2014-2015学年第一学期语用学与英语教学课程考核(研究报告)题目:An analysis of Pragmatic Failure with Cross-cultural Communications学号(准考证号):1230100054姓名:焦凯丽专业:英语(教法方向)年级:2012级学院:外国语学院完成日期:2015年 1 月10日IntroductionThe Cross-cultural Pragmatics is a relatively young linguistic branch compared with the Traditional Linguistics and Structural Modern Linguistics. It attaches great importance to the research of cross-cultural characteristics. And the cross-cultural pragmatic failure is a common phenomenon in cross-cultural communication process. This paper focus on the analyzing of different kinds of pragmatic failures in our cross-cultural communication, at the same time, giving reflections and feedbacks on our English learning and Language teaching. Being in the rapid developed century of our human society, we should heighten the awareness of appropriating use of pragmatic language in our cross-cultural communication.Part I Theoretical basisBefore Noam Chomsky, Traditional Linguistics and Structural Modern Linguistics regarded language as a system of completely self-sufficient blocking structure, which put an emphasis on the vision field of language researches on the description of linguistic entity and put the language teaching on a cultural vacuum to conduct a rigid practice. But this failed to attach the expected research on the Social culture which affects the language how it affects the construction, comprehension and expression. As a result, linguistic theories couldn't resolve realistic problems of language. And often communicators who have learned some basic knowledge such as phonetic, lexicon and grammar still couldn't carry out proper and effective communication. The birth of sociolinguistics breaks through the research restriction of traditional linguistics and pragmatics and structural. It deepens people‟s realization to linguistic social nature and construct a high qualified platform for the study of the Intercultural Communication. However, all kinds of failure still occur in the intercultural communication which influences the quality of international communication because communications cannot master enough foreign knowledge or acknowledge the culture feature of foreign nation. So the research of pragmatic failure in the cross-cultural communication has become a problem of important theoretic meaning and realistic value in the contemporary linguistic study.Cross-cultural Pragmatics is a relatively young linguistic branch, growing out of pragmatics and comparative linguistics, and introducing cultural factors into the research scope of pragmatics. It attracted great importance to the research of cross-cultural characteristics. Cross-cultural pragmatics is the study of the use of second language in cross-cultural speech communication when the pragmatic problem occurs. The conception pragmatic of pragmatic failure was formally proposed by the famous British scientist Jenny Thomas in her thesis "Cross一Cultural Pragmatic Failure" in 1983 which established a theoretical framework for the analysis of pragmatic failure and cultural transfer. She defines pragmatic failure as "inability to understand what is meant by what is said." Thus, Cross-cultural pragmatic failure can refer to the misunderstanding and even conflict arising in the communication process because of the hearer's failure to catch discourseimplication of the speaker accurately and because of his following improper output of utterances, which may be proper in his culture. The pioneer study of pragmatic failure in China goes to He Ziran and his fraternity. In 1984, they launched investigation into pragmatic differences between English and Chinese in reference to Thomas theory, and made known their results of investigation together with explanations about pragmatic failure. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure is a common phenomenon in cross-cultural communication process, in this process, the speaker disobeys the communication standard and social customs, ignores hearer's identity or status, harms the special cultural value of target language, causes the breaking off or failure of communication, makes communicating obstacles, then communication cannot achieve the expected results. Though there is no grammatical error, the wrong way of speaking or the improper performance makes the communication lose the expected effect.Part II Case studiesThere are many kinds of pragmatic failure in our cross-culture communication. First is about the phonetic pragmatic failure. A teacher who teach Chinese in England recalled that, ”My student, John is a typical English gentleman. When we walk down stairs, he always said that '请小心裸体(楼梯),下流,一起下流(下楼)吧。