Pragmatic Failure Research Articles

4th Year EFL Iraqi Leaners' Pragmatic Failure in Polysemy

This paper is an endeavor to identify the failure of EFL Iraqi learners when they are asked to realize the meaning of polysemous words in their context. The model of analysis is Thomas's (1983) "pragmatic failure"(PF). Polysemous words have different meanings. There are two kinds of polysemy: semantic and pragmatic polysemy. The important part of the study at hand is pragmatic polysemy, which is the pragmatic meaning that results from polysemous words through the intentionality of the speakers, as these words leave a free space for their speakers to pick the meaning they want to communicate. Besides, these meanings may mingle on the part of the listeners in native language speakers and listeners, so polysemous words would, of course, constitute a problem for the learners of English. Again, it is believed that the lack of both linguistic and pragmatic competence is the result of this pragmatic failure.

A Cognitive Study on Politeness Intention Processing and Its Association with Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication

A Cognitive Study on Politeness Intention Processing and Its Association with Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication

한국어 실시간 온라인 수업에 나타나는 교사의 명령하기 헤지 표현에 대한 연구 -한국어 고급 수업을 중심으로-

In this study, we examined the actual speech patterns of teachers' commanding hedge expressions in real-time online classes in Korean for advanced learners. As real-time online classes have increased due to COVID-19, various aspects that have not appeared in general face-to-face classes have emerged. One of them is that more attention is needed so that the face of the learner is not damaged when the teacher orders or instructs them. Therefore, in this study, through the analysis of teachers‘ speech, I examined how teachers perform commands to learners in real-time online classes in Korean language. In the actual Korean class, a sentence type that has the meaning of command pragmatically appears. As a result of the class analysis, strong commanding hedging expressions rarely appeared due to the characteristics of the Korean language class and the relationship between teachers and learners, and there were speech patterns that appeared because it was a Korean class. The command is given by quoting the learner's words directly, and it can be assumed that this remains the teacher's habit of trying to avoid difficult sentence patterns when speaking. Since learners tend to learn Korean by imitating the teacher's speech, teachers should use various command hedge expressions to avoid pragmatic failures when learners actually speak Korean. If the research results are used for Korean language textbooks and class materials, it will be helpful for Korean learners' actual utterances.

Political language gaffes and the importance of Hearer’s meaning

Abstract Drawing on Hansen and Terkourafi’s (2023) model of Hearer’s meaning, the paper discusses cognitive mechanisms through which hearers interpret political language gaffes (e.g. former U.S. President Trump’s “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”). The paper approaches political language gaffes as dependent on a high degree of blending between textual-and-discursive frames and social-world frames. The dataset analysis demonstrates how a Hearer’s difficulty in interpreting a gaffe-y utterance can shift Hearer’s focus (a) from one frame element (e.g. speaker, hearer, effect of utterance on hearer) to another, and (b) from a discursive frame to a social-world frame. The paper demonstrates how, while looking to pinpoint the contextual relevance of an utterance, a Hearer can simultaneously shift focus and vary the scope of cognitive structures from which Hearer can derive meaning. The paper also suggests how analyses of political language gaffes can contribute to research on sociopragmatic topics such as Speaker’s accountability, pragmatic competence, pragmatic failure, non-propositional effects, etc.

Pragmatic Failures in Movie Subtitles: The Case of Kurdish Subtitles of Treasure Island

