中国英语学习者语言交际中语用失误研究于中国英语学习者的口语语料库(2)
毕业论文关键词：语用失误；中国英语学习者的口语语料库；跨文化交际；中国英语学习者
A Study of Pragmatic Failure in Chinese English Learners’ Language Communication—
Based on the Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners
I。Introduction
With the rapid development of world economy as well as the migration of multinational people, communication among different nations has become more and more frequent。 However, due to different social and cultural backgrounds, incompetence in using foreign languages or misunderstandings of foreign cultures, communicative failure often occurs in cross-cultural communication。 This kind of communication failure is called pragmatic failure, a term proposed by Jenny Thomas in 1983。 Later on, researchers at home and abroad devoted themselves to the study of pragmatic failure, which enlightens the idea for the present study。
Pragmatic failure is a frequent obstacle in cross-cultural communication。 And research on pragmatic failure helps to improve English learners’ communication abilities, reduce misunderstandings and conflicts between people with different culture backgrounds and strengthen the friendship between different nations。 Therefore, it is necessary that people from distinct countries make great efforts together to explore the unknown aspect in order to make communication successful。
This paper, based on the data of Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SECCL), intends to study the pragmatic failure in Chinese English learners’ language communication, as to investigate the types of pragmatic failure, explore the possible reasons and suggestions on how to overcome pragmatic failure as well。 The present study is worthwhile because it can help to improve Chinese English learners’ pragmatic competence and make communication go smoothly。
As for the structure of the paper, it consists of five parts。 Part One is the introduction of this study。 Part Two constructs the literature review of this study。 And Part Three introduces corpus-based research method and gives the description of SECCL。 Part Four is the analysis of pragmatic failure in Chinese English learners’ language communication, including types, reasons and proper suggestions。 And the last part is the conclusion of this study。
II。 Literature Review
2。1 The Definition of Pragmatic Failure
Up to now, there is no agreed definition about pragmatic failure。 It is commonly acknowledged that most people are expected to use sentences with correct symbolic meaning in communication, but sometimes, they unconsciously violate social or cultural conventions or speak at unsuitable time or place, regardless of the background of other participants in communication etc。 (Liu Dan, 2015（2）:35-45)。 Generally speaking, violating the unique cultural value of the target language leads to the interruption or failure of communicative behavior。 Such failures bring about barriers to verbal communication, which makes the communication unable to achieve the desired effect。 Failure with such natures is called pragmatic failure。
It was British linguist Jenny Thomas who first proposed the concept of pragmatic failure in her master's thesis Applied Linguistics。 At that time, pragmatic failure refers to “the inability to understand what is meant by what is said” (Thomas, 1983:16-19)。 Thomas believes that pragmatic failure occurs when the hearer misunderstands the speaker’s utterance。 This definition is quoted and supported by many scholars both at home and abroad。文献综述
Riley。 P。 called pragmatic failure as the pragmatic errors, and it is defined as the pragmatic errors because of two kinds of cultural interaction (Riley。 P。 1989 (39): 231-249)。 A person’s social behaviors are often under the influence of his/her social and cultural restrictions。 When cross-cultural communication occurs, the inappropriate use of social and cultural rules leads to pragmatic error。 Chinese scholars attribute it to pragmatic failure, too。