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

Although a large number of studies have focused on various aspects of politeness,very little is known about how politeness intention is activated cognitively during verbal communication.The present study aims to explore the cognitive mechanism of politeness intention processing,and how it is related to pragmatic failure during cross-cultural communication.Using 30 Chinese EFL university students who were instructed to finish a probe word judgment task with 96 virtual scenarios,the results indicate that within both mono-and cross-cultural contexts,the response time in the experimental scenarios was significantly slower than that of the filler scenarios.This suggests that politeness intention was activated while understanding the surface meaning of the conversation;however,the EFL learners could not completely avoid the negative transfer of their native politeness conventions when they were comprehending the conversational intention of the target language.Furthermore,no significant differences in response time were found between the groups with high and low English pragmatic competence,illustrating that transferring the pragmatic rules and principles into cross-cultural communication skills was more cognitively demanding.Overall,this study adds to the literature on politeness research and provides some implications for foreign language pragmatic instructions.

A Comparative Study of the L2 Pragmatic Competence of University Students in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland:The Contributions of Sociocultural Context and Linguistic Proficiency

This study investigates the differences in pragmatic competence between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland university students.Participants included 19 native speakers of English,115 Chinese mainland students,divided into those who had spent time abroad in an English-speaking country(CM A)and those who had not(CM NA),and 97 Hong Kong students,divided into those from an English-medium secondary school(Hong Kong EMI)and those from a Chinese-medium school(Hong Kong CMI).Linguistic proficiency was measured by a C-test,and pragmatic competence by a Metapragmatic Knowledge Test,an Irony Test and a Monologic Role Play.Group scores were compared using ANCOVAs to control for differences in proficiency.The results point to a continuum of pragmatic competence—EMI>CMI>CM A>CM NA—reflecting the groups’access to English in real-life contexts.The differences between the Hong Kong groups and the Chinese mainland groups were clearest in those tests measuring processing capacity(i.e.,Irony Response Time and the Monologic Role Play).CM A,but not CM NA,performed as well as the Hong Kong groups on measures of metapragmatic awareness.The results are discussed in terms of Bialystok’s(1993)distinction between analyzed representation and control of processing.

国外语用学研究综述——基于Journal of Pragmatics(2005-2014)的统计分析

一、引言 20世纪70年代,一些语言学家看到Chomsky形式句法理论的缺陷和不足,开始在语言研究中重视对语言意义的研究。随着研究的深入,他们越来越意识到对意义的阐释离不开语境,这便为语用学研究开辟了道路。虽然语用学作为一门学科的历史并不很长,但发展却是十分迅速的。

The Interaction between the Cooperate Principle and the Politeness Principle in Pragmatics

The Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle are the main contents of pragmatics. This paper the writer makes a systematic exposition of what are the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle and how they interact with each other in people’s conversations. .

近十年国外语用学研究综述——对Journal of Pragmatics十年(2005—2014)所刊文章的统计分析

文章首先对Journal of Pragmatics(2005—2014年)所刊文章进行了全面的统计描述;其次从实证研究和非实证研究的角度统计分析了十年来该期刊所有的语用学文章;然后依据权威分类将语用学研究分为十三大类,即互动语用学、话语语用学、社会语用学、实验语用学、语料库语用学、认知语用学、语法与语用学、语用学与哲学、语言习得与语用学、跨文化语用学、网络语用学、翻译与语用学和文学语用学,并在此基础上对语用学文章进行了归类;最后细致梳理和综述了十三大类中十年发文量达到100以上的语用学研究文章。

The Application of Pragmatics in College English Teaching

The teaching of pragmatic knowledge is as important as those grammatical rules.It is very critical for a successful communication.An increasingly large number of English language teachers who possess a special interest in pragmatics begin to adopt the pragmatic teaching which aims at promoting students'communicative competence.In order to improve students' communicative ability,teachers must pay attention to the importance of pragmatics in teaching process.Only in this way can college students be trained to use language correctly and properly.

On News Language from the Perspective of Pragmatics——By Applying Adaption Theory

News is an important medium to transmit social information and reflect social reality. Its effects are irreplaceable and the news language which is a carrier to spread information is in fact influenced by many factors such as society, economy and culture. In order to exert its function to gain different social ends, the presentation of news language owns distinguishing features. This article starts from Verschueren's Adaption Theory to have the final conclusion that the adaption to the social, mental and physical world is the key element for the determination of the originality in news language.

PRAGMATICS九年首文研究

通过PRAGMATICS九年首文的研究,中国语用学者获得了选题启示,探知了国际语用学界这一段时期的学术主流、学术原创性以及视角与方法,看出国际语用学界这一段时期的语用学发展史。另外,作者认为,“首文研究”本身具有方法论意义——工具性语用学研究。

Pragmatics and Its Significant Implications on EFL Teaching

Based on pragmatics theories, this article will discuss its application and put forward the implications of pragmatics on EFL teaching.