Pragmatic failures are critical in movie translation as they affect the message of the movie. Pragmatic failure refers to the mismatches that may occur between speakers’ intended meaning and translators’ constructed meaning. The paper aims to investigate the nature of pragmatic failures in translating movie subtitles from English into Kurdish. It attempts to identify the factors that cause pragmatic failures and find out the types of failures in the selected movie. The data of the study are taken from the transcripts of the English adventure movie Treasure Island which has been translated into Kurdish. The English source text and the Kurdish subtitles were compared to find out the types and identify the causes of pragmatic failures. The paper draws upon Thomas’s (1983) category to classify pragmatic failures. The results of the study show that both types of pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure are found in the movie which resulted from a lack of translator’s qualification in translation, a lack of pragmatic as well as cultural knowledge of both the source and target languages. It has also been found that pragmatic failures are failures of transferring speech acts from the source language to the target language that cause a lack of proper understanding of the source message. In other words, pragmatic failures are the result of mistranslation, under-translation, and over-translation errors which cause non-equivalency between the message in the source language and the one in the target language.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a computerised dynamic assessment of L2 English email requests

Automated writing evaluation can be effective in providing support for L2 English learners. However, little research to date has investigated its use in the teaching of pragmatics in relation to L2 email writing, grounded in a sociocultural perspective on learning. We employ a quasi-experimental approach, investigating the effectiveness of a computerised dynamic assessment programme (C-DA) of L2 email writing, focusing on pragmatic development. The C-DA employs a developmentally sensitive approach, providing automated, immediate mediation to learners. The C-DA was administered twice – with a two-week delay between administrations – to a single group of 17 Japanese English L2 learner participants at a Japanese university; participants were 19–22 years of age with intermediate L2 proficiency levels. Text, identified pragmatic failure and mediation data were elicited from both administrations. Analysis of pragmatic failure frequency and explicitness of the mediation necessary for successful resolution of the identified pragmatic failure shows both frequency and explicitness decreasing not only within a round of administration, but also between rounds. Evidence of learner development was found across all types of pragmatic failure, including the requesting head act, email openings and closings. The study provides evidence to support a sociocultural approach to assessment and learning with regards to the pragmatics aspect of L2 email writing, in which mediation is sensitive to individual learners’ developmental needs. Further, findings support the use of a computerised approach to DA focusing on pragmatic competence, allowing for wider access to DA methodology among large learner group contexts.

Analysis of Pragmatic Functions of Euphemisms ——from the Perspective of Pragmatic Principles

As an important means to coordinate interpersonal relationships, euphemisms are often used to express speaker’s thoughts in an indirect and tortuous way. By applying euphemisms in a appropriate manner, we can achieve the effect of beautification, politeness, avoiding taboos, and many others. Based on their powerful pragmatic functions, this paper will focus on the conversational implicature of euphemisms from the perspective of pragmatic principles, highlight their communicative effects by analyzing some examples in our daily life, and point out the significance in a broader perspective of cross-cultural communication so as to reduce pragmatic failure.

Analysis on Pragmatic Failures in Cross-Cultural Business Negotiation Interpretation

As economic and social development deepens, cross-cultural communication is also gaining more and more attention. English interpreting is an integral part of international business negotiations. Pragmatic failures in business negotiation interpreting can directly affect the quality of negotiation communication, and sometimes even lead to misunderstandings and the breakdown of negotiations. Reducing the pragmatic failures in interpreting in negotiations and improving interpreting skills can play a positive role in facilitating international trade negotiations. Based on Leech's and other scholars' research on pragmatic failures, this paper discusses the manifestations of cross-cultural pragmatic failures in business negotiation interpreting from the perspectives of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failures, and analyzes the causes of the resulting pragmatic failures in detail. Interpreters should not only focus on language ability and interpreting skills, but also on the cultivation of intercultural awareness and pragmatic competence and thus promote international business negotiations.

A Comparative Study of Kinship Address Forms between Chinese and English from an Intercultural Communication Perspective

Kinship address forms carry profound connotations. They are linguistic, social, and cultural phenomena, all of which hold significant importance in daily communication. Due to diverse social backgrounds, substantial differences exist between English and Chinese kinship address forms. Although the study of kinship terms is not a novel topic, it continues to be of research value due to its frequent usage in daily communication. Under the guidance of intercultural communication theory, this paper provides a brief comparison of Chinese and English kinship address forms, considering perspectives from the elder generation, the same generation, and the younger generation. It analyzes the underlying causes in terms of social structure, cultural background, and economic context, with the aim of fostering an awareness of cultural disparities between China and Western countries. This understanding can help reduce culture shock and the occurrence of pragmatic failures and provide valuable references for future comparative studies. The results demonstrate that Chinese kinship address forms are intricate and detailed, accurately describing all kinship relationships, including lineal and collateral, paternal and maternal, consanguinity and affinity, elder and younger generations, among others. In contrast, English kinship address forms are highly generalized and simplistic, typically distinguishing only between males and females.

