nonegativepragmatictransferininterculturalcommunication--毕业设计.doc

湖南涉外经济学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

On Negative Pragmatic Transfer in

Intercultural Communication

Abstract
The term "transfer" is first defined by behaviorists to refer to the process of automatic，uncontrolled and subconscious use of past learned behavior in the attempt to produce new responses. Pragmatic transfer is one of the important contents of interlanguage pragmatics study. According to the pragmatic knowledge transferred, pragmatic transfer can be divided into pragmalinguistic transfer and sociopragmatic transfer. According to effects arising from pragmatic transfer,it can also be devided into positive transfer and negative pragmatic transfer. And the across language and cross-cultural researches of language learning have constantly revealed the learners' negative transfer from native language to target language, which impedes leaners' study.
On the basis of the previous researches, this paper begins with the definition and understanding of the terms like pragmatic transfer, intercultural communication, and introduces the current situation of negative pragmatic transfer research. Then, the author analyzes the primary manifestations of negative pragmatic transfer at the levels of lexis, syntax, text, values, politeness strategies, social contact customs and thought patterns from language and social aspects. Finally, some corresponding strategies are put up, that is, to enforce the teachers' and the learners' understanding of negative transfer, to encourage learners to think in native ways and to compare the difference between the Chinese and Western culture. People can not only promote language acquisition and teaching, but also help to reduce misunderstandings and failures in intercultural communication by knowing the specific pragmatic transfer in real life and some relevant strategies.

Key words: intercultural communication; pragmatic transfer; negative pragmatic transfer; strageties

摘 要
“迁移”最初由行为主义心理学家提出，指在学习新知识的过程中，对已有的知识进行自动的潜意识的利用过程。语言迁移是语际语用学所研究的重要内容，根据所迁移的语用知识，语用迁移可以划分为语用语言负迁移与语用社会负迁移两类；根据迁移所产生的效用划分，语用迁移通常还可以分为：语用正迁移和语用负迁移。言语学习的跨语言、跨文化研究不断的揭示出学生从母语到目标语的负迁移现象，对学习者起阻碍作用。
本文基于前人对语用负迁移的优秀成果，首先阐述了“语用迁移”，“跨文化交际”等概念的定义，并回顾了语用迁移研究的现状。接下来，从语言与社会层面上分析了语用负迁移在词汇、句法、篇章、价值观、礼貌策略、社会习俗、思维方式上的具体体现。最后，作者在以上分析的基础上，提出了相应的对策：鼓励学生用目标语思维，加深教师和学生对负迁移的认识和理解，同时对比中西文化差异，以促进英语学习和教学。了解语用负迁移在现实中的具体体现和相应的应对策略，不仅能促进语言的习得与教学，还有助于减少跨文化交际中的误解与失败。

关键词：跨文化交际；语用迁移；语用负迁移；对策

Contents
Abstract I
摘 要 II
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Literature Review 3
1.1 Pragmatic Transfer 3
1.1.1 Definition of Pragmatics 3
1.1.2 Definition of Pragmatic Transfer 4
1.2 Intercultural Communication 5
1.2.1 Definition of Intercultural Communication 5
1.2.2 Pragmatic Transfer and Intercultural Communication 6
1.3 Review of Studies on Negative Pragmatic Transfer 7
Chapter 2 Manifestations of Negative Pragmatic Transfer in Intercultural Communication 10
2.1 Language Aspects 10
2.1.1 Lexical Transfer 10
2.1.2 Syntactic Transfer 13
2.1.3 Negative Transfer in Discourse and Texts 16
2.2 Social Aspects 18
2.2.1 Negative Transfer in Values 18
2.2.3 Negative Transfer in Social Contact Custom 19
2.2.4 Negative Transfer in Thought Patterns 20
Chapter 3 Strategies to Reduce Negative Pragmatic Transfer 22
3.1 To Enforce Teachers' and the Learners' Understanding of Negative Transfer 22
3.2 To Encourage Learners to Think in Native Ways 23
3.3 To Make a Comparison between English and Chinese Cultures 24
Conclusion 26
Bibliography 27
Acknowledgements 28
Appendix 29