Cross-cultural pragmatics: compliments and compliment responses in English and Chinese

Language and culture are distinctly interdependent;one reflects the other.In cross-cultural communications,it is critical for language users to use and understand the language appropriately in a certain socio-cultural context.This paper aims to compare the similarities and differences of compliments and compliment responses in English and Chinese from the cross-cultural pragmatic perspective.The implications for teaching are also discussed so as to bridge the gap caused by cultural differences and minimize the occurrence of potential cross-cultural pragmatic failures.

An Analysis of the Verbal Humor in the Movies If You Are The One Ⅰ&Ⅱ from the Perspective of Pragmatics

This study analyzes the the verbal humor in the movie series If You Are The One from the perspective of some pragmatic theories.The findings of the study provide explanations towards generative mechanism of humor,such as the violation of Cooperative Principle,avoiding face-threatening acts,and particularly,creatively reveal that special use of Politeness Principle can produce a humourous effect,too.

An Analysis of the Cause of College Student’s English Classroom Silence and Its Solution from the Perspective of Pragmatics

This study is aimed at the common classroom silence phenomenon in contemporary college English class. First of all, thispaper explains the meaning of silence from the pragmatic point of view, and takes the students in the Xi’an Innovation College ofYan’an University for instance. Based on a questionnaire survey of 200 students in the Xi’an Innovation College of Yan’an Univer-sity, the reasons are analyzed from two perspectives of teachers and students. This paper makes an analysis of all kinds of factors,so as to put forward effective solutions to eliminate the classroom silence.

Study on Translation of English Financial News Headlines from the Perspective of Pragmatics

English financial news headlines are distinguished from other types of titles for its distinctive characteristics.Besidesthat,when it comes to the problem of different thinking modes,the core of the translation is to keep the pragmatic equivalence forthe sake of achieving effective communications in cross-cultural background.Based on analysis of the features of English financialnews headlines,this paper aims at searching for better translation strategies for these from the perspective of pragmatics.

On Pragmatics and Language Teaching

This thesis concentrates on analyzing the impacts of pragmatics on English teaching by application of the theories of se mantics and pragmatics.It attempts to probe into the profound relationship between pragmatics and grammar,pragmatics and se mantics,pragmatics and cognition in order to find out the proper methods on language teaching.

On the Grammatical Unaccountability of English Lexical Collocation from the Perspective of Pragmatics

As for the English lexical collocation,there has been a great amount of researches conducted by Chinese and foreign scholars.However,less people has offered the explanation in allusion to the collocation which isn't confined to the grammatical domain.Therefore,the thesis aims to depart from the research of the grammatical unaccountability of the lexical collocation to deeply investigate the reason of it from the point view of etymology,semantics,pragmatics and cultural category by taking"female secretary" as an example.In addition,the thesis intends to search for an effective learning way to help learners improve their learning efficiency and use the English lexicon correctly as a native speaker.

翻译研究的语用学视角——评介《The Pragmatics of Translation》

《The pragmatics of Translation》以探究如何在篇章转换中保持语用意义为主线,把翻译实践与言语行为理论、合作原则、关联原则、礼貌理论、篇章组织、语篇标记、前提和指示等语用学原则结合起来,突现语用学理论对翻译活动的导向作用;结合各语种之间的互译来研究语用意义在翻译活动中的传达。

Jef Verschueren: Understanding Pragmatics──A Review Article

ThisisareviewarticleofJefVerschueren'sUnderstandingPragmatics,hislatestcontribution,andtheworkhasbeenpreparedtopresentacoherenttheoreticalframeworkforlinguisticpragmaticsandtoofferamorecomprehensiveandscientifictextbookforthosewhoareengagedinthestudy...

Studies of negative pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics

Negative pragmatic transfer (NPT) is nothing but a difference of saying things between non native speakers and native speakers. It occupies an important position in interlanguage pragmatics whose mission is to scrutinize how non native speakers do things with words with L2. This paper reported that 4 NPT related aspects have been heavily documented in the current literature: 1) L1 negative pragmatic transfers at the speech act level; 2) the distinction between negative pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfers; 3) conditions of negative pragmatic transfers; and 4) native speaker’s attitudes towards L1 negative pragmatic transfers. Consequently, issues for future studies are also raised.

Random Remarks on the Relation of Translatology to Grammar,Rhetoric,Semantics,Pragmatics and Other Linguistic Sciences

V.Translatology and PragmaticsPragmatics is the study of language usage.It is a study of those relationsbetween language and context that are grammaticalized,or encoded in the structureof a language.It includes the study of deixis,presupposition and speech acts.It is tobe noted that there is also a close relation between translatology and pragmatics.The following instances afford an illustration of this point.

Pragmatics and Language Learning

语用学作为一门新兴的科学已被确认。经过许多国家的学者们的探索和研究,形成了许多语用学的观点和理论,使人们能够从全新的角度认识语言和使用语言。尤其是语言行为理论和语境理论不仅改变着人们对语言的认识和运用,同时也深刻的影响着语言的学习。本文论及某些语用学的理论对外语学习的影响。