Jul. 2005, Volume 2, No.7 (Serial No.

19)

Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN1539-8072,USA

An Exploration into Pragmatic Failure in EFL Learning

Xiao Zhuge* Guangyi Wu** Jinhua Educational College Abstract: To acquire the real communicative competence for language learners calls for not only the linguistic knowledge but also the ability to use the language appropriately. But many empirical studies have manifested that Chinese learners of English are quite fragile in pragmatic competence. Thus, the author mainly depicts in this paper the necessity of cultivating pragmatic competence and ways to enhance English learners pragmatic competence by exploring into pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Key words: pragmatic failure pragmalinguistic failure sociopragmatic failure

I. Introduction
As Littlewood notes, the core of foreign language teaching (FLT) is to develop the ability to use a real and appropriate language to communicate and interact with others, and the goal of foreign language learning (FLL) is to extend the range of communicative situation in which the learner can perform with focus on meaning without being hindered by the attention he must pay to linguistic form. (Littlewood, 1981:89) The aims of a language teaching course are very often defined with reference to the four language skills : listening, speaking, reading and writing. Spoken language production, learning to talk in foreign language, is often considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of foreign language learning. But speaking is obviously an integral part with regard to one language proficiency. A few researches conducted in the late 20th century and s early this century are in a sense an alert to our EFL teaching, revealing the negligence or disdain of pragmatic acquisition in the foreign language classroom instruction. Some of the most influential surveys were done by He Ziran and Yan Zhuang (1986), Wang Dexing (1990) and Hong Gang (1991) etc. He Ziran et al. and Wang Dexing explored the pragmatic competence of college students and teachers in Chinese by means of particularly designed real-like communicative testing questions. The research revealed that, on the whole, college studentspragmatic competence was unsatisfactory and worrying. In the 1990s, Hong conducted a survey comparing the pragmatic competence of college freshmen and seniors, which showed that the seniors, who were linguistically more competent than the first-year students, did not have better pragmatic competence. In 2000 Meng Mei and Liu Qingliang made a similar investigation, showing that, in the given language environment, pragmatic failure occurred frequently among college students. This would probably lead to breakdown of real communication on the half way. All these empirical studies have manifested the identical fact that Chinese learners of English as a foreign language are quite fragile in pragmatic competence, viz., the ability to use the target language
Xiao Zhuge (1973-), female, M.A., lecturer of Foreign Language Department; Research fields: cross-cultural communication and pragmatics; Address: Foreign Language Department of Jinhua Educational College, No.673, Renmin East Rd., Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, P.R.China; Postcode: 321000; Tel: 0579-3024045, 13575737401; E-mail: jhzgx@163.com. ** Guangyi Wu (1963-), male, associate professor of Foreign Language Department; Research fields: second language acquisition and foreign language teaching; Address: Foreign Language Department of Jinhua Educational College; Postcode: 321000; Tel: 0579-3296777, 0579-2380003. 73
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An Exploration into Pragmatic Failure in EFL Learning

appropriately in the given context. Thus, it is of great necessity to enhance English learners pragmatic competence. As a matter of fact, the serious consideration of the spoken language as a subject for teaching has a long history, but initially the major attention was paid to the teaching of pronunciation. Students spent many hours learning to pronounce the sounds of English With the alternation of teaching methods in EFL classroom during . the last twenty-five years, Communicative Approach has emerged in the Language Teaching classroom in place of the Audiolingual Approach. And the Communicative Approach was a valiant attempt to reap the fruits of language teaching methodologies that had preceded it. Under the influence of this new teaching method, the spoken language teaching has an obvious tendency to develop learners communicative competence. As Brown and Yule (1983: 27) observed, intention of oral English classroom instruction is, often, that the student should be able The to express himselfin the target language, to cope with basic interactive skills like exchanging greetings and thanks and apologies, and to express his needs request information, services etc. This standpoint exactly conforms to the requirements of the Syllabus for English Teaching (2000: 12), highlighting the significance of cultivating basic communicative skills and cross-cultural communicative ability.

