Analysis of Pragmatic Failure 语用失误简析.docVIP

Chapter Three Analysis of Pragmatic Failure In cross-cultural communication people with different cultural backgrounds often encounter misunderstanding between each other even though they find little difficulties in understanding the literal meaning of their utterances.As it is demonstrated in the following communication event,a Chinese sport correspondent was going to cover the World’s Fastest Woman 100-meter race in Chengdu,China.He had a chance meeting with Marion Jones of the United States,World 100-meter champion,and her friend,Hunter,on board the same flight. Correspondent:(eager to strike up a conversation and complimentary) You look very much like O’Neil. Hunter:(flaring up with wide-open eyes) Nonsense!I don’t look like him. Obviously,the conversation came to an abrupt end because of Hunter’s strong resentment to be likened to O’Neil.Meanwhile,the correspondent might be at a complete loss as to why Hunter got irritated since what he said is a well-accepted conversational beginning and a polite, good-humored compliment for average Chinese people.Such miscommunication often happens, not because of the non-native speakers’grammatical incompetence as revealed in their inaccurate pronunciation or grammatical mistakes of the target language,but because of their pragmatic incompetence,which is called pragmatic failure as distinguished from grammatical error. Therefore,pragmatic failure,which causes communication breakdown,has become more and more worthy of attention in cross-culture communication.In this chapter the issue is going to be explored,which mainly concerns the communication between Chinese English learners and English native speakers. 3.1 Definition of Pragmatic Failure Pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas(1983:91)to refer to“the inability to understand what is meant by what is said.”Thomas notes that pragmatic failure has occurred on any occasion(1983:94)on which H(the hearer)perceives the force of S’s(the speaker’s) utterance as othe