On Communicative Pragmatic Failure of English Learners—Take Honghe University as an Example

On Communicative Pragmatic Failure of English Learners—Take Honghe University as an Example

Study of Chinese Junior High School Students' English Pragmatic Failure from the Perspective of Cultural Transfer

In the context of English as an international lingua franca, people's cross-cultural communication is obviously enhanced. In the process of cross-cultural communication, people with different cultural backgrounds ways of thinking, and cultural language habits use their own native culture to guess the behavioral habits of people who are different from their own culture. When negative cultural transfer occurs, it will cause the interlocutor to make a linguistic error in the communication. This affects the smoothness of intercultural communication. The rational use of English in cross-cultural communication situations has always been a major challenge for Chinese English learners. There are many domestic studies on the analysis of English language use from the perspective of negative cultural transfer based on second language acquisition, but not enough attention has been paid to the study of junior high school students English language use errors from the perspective of cultural transfer. The emphasis on pragmatic failure from the time students have the appropriate cultural awareness will help them improve their linguistic skills, reduce the phenomenon of Pragmatic failures, and improve their communication skills in intercultural. Therefore, this paper investigates the reasons for the emergence of junior high school students' pragmatic failures from the perspective of cultural transfer and draws teachers' attention to the development of students' pragmatic competence so that students can effectively avoid pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication.

A Study of Strategies for English Pragmatic Teaching in Senior High School under Core Competency

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable element of communicative competence, which is also one goal of core competencies. The introduction of the concept of core competency in General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards puts more emphasis on cultivating students’ pragmatic competence and on teachers’ input of pragmatic knowledge in English teaching. This paper begins with clarifying the theories of pragmatic competence and pragmatic failure by referring to other linguists’ explanations. Then, it briefly discusses the importance of pragmatic teaching in senior high school English classrooms. Finally, this paper proposes some feasible teaching strategies to promote high school students’ pragmatic competence.

Cultural Dimensions and Pragmatic Failure: The Case of Moroccan EFL University Students

This study examines the impact of cultural values on the production of three speech acts (complaints, apologies, and refusals) by Moroccan Learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The study involves three groups of participants: Moroccan EFL learners (MLE), American speakers (AE), and Moroccan Arabic speakers (MA). The objective of this cross-cultural pragmatic study is to explore and identify the extent to which pragmatic failure can be attributed to the cultural value and dimensions of the learners rather than their linguistic incompetence. Participants were given Discourse Completion Task questionnaires to elicit their reactions to various situations. The results, based on Hofstede's cultural dimension framework (2010) and Hall's cultural specifications (1976), showed that culture has a significant effect on the performance of the speech acts under investigation. Findings suggested that cultural specificities do affect the pragmatic choices made by the interlocutors across the three groups of informants.

Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure in Moroccan EFL learners’ Requests

“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’s intention”
 (Miller in Thomas 1983:92)
 The concern in this paper is with such situations where we fail to understand “what is meant by what is said” thus with situations of pragmatic failure especially in an area of cross-cultural communication. Undoubtedly, these are situations where the actual use of language for the maintenance and preservation of social harmony among interactants depict clearly cross-language variations and interference. The discussion will revolve around such basic issues as: a) how interactional events in intercultural communication establish relationships between participants marking dimensions of social distance, status and politeness, b) the effects which different linguistic forms in different languages can have on the performance of the foreign language learner and c) basically the implications of all this for the teaching of the pragmatic competence to the non-native speakers of English, with special reference to the teaching of English at the university level in the Moroccan context.
 Keywords: Intercultural communication; politeness; pragmatic failure; Requests.