III

Introduction
Research Background
With the rapid expansion of worldwide transportation and communication network, the world is becoming smaller and smaller, and is characterized as a "global village". The international and domestic changes in the past few decades have brought us into direct and indirect contact with people who, because of their cultural diversity, often behave in ways that we do not understand. It is no longer difficult to find social and professional situations in which members of once isolated groups of peoples communicate with members of other cultural groups. Now these people may live thousands of miles away or right next door to each other. In other words, intercultural communication prevails in the so-called global village.
In recent years, the growth in foreign travel for business, study and pleasure, the expansion of international trade and migration of people seeking work in the multinational companies have naturally led to a concomitant increase in contacts across national boundaries. When there are significant differences in background knowledge, even the same message may be interpreted differently by different individuals. This may cause trouble in any situation of contact between them. It's the failure of communication. Such miscommunication is a retrospective recognition which one person's intentions have not been interpreted accurately by another participant. And most miscommunication derives from pragmatic failures in intercultural communication and attracts much attention.
There are a lot of foreign scholars who studied this aspect, such as Charles Morris(1938), Levinson(1983), Thomas(1983), Kasper G(1992), Driven, R.D. & Putz, M(1993), Blum-Kulka(1993), Samovar(1994), Chen Guoming & Starasta (1998), and He Zhaoxiong (2000). In China, monographs in this area at home are many like Culture and Communication (Hu Wenzhong 1994), The Research of Pragmatic in China(Shen Jiaxuan 1996), Intercultural Communication(Fei Yuxin 1997), Pragmatics (Hu Zhuanglin 1980), Discussion on Pragmatic Transfer (Pang Haolong 2000), Language Transfer and Second Language Acquisition (Yu Liming 2004), Pragmatic Transfer in Intercultural Language Communication(Zhang Bigang and Xia Hongzhong 2008), Pragmatic Transfer in Intercultural Communication(Liu Jianhuai 2009) and so on.
Over all, these studies not only provide us with more insights into pragmatic transfer, but build up a fundamental basis for the future study on it.
Research Subject and Significance
Based on the previous studies, this thesis mainly explores the negative pragmatic transfer from the levels of lexis, syntax, text, values, politeness strategies, social contact customs and thought patterns from language and social aspects. Then, the author puts up some strategies, i.e., to enforce the teachers' and the learners' understanding of negative transfer, to encourage learners to think in native ways and to compare the difference between the Chinese and Western culture. It is hoped that the analysis of negative pragmatic transfer in this thesis will be extremely useful in effectively breaking cultural barriers and for enhancing mutual understanding between China and the Western countries.
Organization of the Thesis
There are five parts in this thesis: Introduction, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three and Conclusion. In the introduction, the author sketches the whole thesis, which includes research background, research subject and significance and organization of the thesis. Chapter One reviews the negative pragmatic transfer study abroad and home, along with the definition of pragmatic transfer and intercultural communication. Chapter Two analyzes the major manifestations of negative pragmatic from language and social aspects. Chapter Three puts up some corresponding strategies to lessen negative transfer in the process of language learning and teaching. In the Conclusion, the author sums up her study and points out the limitations in the study.

