Pragmatic Failures Study

The Pragmatic Failure in Intercultural Communication between China and Western Countries

Student Number:26031

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the LSI Pre-Sessional course

Submitted on 26th August 2014 Teacher’s name:Jackie Parr

Abstract
Pragmatic failure means the inability to understand what is meant by what is said. It means a breakdown of intercultural communication. With the intercultural communication between China and western countries is becoming more and more frequent, pragmatic problems cannot be ignored because they may hinder the intercultural communication between the two countries. The main purpose of the project is to find out the pragmatic failure occurring in the intercultural communication between China and western countries. This project uses the method of questionnaire and the method of analyzing the reference from the previous studies to explore the pragmatic problems in the intercultural communication between China and western countries and proposes some feasible solutions for these problems. Using the method of questionnaire for Chinese people, the result shows that pragmatic failure happens frequently in several forms in intercultural communication. By analyzing the results of questionnaire and some cases of pragmatic failure in intercultural communication, the study gives some suggestions in reducing the pragmatic failures in intercultural communication.

Key Words: culture; intercultural communication; pragmatic failures

Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..i
Content.........................................................................................................................ⅱ
List of Appendices……………………………………………………………………ⅲ

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 1
1.1 Research Questions………………………………………………………………..1
2.Previous Study on Pragmatic Failure in

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