are understood as being the same. The study of intercultural communication is generally considered to include cross-cultural communication. According to Samovar, & Porter, intercultural communication is communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol system are distinct enough to alter the communication event. According to Gudykunst and Kin, intercultural communication is a comparison of some phenomena across cultures, but cross-cultural communication is an interaction between people from different cultures. They hold that intercultural communication puts emphasis on the study, while cross-cultural communication in the interaction. In this thesis, hereby, the author will adopt the term intercultural communication.2.2.2 An Overview of Intercultural CommunicationThe study of intercultural communication can be traced back to America in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. As a new world for Europeans, Asians, and people from other continentswho want to realize their American dreams, America attracts millions of immigrants all over the world. These immigrants brought not only their skills, but their cultures as well. Therefore, as a melting pot of immigrants, a variety of barriers, conflicts, and frictions due to cultural differences in communication activities arose in America. This phenomenon aroused much interest in the western countries, especially in America. Communication specialists became interested in the subject of communication among members of different cultures. The book The Silent Language is often considered as the initial signal of intercultural communication studies. From then on, anthropologists, socio-psychologists, sociolinguists have devoted with great enthusiasm to the study from a variety of perspectives.Intercultural communication was delivered as a course in some American universities in the late 1960s. With the trend of globalization, the development of intercultural communication is consistent with that of the world’s economic and cultural situations and it is more appealing not only to the specialized scholars but to any people who may engage in intercultural communication activities.Many Chinese scholars have devoted to the field and made a great many valuable researches into the study from 1980s. It is believed that intercultural communication has connection with many other subjects. Among them, anthropology, socio-psychology and socio-linguistics and communication are the most influential subjects. Jia Yuxin considers philosophy and racial interaction should be added to it. The study of intercultural communication is a multi-discipline, and it compasses every aspect of communication.Chapter Three The Pragmatic Failure in Communication3.1 Pragmalinguistic FailureThe scholar Hong Gang thinks that pragmalinguistic failure occurs when the speaker uses the utterance which is systematically different from the target language to express the same pragmatic function. In other words, the speaker violates the rules of target language and transfers norms of the source language. In this part, the author will categorize it into two aspects: lexical level and grammar level.3.1.1 Lexical LevelIn intercultural communication, it can be found that a great deal of words have the same conceptual meaning while their associative meanings are different. For example, the words of color have different associative meanings in the west and the east. The sight of color would arouse human’s emotion, and even affect our physical feeling. It seems that human shares some common responses to some colors. Such as, red represents blood and fire, the symbol of life andstrength; green is associated with freshness because it is the color of grass and tree; black is an unlucky color, related with evil, death, mourning and the underground world. In most cases, however, people’s understanding of color terms is different. In China, from the Tang dynasty the color of bright yellow was used specially by royal power, dignity and nobility. While in the Bible, Jesus wears a family, purple robe during the Passion. For the reason, the color of purple is regarded as holy, noble, equal with the color of bright yellow in China. So there are those expressions in English:be born in the purple(生在官宦之家)be raised to the purple(升为红衣主教)marry into the purple(嫁到显贵之家)It is acknowledged that there is no absolute cultural universal or cultural similarity. The confusing phenomenon is that one aspect or element in one culture is so peculiar that a counterpart or an equivalent cannot be found in another culture. For instance, the plant of bamboo plays an important role in Chinese daily life from the ancient time, being the material of boats, books, shoes and etc. The traditional culture associates bamboos with the traits of integrity, strong-minded and dignity. On the contrary, in the western culture bamboo is just a name for that kind of plant without any extending meaning. Even the word “bamboo” is borrowed from another language. Another example concerns the use of “tiger” and “dragon”. When the Chinese refers to the four developed areas in Asia they use “four dragons”. However,in English newspapers and magazines those four places are referred to as “four tigers of A sia”. In Chinese culture, dragon is a holy animal, symbolizing power and royalty. Hence, Chinese are proud of calling themselves the descendents of the dragon. However, according to Christianity, dragon is a creature of ill omen, just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden that induces Eden and Eve to break the rule and eat the evil fruit. So the Chinese idiom“望子成龙”is translated as “wish one’s child to be somebody”. Otherwise, the literal translation is unacceptable as it may bring about different cultural association. From the above example, we have learned that the associative meanings of English words are not equal with that of Chinese words. Neglecting the differences will lead people to bring their original values and attitudes into the process of intercultural communication. It is one of the most common failures resulting from inappropriate understanding of associative meanings of words.3.1.2 Grammar LevelThe shared knowledge of grammar ensures the smooth progress of effective communication. But actually, people are usually apt to employ the grammar rules of their source language unconsciously, which makes it possible for listeners to interpret speakers’ utterance in the wrong way.In Chinese, the position of adverbial modifier is comparatively stable—at the front of verb. We can read the sentence:他在安安静静地读书；他突然大笑起来。
论跨文化社交语用失误的文化探源及对策.
