The Social Pragmatic Failures in Cross-cultural Communication
1 Introduction
Recently, there is a wave of globalization due to factors including mass access to internet, globalization of industry, and expansion of educational exchanges and so on. New technologies, growth of the world’s population, and shift in the global economic area have all contributed to the increasein cross-cultural communication. Therefore, cross-cultural communication has become indispensable today.
Language used by human beings is the most basic tool for communication, which plays a crucial role in the process of human historical development. We use words to persuade, to exchange ideas, to express views, to seek information, and to express feelings. We made cultural choices when we are using human language to communicate with other people. Culture shapes our ideas and plays a crucial role on influencing our way of using language. At the same time, language can also be considered as a window to the culture. They are closely connected with each other and can never be separated. Therefore, we should not only learn linguistic skills well but also know much knowledge about foreign cultures if we want to conquer a foreign language and become an effective communicator.
But the fact is that many people didn’t pay much attention to the cultural backgrounds and used words to communicate with others in an inappropriate way and inappropriate occasion. In this way, the social pragmatic failures often occur during the cross-cultural communication.
Because of the fierce conflicts between the popularity of cross-cultural communication and the frequently happening communication barriers, the
factors affecting communication are drawing much more attention from the researchers. In the past two decades, there has been an increasing interest in the study of pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural social pragmatic failures have been an important area of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication studies. The social pragmatic failures are mainly caused by cultural differences and lack of awareness about this issue. Hence, we have to figure out some solutions to deal with it, such as strengthen cultural awareness, avoid negative stereotype and cultivate cross-cultural communication competence. Only in this way can we achieve a satisfied result from the intercultural communication
2 Theoretical Backgrounds
In order to have a comprehensive understanding of social pragmatic failures during the inter-cultural communication, we’d better learn some background information about culture. The knowledge about definition of culture, cross-cultural communication, and the social pragmatic failures and the relationship between language and culture are ought to be familiar to us.. 2.1 Definition of Culture
The word “culture” is a large and evasive concept, very complex and difficult to define. There are hundreds of definitions for culture. Here I present only two concepts which Ifavor most. The one is “A culture is a collection of beliefs, habits, living patterns, and behaviors which are held more or less in common by people who occupy particular geographic areas.” (D.Brown, 40)The other is explained in a more detailed way:“culture is man’s 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.”（Edward T. Hall, 40）
2.2 Definition of Cross-cultural Communication
As is known to all, the cross-cultural communication has become increasingly important for humans. The need for cross-cultural communication is as old as humankind. We’ve discussed the definition of culture. Now, it is necessary to know something about the concepts of cross-cultural communication, which is the fist step to have a deeper understanding of social pragmatic failures. The cross-cultural communication (also frequently referred to as inter-cultural communication, which is also used in a different sense, though) is a field of study that looks at how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar or different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. 2.3 Relationship Between Language and Culture
Language and culture are closely connected with each other and it is impossible to separate out use of language from our culture. As is known to all, language has been acting as a very important role in the process of human historical development. Just as the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson’s simple sentence “language is the archives of history”. His declaration makes us realize that one of the major characteristics identifying us as humans is our ability to use language---to make sounds and marks serve as substitutes for things and feelings.
In the past, people usually regarded language as simply a neutral medium, which did not influence the way people experienced the world. It was merely a vehicle by which ideas were presented, rather than a shaper of very substance of those ideas. This view had been denied by later linguists. The new point is that language and culture are closely linked with each other. Language is the
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)