Chapter 1 Literature Review
In this chapter, a brief statement of pragmatics, intercultural communication and negative transfer will be made. This hopefully provides theoretical background for analyzing pragmatic transfer in chapter two.
1.1 Pragmatic Transfer
To understand pragmatic transfer, it is necessary to understand pragmatics and negative transfer.
1.1.1 Definition of Pragmatics
As any other subjects, pragmatics should have its own definition. When the philosopher Charles Morris(1938: 6) first used the term pragmatics, it is just one of the three branches of semiotics(with the two other sister terms of syntacyics/syntax and semantics), being the study of "the relation of signs to interpreters" and "it deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis,that is, with all the psycholigical, biological, and sociological phenomena which occur in functioning of signs"(1938: 108).Of course this covers a much wider scope than the current linguistic pragmatics.
For the present notion of pragmatics, it's a no easy task to provide a satisfsctory definition. According to Levinson(1983:6-27), "it is not easy to give a final definition to pragmatics". He listed about ten possible definitions and gave his own comments. Here just several of them were chosen to have a general idea of what is pragmatics:
Definition 1: "Pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of a language."
Definition 2: "Pragmatics is the study of all those aspects of meaning not captured in a sementic theory."
Definition 3: "Pragmatics is the study of the relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language understanding."
Definition 4: "Pragmatics is the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context in which they would be appropriate."
Definition 5: "Pragmatics is the study of deixis (at least in part), implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure."
Though Levinson listed a series of possiblle definitions, he thought there was not a definition which was very satisfactory among them.
Mey gave his definition of pragmatics as "Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society" (1993:5). And Thomas presented a view of pragmatics as "meaning in interaction" (1995:22).
From these definitions, it can be easily seen that from different starting points, different definitions from different emphases can be given, which will lead to definitions with limitations and one-sidedness. But that does not mean it cannot give a definition to pragmatics. Actually, people can have the definition in all kinds of pragmatic works made by its writer from their own emphases. However, "it is meaningless to compare the superior and inferior among these definitions, the differences are only the emphases and words. The various definitions can deepen the understanding of pragmatics."(He Zhaoxiong 2000:9)
1.1.2 Definition of Pragmatic Transfer
Pragmatic transfer is a domain of Interlanguage pragmatics(ILP). But trying a comprehensive and sound definition of pragmatic transfer is problematic since both components of phrase are, in themselves, problematic as they have been used with different meanings or with similar meaning but under different labels.
According to Kasper, "Pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics shall refer to the influence exerted by learners' pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2 on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic information." (1992:207).
Faerch & Kasper defined pragmatic knowledge as "a particular component of language users' general communicative knowledge, that is, knowledge of how verbal acts are understood and performed in accordance with a speaker's intention under contexual and discoursal constraints"(1984:214).
Stemming from the inseparable relation between language and culture, Kasper(1992) identified two types of pragmatic transfer: pragmalinguistic transfer and sociopragmatic transfer(1992:208). Both pramalinguistic transfer and sociopragmatic are terms derived from Leech's treatment towards the scope of pragmatic and which Thomas(1983) picked up in classifying the types of pragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic, in Leech's definition, refers to our linguistic knowledge of language use, and sociopragmatics is related with how our sociological knowledge influences our interaction(1983:10). Inspired by Leech's dichotomy, Kasper saw it fit to introduce both terms to categorize the learners'pragmatic transfer, for she remarked that "Leech(1983) distinction between pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, applied by Thomas(1983) to indentify two major types of 'pragmatic transfer', is equally suitable to broadly separate two main loci of pragmatic transfer" (1992:2008).
To Kasper(1992), a pragmalinguistic transfer is the influence of the learner's knowledge about the illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to particular linguistic form functions in NL which, when mapped by learners into the perception and production of a similar situation in TL sounds different to native speakers. To put it another way, a pragmalinguistic transfer is "the process whereby the illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to a particular linguistic material in NL, influences learners' perception and production of form function mappings in TL" (Kasper 1992:209).
Different from a pragmalinguistic transfer, a sociopragmatic transfer is a process "operative when the social perceptions underlying language users/ interpretation and performance of linguistic action in TL are influenced by their assessment of subjectively equivalent NL contexts"(ibid:209).
Pragmatic transfer can be positive or negative. So it can be devided into positive pragmatic transfer and negative pragmatic transfer. But the focus of study has been on negative transfer because of its potential risk to communicative success. Positive transfer, however, has received much less attention since it usually results in communicative success and therefore is "less exiciting to study"(Kasper & Blum-Kulka 1993:10). Besides, it is methodologically difficult to disentangle positive transfer from universal pragmatic knowledge and generalization on the basis of available interlanguage pragmatic knowledge.
1.2 Intercultural Communication
The understanding of definition and research of intercultural communication is essential to understand intercultural communication.
1.2.1 Definition of Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication is about how people from different cultures communicate. The term "intercultural" has many synonyms, such as "interethnic", "interracial", "transcultural", "transracial", and "cross-cultural". Driven and Putz point out "All these terms denote slightly different aspects of wider field comprising the contrast or comparison between two different cultural communication... Probably because 'intercultural' covers the widest field, this term seems to be generally preferred now." (1993:144). That is the reason why we have employed the term "intercultural" here.
Samovar claimed that intercultural communication occurs "whenever a message that must been understood is produced by a member of one c