II. The Significance of Cultivating Pragmatic Competence

We may say that the realization of language use involves two kinds of ability. One is the ability to select which form of sentence is appropriate for a particular linguistic context. The other is the ability to recognize which function is fulfilled by a sentence in a particular communicative situation. Both abilities are concerned with the understanding of pragmatic competence derived from Swain communicative competence. s The notion of communicative competencewas first put forward by Hymes (1972) in contrast to Chomsky s linguistic competence. In the 1980s, Canale & Swain identified the four dimensions of communicative competence, namely, grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. The first dimension refers to the accurate usage of language; while the last three refer to the appropriate use of language, which can be categorized into the scope of pragmatic competence. To acquire the real communicative competence for language learners, in Hymes view, calls for not only the linguistic knowledge but the ability to use the language appropriately. Thus it is the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom. Because grammatical error may reveal a speaker to be less than proficient language-user, pragmatic failure likewise reflects badly on him/her as a person(Thomas, 1983: 96-97). Although grammatical correctness is responsible for intelligibility in the process of communication, a grammatically correct sentence may not fulfill the function of communication or can not fulfill it completely. For instance, (1) A: What did the rain do? B: The crops were destroyed by the rain. (2) Customer: Excuse me, where do I get an application form for a building permit? Information officer (points to the counter at the back) (curtly): Ask over there! In example (1) B response apparently cannot achieve the goal of communication here; in the same way, the s officer reply to the customer in example (2) cannot fulfill the communication completely. Because from the s response the customer did not get the useful information he has expected. Sometimes, grammatically incorrect

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sentences may still communicate well as cannot do it very good(He, 1997: 203). The reason is that native I speakers are usually tolerant for grammatical mistakes on the one hand, and they also make many slips, errors, incomplete sentences themselves on the other hand (Brown et al, 1987).

III. An Exploration into Pragmatic Failure

It is notable that most of our misunderstandings of other people are not due to any inability to hear them or to parse their sentences or to understand their words. A far more important source of difficulty in communication is that we so often fail to understand a speaker intention (Miller, 1974). For the inability to understand s what is meant by what is said Thomas exploited the term , pragmatic failure (Thomas, 1983: 91). It is pragmatic failure that leads in one sense to the cross-cultural communication breakdown. Therefore, it is essential to probe into the causes of pragmatic failure and find ways to avoid the embarrassed situation by unwise choice of linguistic forms, or, to avoid being unintentionally offensive or even communication breakdown. In terms of pragmatic failure, there are mainly two types: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure is basically a linguistic problem, caused by differences in the linguistic encoding of pragmatic force; sociopragmatic failure stems from cross-culturally different perceptions of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behavior (Thomas, 1983: 99). They reflect two fundamentally different types of pragmatic decision-making. To distinguish the two will aid language teachers to have a more profound impression on how to equip students with wise pragmatic decision. But my purpose of observing the two notions here is not to further analyze them but to elicit the possible causes, which may impede the enhancement of learner pragmatic s competence and seek for the effective approaches to reduce or avoid pragmatic failure in real communication. 3.1 Pragmalinguistic failure Pragmalinguistic failure occurs when the pragmatic force mapped by S onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2 (Thomas, 1983: 99). It may arise from two identifiable sources: teaching-induced errors and pragmalinguistic transfer (i.e., inappropriate transfer of speech acts from one language to another). Some teaching techniques may actually increase the likelihood of pragmalinguistic failure. Kasper (1981), in a most interesting and comprehensive survey, has identified some of what she terms teaching-induced errorsattribute to teaching materials (inappropriate use of modals), others to classroom discourse (lack of marking for modality, complete sentence responses and inappropriate prepositional explicitness). English textbooks in high schools have imbued students with such ideas as whenever speaking English, you should speak complete sentences; the more complete, the better. However, the fact is that complete sentence responses violate the textual pragmatic principle of economy (Leech, 1983: 67-8). Thus misinterpretation often occurs in interaction. Take the following dialogue as example: (3) A: Have you finished your homework? B: Yes, I have finished my homework. Here Yes/Yes, I have.is the proper and adequate answer to the above question. The complete response in the example, otherwise, implies B being petulant to give a reply. s Another source of teaching-induced failure can be indicated by placing too much emphasis on metalinguistic knowledge, which frequently leads Chinese learners to deep-rooting in their mind the assumption that the grammatical category imperative equivalent to the speech act the is ordering For instance, the everyday use of .