论跨文化社交语用失误的文化探源及对策自然先生（1988）认为，“在言语交际中导致交际者本人未能取得完满交际效果的差错统称为语用失误”。
语用失误有时又被称为语用违例（Ninio & Snow，1996）。
语用失误主要表现为说话方式欠妥，或者不符合特定语言和文化社区的表达习惯，或者说话不合时宜等。
需要指出的是语用失误不等于语法错误，错误是可以改正的，失误只能去避免。
在Thomas（1983）看来，在言语交际中，说话人在表达思想时出现语法错误，至多被认为是“说得不好”；但违反交际规则如礼貌原则就会被认为是“举止不好”，被认为是“不真诚的，存心欺骗的或居心不良的人”。
她根据Leech关于语用学的分类，将语用失误分为两类：语用语言失误和社交语用失误。
前者主要是指由语用语言迁移所造成的失误，即把一种语言中语言形式与语言功能的对应关系照搬到另一种语言的使用之中，造成使用中形式与功能的错位。
这类失误还包括因教学所导致的错误，比如在实际生活中用课堂上学的完整句子讲话或回答问题。
而社交语用失误是指交际中因不了解或忽视谈话双方的社会、文化背景差异而出现的语言表达失误。
它与谈话双方的身份、会话的语域、话题的熟悉程度等因素有关。
例如，一位中国学生向外籍教师Johnson打招呼：“Hello！Teacher Johnson.”外藉教师Johnson此时不知道怎么回答；中国学生也很失望，觉得这个外籍老师没有礼貌。
这种误解是由于英汉称呼系统不对应，正确的说法应是直接称呼“Johnson”，或者称呼“Dr.Johnson”、“Prof.Johnson”也是合适的。
此外，笔者观察在中西方人打交道的的时候，中国人最常见的开场白就是“Hello，××.Where are you going？”或者“Have you had your meal？”，这几句表达都是正确形式，但它们却是不合适、不得体的英语。
如果这样去和英语人士对话，说话人会被误解语意甚至被认为是无礼的，是干预别人的隐私。
Cross-cultural pragmatic failure
又如中国人宴请外国朋友，总是说：“今天请各位吃顿便 饭，没什么好菜招待，做得不好，大家随意吃，随意吃！”西 方人就会想：既然请我们吃饭，就应该吃最好的，饭菜不好又 何必请我们呢？如有一位英国女教师称赞一位中国女学生的书 法“Oh, what beautiful handwriting!”但中国学生却说： “No, no, not at all. You’re joking.”（哪里，一点不 好。你在开玩笑），结果英国女教师很生气。在这里，虽然中 国女学生恪守了谦逊准则，但她的回答可能暗示着受话人在嘲 笑说话人不懂书法，缺乏审美观和鉴赏力，这对外国老师来说 意味着是对恭维的否定，她会感到对方不够真诚，怀疑她的判 断力。中国人习惯用“否认”或“自贬”的方式表达谦虚，如 “哪里，哪里”、“过奖了”、“不敢当”、“差远了”、 “不好”、“惭愧，惭愧”等。因为贬己尊人是中国式礼貌最 大特点，被公认是一种谦虚的美德。
再入如英语中有关“老” 、 “老人”的委婉语特别多，反 映了西方人特别讳“老”的社会心态，这与其家庭结构松散密切 相关。 由于西方有子女成人后即与父母分居的习惯，社会养老机 制又无法完全取代家庭养老，老人生活孤单寂寞， “老”成了生 活中的一个大忌，千方百计忌讳“old”一词，常借用其他词来委 婉地表示“老”或“老年”这些概念。于是老人变成了“政界元 老” （an elder statesman） ，起码也是“年长公民” （an senior citizen） ，明明是风烛残年，却美其名曰 “黄金年华” （golden years） ， 还有什么 elderly(年龄较大的)、mature （成熟的） 、an adult（成年人） 、a distinguished gentleman（尊贵的先生） 、a grand dame（贵妇人） 、to feel one’s age（感觉到自己的年龄） 、the third age（第三年 龄）等，花样繁多。养老院也非理想去处，被婉称为 a home for adults（成人之家） 、a nursing home（护理之家） 、a rest home（休养所） 、a private hospital（私人医院） 、a convalescent hospital 等。怕“老”成了整个西方世界的社会 心理定势。
商务英语翻译中的跨文化语用失误剖析及应对策略
造成失误 的原 因。
“长久 ”之意 ，很好地传达 了原广告词 中的寓意 ，不失 为一个
３．１商 务 名 片 的 翻 译
广告翻译 的绝佳范例 。
在 翻译商务名片持有者 的公 司名称时 ，往往会将 “公
３．４商务 信 函 的翻 译
司 ”笼 统地 翻译 成 ｃｏｍｐａｎｙ，殊不 知 “公 司 ”一 词 由于 其 属
商务英语 翻译 中的跨文化语用失误更多地是社会语 用 失误 ，即 由于对商务伙伴的社会背景 、文化 习俗 等不 了解 而 产生 的交 际障碍甚至是 冲突 。下面从商务英语翻译 中经 常 涉及 的几个方面来列举一些跨文化语用失误 的案例并分 析
１任 杰（１９８１一），女 ，讲 师，硕 士研 究生，研 究方向 ：商务英语教学 、跨 文化交 际、翻译理论与 实践 。 ６８ 。 Ｃｏｌｌｅｇｅ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ Ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ＆Ｒｅｓｅａｒｃｈ
２．跨 文化 语 用 失误 的含 义
英 国兰开斯特 大学 的托 马斯教 授 （Ｊ．Ｔｈｏｍａｓ）于 １９８３ 年在 《跨 文化语 用失误 》（Ｃｒｏｓｓ—ｃｕｈｕｒａｌ Ｐｒａｇｍａｔｉｃ Ｆａｉｌｕｒｅ） 一 书中首次提到“语用失误 ”这一概念。他将其定义 为“不 同 文化 背景 的人在跨 文化交 际 中 由于 种种原 因引 发交 际误 解 、障碍 、甚至冲突的现象”。这些引发语用失误 的原 因涉及 多个方面 ，如文化 背景 、风俗习惯 、社会 环境 、经济状况 、思
４．教 学中避 免跨文化语用失误的对策
３．２商 标 ，品牌 的翻 译
为了实现产 品的推广 ，商标必须迎合消费者的心理 ，此
（一 ）从思 维角度来 说 ，在 商务英语 教学中要特别 注重
商务信函翻译 中一个重要原则是礼貌性原则。 比如外
跨文化语用学cross cultural pragmatics
In the same language in different place, the same word or phrase may mean differently in different places. e.g.
e.g He is in the office.
What's in the tea, honey?
Do you know John Smith?
Lexical level
A word which has a similar counterpart in another language may have a different interpretative bias. e.g.
Syntactic level
