英语专业毕业论文-跨文化交际的语用失误研究.doc

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 teaching 14chapter 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 intercultural communication2.1 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 description as “culture is mans medium; there is not one aspect of human life that is not touched and altered by culture. this means personality, how people 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 humans 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 peoples best friends 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 of communication 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 senders 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 continents who 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 worlds 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 failure the 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 humans 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 and strength; 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, peoples 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 asia”. 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 ones 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 stableat 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。but their position is more flexible in the english language. so the translations of the above two sentences are “he is reading quietly” and “he started to laugh suddenly”. in english, those adverbs of degree and manner are usually put at the back of verb, including “extremely”, “slowly”, “easily”, and “quickly” and so on. adverbs of frequency are before the main verb and after the linking verb, auxiliary verb and model verb. for instance, “they can hardly ignore our views”; “he is always late for school”. affected by the negative transfer unconsciously, english learners can very often come across such sentence as “i very much love my hometown”.halliday and hasan divided the ellipsis into nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis and clausal ellipsis. from the view of parataxis and hypotaxis, the phenomenon of ellipsis is distinct between english and chinese. the american heritage dictionary defines hypotaxis as “the dependent or subordinate construction or relationship of clauses with connectives”. the world book dictionary gives a definition of parataxis as “the arranging of clauses one after other without connectives showing the relation between them”. generally speaking, the diversities of different cultures contribute to the differences of language expression.the chinese philosophy views the whole world as a unity and everything related to human beings is inseparable with the objective world. based on the mode of thought, the context of a sentence is superior to the form in chinese. the subject, connections or extended meanings of words can be inferred from context. and the manner of expression is called parataxis, which emphasizes covert coherence, logical sequence and sentence meaning. as a result, there is the possibility to omit those “redundant” parts. for instance, the sentence“今年的收成比去年的好”sounds more natural than“今年的收成比去年的收成好”. therefore, the phenomenon of nominal ellipsis is very popular in chinese. however, verbal ellipsis is rarely presented. verb is the essential part of a chinese sentence. without it, the meaning of a sentence cannot be conveyed explicitly and the sentence would be unacceptable.english sentences seem well-knit in structure because english is hypotactic language that uses various and plentiful cohesive ties, which stresses overt cohesion, intact structure and sentence formation. therefore, it is unacceptable to read a series of non-subject sentences. the nominal ellipsis, especially the subject ellipsis, would ruin the complete structure of a sentence and violate the rules of the english grammar. but verbal ellipsis is permitted in the english language. compare the following sentences and their translations and readers will get a better understanding of this phenomenon: reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. (f. bacon: of studies)for the sake of agreeing with chinese way of expression, the omitted verbs in the sentences should be added in translation, as the following: 读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。(王佐良译谈读书)the above example just covers a very small scope of the grammar differences between english and chinese language. it can be inferred that people often transfer their grammar rules of source languages unconsciously, which might make their speech clumsy and awkward. s