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the imperative Come in scarcely seen as an ordering. is Another frequent cause of pragmalinguistic failure can look into the inappropriate transference of speech act strategies from L1 to L2. A typical example of the transfer of syntactically equivalent structure would be you Can X? likely to be interpreted by native speakers as a request to do X rather than a question as to one ability to do , s X. The following conversation between two family members at table can provide a clue. (4) A: Can you pass me the salt? B: Yes, I can pass you the salt. Here A is actually making a request. B may properly react by saying Yes/Yes, I can.with the action of passing the salt or simply the action. Otherwise, the response in the example implies either unsuccessful interpreting S intention (if without any action while answering) or H being impatient or unwilling to do so. s s And also, native speaker usual way of inquiring into linguistic meaning by asking s What that mean, X?or s What does X mean?can often be misinterpreted by Chinese learners as What do you mean by X? This . interrogative sentence is in essence querying or even provoking S. These are the kinds of conventional errors Chinese learners would make in high frequency. Ironically, such misleading patterns can be seen at times in oral English textbooks. For example, in Spoken English Self-taught (Book One, FLTRP) (Yu Zhiyuan, 1995: 223, 229), the practice activity Structures Asking for clarification Key shows: I sorry, m I don quite understand what you mean by ? t Could you explain what you mean by ? In Challenge to Speak (Book Two, Higher Education Press) (Yao Baohui, 1999: 113), Unit16: Clarifying and Repeating, Look at these patterns Extending Clarification : (I sorry, I don quite understand what you mean by ? m) t (I sorry, but could you explain what you mean by ? m) In addition, the same situation occurred in Oral Workshop: Discussion (Book Two, FLTRP) for far more than once (Page 80, 203, 405, etc.). It is urgently necessary for textbook writers, administrators and instructors to take into account the pragmalinguistic failure while selecting and compiling oral English textbooks. 3.2 Sociopragmatic failure Sociopragmatic failure, a term I have appropriated from Leech (1983: 10-11), which I use to refer to the social conditions placed on language in use. As another type of pragmatic failure, it is caused by mismatches which arise from intercultural different assessments within some parameters affecting linguistic choice: size of imposition, social distance and relative rights and obligation etc. Sociopragmatic decisions are social before they are linguistic (Thomas, 1983: 104). So it is likely that a foreign speaker will assess size of imposition, social-distance, etc. differently from a native-speaker. We can take a further look at the sociopragmatic failure by the following examples: (5) (Situation: In the English-speaking corner, a student is chatting with his foreign teacher, Miss Rhona.) Student: Teacher Rhona, how much do you earn per month in our university? Rhona: I satisfied with my wage. m There are two apparent problems here. One involves the addressing form of the teacher; the other different conventions against different cultural background. The most commonly used form of addressing a teacher in China is teacher + surname or teacher + surname + given name But actually, the word of . teacher cannot be used as form of addressing in English. The student is asking Miss Rhona such a question owing to his curiosity or his desire to converse in English with his foreign teacher. However, he is pushing Miss Rhona into an embarrassed
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situation. Some non-free topics typically as politics, religious, marital status, income, etc. would never appear in westerners routine conversations. Instead, they would choose to initiate their conversations by talking about some impersonal topics such as the weather, sports, circumstances and so on. Hu Wenzhong (1988) has pointed out that the utterances ranging from giving advice to the use of self-deprecation strategy in expressing irritation, foreigners often felt the excessive offering of advice --- they are forever being told what to do, when and how to do it. Although this may be perfectly correct practice in a Chinese setting, westerners may feel annoyed and often insulted by what appears to be scant regard for their own powers of intelligence. For example, Chinese get used to saying something like on more clothes. Put , Drink plenty of water.or more vegetable.to somebody who is sick. Their solicitude of this kind only arouses westerners Eat misunderstanding of being looked upon as na children. This is because westerners do emphasize self-reliance ve or independence. Moreover, because of the conventional social distance between the teacher and students, students believe that it is their duty to do things for their teacher, are of which is wiping the blackboard. Sometimes non-native speaker judgment of relative power would result in sociopragmatic failure. s A typical instance lies in the dialogue between a Chinese passenger (P) and an English native taxi driver (D). (6) P: Excuse me; I wonder if you could take me to the airport? D: Oh, well (At a loss) Here the passenger thought himself to be in a position of disadvantage for he was not a native speaker and so he spoke very deferentially. As a result, it sounded unnatural and funny. In fact, one word Airport enough. This is is because the asymmetrical power relationship exists between the native speaker and non-native speaker. Examples of this sort can hardly be elaborated to full. I have just exemplified in this chapter some common ones. To sum up, pragmatic failure includes two dimensions: first, the hearer misinterprets the speaker utterance s meaning within a given context due to S incorrect choice of words and use of ambiguity; second, the hearer s misunderstands the illocutionary act of the speaker (He Ziran, 1988).