Analysis of Pragmatic Failure of College French Learning

Analysis of Pragmatic Failure of College French Learning

Exploration of Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failures in English Interpretation and Their Solutions

Exploration of Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failures in English Interpretation and Their Solutions

The Application of Pragmatics into Interpretation A Theory-Driven Exploration

Pragmatics has a deep connection with translation and this study has summarized the previous research of pragmatics and interpretation. The study is divided into two parts: pragmatic theory-induced interpretation and pragmatic failures in interpretation. The first part further explains the application of adaptation theory in interpretation and the second part points out some typical pragmatic failures as well as the solutions of these problems. There are specific examples in the study to illustrate these theories and phenomena. At the end of this study, there are also some suggestions for interpreters to handle the relation between pragmatics and interpretation.

Pragmatic Competence in Learner English: The Case of Jordanian EFL Learners

The study investigates the Jordanian EFL learners’ pragmatic competence through their production of the speech acts of responding to requests, making suggestions, making threats and expressing farewells. The sample of the study consists of 130 Jordanian EFL learners and native speakers. 2600 responses were collected through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The findings of the study revealed that the tested students showed similarities and differences in performing the strategies of four speech acts. Differences in the students’ performances led to pragmatic failure instances. The pragmatic failure committed by students refers to lack of linguistic competence (i.e., pragmalinguistic failure), sociocultural differences and pragmatic transfer (i.e., sociopragmatic failure). EFL learners employed many mechanisms to maintain their communicative competence; the analysis of the test on speech acts showed learners’ tendency towards using particular strategies, resorting to one strategy related to their grammatical competence, prefabrication, performing long forms, buffing and transfer. The results were also suggestive of the learners’ lack of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge. The implications of this study are for language teachers to teach interlanguage pragmatics explicitly in EFL contexts to draw learners’ attention to both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic features, pay more attention to these areas and allocate more time and practice to solve learners’ problems in these areas. The implication of this study is also for pedagogical material designers to provide sufficient and well-organized pragmatic input.

Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication

In this work, focusing on pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication, taking 5 business English majors as respondents, and using a case study of five mock questions for cross-cultural communication scenarios, to explore the pragmatic failure between these respondents. Pragmatic failure can be divided into pragmalinguistic faliure and sociopragmatic failure. Although respondents master the basic knowledge of cross-cultural, it’s inevitable for them to use the Chinese way of thinking when interacting with foreigners, so that they are prone to have pragmatic failures. To avoid business English majors having the pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication and improve their cross-cultural pragmatic competence, it needs both students and teachers endeavor to do.

EFL Iraqi Learners' Pragmatic Failure in English Animal Idiomatic Expressions

This research concerns the pragmatic failure of the Iraqi EFL learners in interpreting the meanings of some sorts of idiomatic expression; namely, animal idiomatic expressions. Regardless of their grammatical formation, idiomatic expressions use tends to be largely dependent upon context. Pragmatic failure is a term which was first coined by Jenny Thomas in (1983) which is defined as the inability to understand what is said by what is intended. Pragmatic failure is of two types: pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic failure. As known, the meaning of animal idiomatic expressions vary from culture to culture, because of the difference of norms and principles the culture imposes on the residents of certain place. Pragmatically, the use of idiomatic expressions in English carry a diversity of meanings which learners of other languages will surely fall short in determining the exact intentions of speakers using these expressions as well as having a relation to the culture that the speech community has. The culture pragmatically place a major role too. However, this is due to the fact that idiomatic expressions have indirect speech acts and implicatures bond by the culture of the language that ought to be figured out by the learners. The study hypothesizes that most of EFL Iraqi learners will fail to interpret these expressions and also after putting these idiomatic expressions into their contexts.