People from different languages/cultures will employ different speech act strategies by means of different sentence types.
For example,in English classroms a teacher says:"Would you like to read?" it is a conventionally polite request, but one which definitely expects compliance. In Chinese classroms a teacher would use a straightforward imperative form such as "小明，你 念一下第一段。" In the service encounter: Chinese: 给我一包。。。 English: Can I have...,please? Or I'd like...please!
公共标识语汉英翻译中的跨文化语用失误探析
公共标识语汉英翻译中的跨文化语用失误探析摘要：跨文化语用失误在非目的语环境下十分常见。
文章分析公共标识语的语言特点，利用Jenny Thomas 的跨文化语用失误理论，从语用语言失误和社交语用失误两方面对苏州部分公共标识语语用失误实例进行剖析，发现相关翻译及设计人员语用知识的缺失之处，提出规避公共标识语语用失误的翻译策略，以期提高公共标识语的翻译质量，提升苏州的城市形象。
关键词：公共标识语语言特点汉英翻译跨文化语用失误翻译策略随着全球化进程的加快，苏州对外交流与联系日益密切，国际性的文化活动和体育赛事不断增加，来苏州学习、工作、生活的国际友人逐年增多，因此建设良好的国际语言环境显得尤为重要。
在这些跨国、跨文化交流中，英语作为国际通用语言，成为人们沟通时最为便利的工具。
因此，苏州公共场所大量的标识语都增设了英语译文，为国际友人了解苏州文化提供了便利。
然而，由于目前国内学者翻译水平参差不齐，译文参照标准不统一，苏州公共标识语的英文译写普遍存在不规范、不得体等问题。
虽然通过《中华人民共和国国家标准GB/T30240.3-201X》（后文简称为《国标》）和《江苏省地方标准DB32/T1446.8-2009 》(后文简称为《省标》)的修订实行和社会各界的共同努力，部分拼写错误、语法错误、格式错误等问题有所缓解，但中西方文化差异所引发的跨文化语用失误问题仍大量存在，例如逐字硬译、语言粗俗、忽视语境、中式英语等。
1.公共标识语的语言特点公共标识语指的是公开和面对公众，告示、指示、提示、显示、警示、标示与其生活、生产、生命、生态、生业休戚相关的文字及图形信息[1] 。
从语言特点考虑，公共标识语广泛使用名词、动词、动名词、词组、短语、缩略语、现在时态和祈使句，语言简洁措辞精确[2] 。
1.1使用名词。
表示“静态”意义，提示、指示、说明、服务性质的公共标识语大量使用名词，直接精准地显示信息。
例如：洗手间( Toilet/Restroom/Washroom )；更衣室( ChangingRoom/Locker Room); 疏散门(Evacuation Gate); 展厅(Exhibition Hall )等。
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Pragmatic failure was first proposed by Thomas (1983:91)to refer to the inability to understand what is meant by what is said. In cross-cultural communication people from different cultures speak the same language, but their communication may break down due to pragmatic differences in ways of thinking, rules of speaking, social values, lexical connotations and other factors. Pragmatic failures, which arise when speakers can‟t produce appropriate utterances or can‟t reach properly to an utterance or context, are quite common among English learners in China. Pragmatic failure is not caused by the aspect of wrong grammar or inappropriate syntax, but mainly due to the unsuitable speaking manner, or speaking at unsuitable time or failure to keep up with the native speaker‟s expressive habit or neglecting the cultural backgrounds of the counterparts, etc. such failures bring about great difficulty for cross-cultural communication and have become the main causes of communication failures. How to eliminate or reduce pragmatic failures should be the focus of language research and language teaching.
2. Literature Review
2.1 The Previous Studies Home Chinese famous scholar He Ziran (He,2002) argues that the umbrella notion of pragmatic failure refers 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 oft meaning and sense. Chen Xinren (Chen, 2004) has also explored pragmatic failures from the aspect of pragmatic competence. He 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. From the view of violating Grice‟s Politeness Principles, in Cao Chunchun‟s Pragmatic Failure and Politeness Principle, he analyzes pragmatic failures in communication practice between American and Chinese in China (Cao, 1998). He agrees with Leech‟s maxims of Politeness Principle and based on this theory, he analyzes further the common failure Li and Fan‟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 improvement for teachers on both verbal and nonverbal actions (Li& Fan.1998). 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. Literature Review 2.1 The Previous Studies Home 2.2 The Previous Studies Abroad 2.3 Critical Thinking 3. Nonverbal Communication
