An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Junior Middle School Students’ Oral Communication

Abstract

Successful oral communication requires not only fully meaning transmitting but also appropriate language expressions with pragmatic competence.Cultivating students’ pragmatic awareness and developing their pragmatic competence are the vital goals of students’ English learning. The pragmatic failure in students’ oral communication, especially involving intercultural communication, is inevitable in their junior middle school age. This course paper tries to discuss and analyze the causes of the frequent pragmatic failures in their oral communication for three aspects of cultural differences, negative transfer of L1 and lacking of pragmatic knowledge. And then some practical suggestions for teachers’ instruction to reduce students’ pragmatic failures and improve students’ pragmatic competence are put forward. First, teachers need create more real communicating context and increasing authentic input. Meanwhile, teacher should integrate culture instruction closely with language program instruction. Lastly, pragmatic knowledge should be infiltrated in class.