IV. Conclusion and Enlightenment on English Language Teaching

Since English is widely used in the fields of politics, commerce and culture, the fluent and appropriate use of English is highly demanded in addition to the good command of English skills in listening, reading, and writing. Pragmatic competence is not generated automatically (Widdowson, 1979). Pragmatic competence involves the speaker ability in cognizing the specific context. So far, few textbooks can depict the utterance rules s systematically, which at large restricts the enhancement of pragmatic competence. Having understood the major causes to pragmatic failure in the interaction, some effective measures should be taken to refrain it. In order to cultivate learnerspragmatic competence, I shall propose the following aspects to adhere to in the process of English language teaching and learning. Firstly, in agreement with Feez (1998), I shall propose the text-based language learning by means of authentic language data corpora (e.g. text data, audio-video materials). Text-based language learning places much emphasis on the context and cultural information. As Nattinger (1992) points out that teaching speaking means teaching conversation rather than teaching isolated pieces of phonics and syntax, and that conversation is discourse that is formed through social interaction. Conversations are joint productions, in which participants constantly take account of one another and adjust their speech to fit the contours of the social situation in which the conversation is taking place.

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Secondly, in the EFL classroom teaching and learning, it is important that we study not only the target language in itself, including its phonetics, grammar, semantics and text etc., but the utterance meanings in accord with different contexts, namely, the speaker illocutionary force. In addition, the teacher should also emphasize s the matters such as how to speak, when to speak and why speak so etc. Introduction of some function and notion of the language expressions, for instance, the expressions of courtesy, attitude and emotion, should be embodied in classroom instruction. To communicate in English accurately and felicitously, we need attach great importance to considering the pragmatic principles in oral classes. In doing so, students can elude pragmatic failure and achieve a successful communication. Thirdly, for the language teacher, however, it is inadequate to make explicit the parameters within which pragmatic choices are made. It seems also to be advisable for the teacher to explicitly point out to the learner that politeness markers are an integral part of the foreign cultural system, and should neither be used nor interpreted by reference to the learner native cultural interference and prevent impolite, ineffective, or otherwise inappropriate s behavior on the part of the learner. Last but not least, a comparison should be made between Chinese and English pragmatics, focusing on linguistic forms, avoiding negative transfer, improving contextual awareness and cross-cultural pragmatic principles. According to Hall, acquisition of language can be viewed as part of the process of learning to the participate in socioculturally important activities, both written and oral (Hall, 1993: 147-49). If we teach language without teaching its culture in which it operates, we are teaching merely meaningless symbols or symbols to which the students attach the wrong meaning. We should take full advantage of roles of the teacher. The language teacher should try every means to enhance students awareness of pragmatics.
References: 1. Brown, G. & G. Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983. 2. Leech, G. N. Principles of Pragmatics[M]. London: Longman. 1983. 3. Littlewood, W. Communicative Language Teaching[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1981. 4. Thomas J. Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure[J]. Applied Linguistics 4/2: 91-112. 1983. 5. . [M]. . 1997. 6. . [J]. . 1991(4): 56-60. 7. . [M]. . 1988. 8. . [Z]. . 2000. 9. . [M](1-2 ). . 1999. 10. . [M]. . 1995.

(Edited by Zhijuan Zhu, Hua Zhou and Annie)

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