3.1 Definitions of Nonverbal Communication
3.2 Functions of Nonverbal Communication 3.2.1 Complementing 3.2.2 Repeating 3.2.3 Substituting 3.2.4 Regulating 3.2.5 Contradicting
1. Abstract:
All human communication activities are accomplished by means of verbal communication and nonverbal communication, of which nonverbal communication plays a more important role. Pragmatic failure is one of the main sources that give rise to cross-cultural communication breakdowns. Due to the culture difference, pragmatic failures often exist in crosscultural nonverbal communications, resulting in communication breakdowns. Due to different ways of thinking, different values in different countries, it always leads to misunderstanding and miscommunications. And this paper aims to make people understand cultural difference, and to avoid Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure of Nonverbal Communication.
2.2 The Previous Studies Abroad Pragmatic failure, the technical term for cross-cultural communication breakdowns, occurs when the speaker fails to use language effectively to achieve a specific communicative purpose, or when the hearer fails to recognize the intention or the illocutionary force of the speaker‟s utterance in the context of communication. The study of pragmatic failure begins with Jenny Thomas. She first proposes the notion of pragmatic failure in her Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure in 1983, defining it as “the inability to understand.” (Thomas,1983). In other words, it means that the speaker‟s utterance is interpreted or understood by hearer is different from what the speaker intends to be interpreted. Besides, on the basis of the nature of the failure, she classified pragmatic failure into pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure occurs when the pragmatic force mapped by the speakers onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2 (Thomas, 1983). Pragmalinguistic failure is closely linked with language itself, referring to the case that learners unconsciously transfer native expression into English ignoring their pragmatic meaning, or use other inappropriate expressions of the target language. Sociopragmatic failure in contrast, is closely related to cultures defined by Thomas as social conditions placed on language use stemming from cross-culturally different perceptions of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behavior. Sociopragmatic failure involves lack of awareness of the conventions and the socio-cultural norms of the target language, such as not knowing the appropriate registers and topics or taboos governing the target language community.