Keywords cross-culture; Pragmatic failure; Reason; tactics
In the process of communication between people with different cultural backgrounds, differences in national historical background, context, values, customs and habits and ways of thinking will lead to cultural collisions and conflicts. When people communicate, they often misunderstand or don't understand because of improper use and misuse of language. Pragmatic failure is an important concept in the field of linguistics and an important source of cross-cultural communication failure. By analyzing the definition, classification and reasons of pragmatic failure, it helps us to understand pragmatic failure correctly, so as to reduce or avoid errors in cross-cultural communication and ensure correct understanding and communication in cross-cultural communication.
1 Causes of Pragmatic Failure in Cross-cultural Communication
There are great differences in languages. Chinglish is very common in English learning because of the interference of mother tongue structure, local culture and way of thinking. In cross-cultural communication, due to the influence of mother tongue language rules, communication habits, cultural background and way of thinking, pragmatic failures are prone to occur.
1. 1 subject to mother tongue rules.
Pragmatic language failure is mainly caused by language barriers. People instinctively express themselves in their mother tongue during communication, which violates the pragmatic principles of English. There is a book on the desk. According to China people's understanding, it's Thedeskhasabook, and the correct English expression is Thereisabookonthetable. In daily communication, due to the lack of understanding of English language structure, people often apply their mother tongue expressions.
1.2 communication habits
China people are used to asking, "Have you eaten?" Come and say hello, the problem in the west is to invite each other to dinner. If you ask about exothermic absorption, "Have you had dinner?" Will make them very confused and don't know how to answer. But when we praise someone. The other person will humbly answer "no, no". In the West's view, your humble answer is a denial of his evaluation of you and a disrespect.
1.3 cultural background
Due to some traditional habits and social customs, many words and expressions are completely inconsistent. On American highways, you will see the sign of "Pool Line". Is it possible to drive freely on this road just like in a swimming pool? The answer is quite different. This is a special line to tell people that the carpool group is driving on this road.
1.4 mode of thinking
There are great differences between Chinese and western cultures, and understanding cross-culture is the guarantee of correct understanding of language. Culture affects people's understanding and cognition of external things. Of course, people from different regions and cultural backgrounds communicate in slightly different ways. Westerners attach importance to logic and analysis. And we rely more on experience and feeling. In business negotiations. We often encounter the question-"When will the goods arrive in Hong Kong? Payment should be made within 30 days after the goods arrive at the port of destination. According to the custom in China, we translate it into the goodsearch? -I will pay in 30 days. However, according to the English translation habit, it is "when is his expected arrival time?" Pay within 30 days.
2 strategies to reduce pragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication
In order to avoid or reduce pragmatic failures, we must first understand their language structure. What I want to explain here is that this is not a simple grammatical structure, but their language expression and habits.
2. 1 Understand the meaning of words accurately, regardless of the meaning.
Words are the most basic foundation for learning English. Of course, you can't learn this language well without an accurate understanding of the meaning of words. However, many people will sigh at the vast vocabulary, and some people will expect it to be literal, which will lead to obstacles or misleading communication. For example, the black sheep is not the black sheep, but the black sheep. Yima Town is not a town with only one horse, but a country town.
2.2 accurate use of vocabulary, vocabulary collocation should be accurate.
We often say "This book belongs to me". The correct expression in English is Thebookbelongstome. The middle "yes" does not need translation.
2.3 Chinese sentence structure and English sentence structure transformation should be accurate.
Thegirlrindingahorseismysister。 Translate it into Chinese, Thegirlridingahorseismysister. When reorganizing sentence patterns, we should get rid of the literal meaning and sentence structure of Chinese. In particular, the rules for the use of attributes are completely different from those in Chinese.
2.4 Strengthen English language learning and its way of thinking.
Language is a complex system and the carrier of human thought and thinking. Only by accurately grasping the true meaning of language and way of thinking can we accurately understand the meaning of sentence expression. Due to the lack of administrative management and convenient transportation, her world is isolated from the world, and the lack of information media makes it worse. This is a very typical English sentence. It looks very long. In fact, this is a simple sentence with only one subject (Theisolation) and one predicate (iscompounded). The whole sentence has nine nouns and five prepositions. The meaning of the sentence is that rural society is isolated from the outside world because it is far from the city and lacks transportation and communication tools. If we follow the thinking mode of China people, our translation will become complicated and loose. Because Ethernet is a huge difference, there is no so-called brightness shift and there is no so-called isolation. This isolation has become more and more serious because Ethernet does not support information media. This is by no means an authentic English expression.
2.5 understand western culture, improve cross-cultural awareness
Understanding the differences between western cultures is an important factor to reduce pragmatic failures. Understand their time concept, study habits and other living habits through simple contents such as greetings and farewell words; Understand their living habits and eating habits through table manners and dress characteristics. Through the understanding of life, we can deeply understand their customs and hospitality, as well as their concepts and attitudes. So as to effectively understand their culture, shorten the distance of cultural differences, improve cross-cultural awareness, and effectively reduce and avoid pragmatic failures. This paper reveals the cultural differences in vocabulary through the cultural comparison between mother tongue and English. For example, the order of English names is first name, last name and last name. China people's names are surname first, first name last, and no first name. This difference may be attributed to the different values of Chinese and English cultures. Britain advocates individualism centered on individuals, so it ranks first; China, on the other hand, is group-oriented and emphasizes family inheritance, so his surname comes first.
In short, with more and more cross-cultural communication activities, it is very important to understand the language accurately and avoid pragmatic failures. Effective communication not only needs accurate language expression, but also needs to improve pragmatic competence and reduce pragmatic failures. All requirements of cross-cultural communication require accurate understanding of two languages and their cultures, enhanced understanding, attention to the differences between languages and cultures, and reduction of mother tongue interference, so as to achieve the best level of cross-cultural communication.
Author: Liu Hongda Unit: Beijing Electronic Technology Vocational College.