Some countermeasures to the pragmatic fa

Some Countermeasures to the Pragmatic Failures in the EFL Writing of Chinese Students Dan He China West Normal University No 1，Shida road, Nanchong city, Sichuan Province, China Abstract Writing is an instrument of communication; the Chinese students’ English writing belongs to intercultural communication Pragmatic failure occurs mainly because the lack of the cultural awareness and knowledge, and it offers an angle for the discussion in the thesis This thesis attempts to highlight the importance of culture teaching in English writing teaching It is also designed to explore several approaches to development of English writing from both teachers’ and students’ perspective Key words: writing, pragmatic failure, cultural difference The pragmatic failures in Chinese students’ writing Of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), writing has always been the most problematic part for Chinese students and difficult for their teachers to tackle Writing is a complex process, and learning to write in a second language is not a simple matter of knowing how to “write things down” in the new code Most English writings of Chinese students read so much like translation of Chinese, and one can fairly easily tell whether an article was written by a Chinese or by a native speaker of English The biggest problem with the English composition is that most of Chinese students just translate Chinese expression and writing patterns literally into English, which certainly cause pragmatic failures in the writing Since writing is a means of intercultural communication, in which pragmatic failures are more difficult to identify mainly because the problem of establishing which cultural norms www.ijellh.com 639 should serve as the point of the reference and of knowing what the learners’ exact intentions were “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, 1974: 106) Therefore, in order to communicate successfully in a target language through writing, pragmatic failures deserve a special attention Causes of the Pragmatic Failure in English Writing 2.1 A Brief Contrast between the Languages of Two Cultures Language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it And with difference in cultures and differences in languages, difficulties often arise in communication between cultures and across cultures Therefore, the cultural difference between China and West, which causes the differences in the two languages, certainly would lead to the communication difficulties Since writing is also an instrument of communication, the cultural difference causes the pragmatic failures in Chinese college students’ English writing Culture is extremely complex and consists of lots of interrelated cultural orientations including beliefs, attitudes, norms and other material aspects The most dominant orientation like the key concept of Confucianism in China and individualism in the West, acts as shapers of the patterns of interpersonal relationship which affect interactions and communications on both sides Therefore, the interpersonal pattern and styles they underpin are different and interpersonal relationship between the East and the West is also different China is a high-power-distance country, and Chinese people believe that power and authority are facts of life People’s honorable titles indicating the position show the social power hierarchy, so when greeting somebody, they intend to bringing official titles and other positional appellation Whereas in the West, people consider equality and they prefer to give the title Mr and Ms before the family name Except for the different value orientation between the two cultures, there are various language differences between Chinese and English, which are caused by the cross-cultural differences There are differences of meaning of words, cultural distinctions and connotations, idioms, proverbs, sayings, metaphor and association, allusions, euphemisms taboos and so on, www.ijellh.com 640 and all these language differences may cause pragmatic failure in Chinese students’ English writing Words and terms in one language have different meaning when translated into another language and we can not rely on our dictionaries to give us the proper English for a Chinese term Idioms, proverbs and sayings are an important part of the language and culture of a society As with idioms in any language, the meanings of Chinese and English idioms cannot be derived from the meanings of the individual words alone, and they are impossible to understand from the meanings of the individual words For example, in a student’s sample writing, he translated the Chinese proverbs to “every family has a difficult book to read”, and “people are iron, rice is steel” Although the translation are correct in grammar, but such English expression can not be understood by English native speakers, because they lack of the similar cultural background of China “The problems of rendering idioms and proverbs of one language into another are always complex, much more so if the two languages involved are of backgrounds and cultures so unlike each other” (Deng Yangchang and Liu Runqing, 1989: 40) 2.2 Insufficient Learning of Students Students’ ideas on English writing, their writing habits and their language proficiency are related to their pragmatic competence in English writing The unawareness and the confused understanding of cultural difference among languages certainly would cause the pragmatic failure in English writing Besides, the proper writing habits, such as paying enough attention to the cultural barrier and think more about pragmatic failure except for vocabulary and grammar in the process of writing and assessing, would help to reduce the pragmatic failure in English writing Besides, the proper understanding of the purpose of writing also has positive relation to the pragmatic competence in English writing Most of students think the vocabulary and grammar are the most difficult in English There is little of students pay enough attention to the cultural difference and pragmatic failures in their practical process of writing and checking, Language proficiency has a positive relation to pragmatic competence in English writing www.ijellh.com 641 2.3 Insufficient and Improper Teaching In a long-term period, Chinese English teaching aims at introducing more grammatical points and the students’ purpose is to cope with the test, which leads to insufficiency of the target culture presentation Although teachers often introduce cultural background in class, they seldom related it to English writing Most of teachers usually not value culture introduction in English writing course and pay little attention on it Teachers pay much attention on the vocabulary and sentence structure and proper arrangement Teachers value the culture introduction, which would help to reduce the pragmatic failures, least in English writing teaching and assessing On the impact of teachers’ English writing teaching, most students only put emphasis on vocabulary and grammar and neglect the pragmatic failure in writing, although many of them are aware of the cultural differences among different languages In the Western culture, a set of propriety for communication differs from the one in China For instance, Chinese people would like to show their concern and friendliness to friends by such suggestion as “you must take care of your health… get more clothes and be careful don’t get cold”, which occurs in student’s writing However, to native English speakers, such direct advice sounds rather too parental and impolite In English writing classes, teachers may introduce the grammatical usages, but neglect the explanation of the cultural differences between two languages What’s more, there are some words, phrases, idioms, proverbs, sayings, metaphor, association, allusions, euphemisms and taboos in English, especially related to a certain cultural implication are intractable for Chinese students But when teaching vocabulary and so on, teachers always ignores culture-loaded meaning of some words and phrases When facing a certain word or phrase with some cultural background, teachers usually introduce the pronunciation, spelling and grammatical usage, but ignore the introduction and explanation of the cultural background knowledge and cultural differences between two languages Most of students think it difficult to improve their English writing competence and are not clear about how to improve it So the lack of students’ cultural awareness in English writing and confused understanding of pragmatic failure are due to the lack of emphasis on the culture www.ijellh.com 642 teaching in English writing class to some extent In all, the pragmatic failures in Chinese students’ English writing are always caused by several factors And these factors are only the central ones as a complicated intertexture but not the all In order to improve and upgrade students’ pragmatic competence in English writing, attention to these factors is needed Pedagogical Implications and Some Countermeasures 3.1 Culture Teaching in English Writing Because of the interference from their mother language and culture, students tend to write English writing similarly to the way they write in Chinese As a result, most of their essays have little English favor Pragmatic failures in students’ English writing bare certain relation on culture, so in English writing teaching, the importance of teaching target culture has been widely recognized But how to teach culture is still a problem faced by the language educators and teachers Most of students are aware of the cultural differences among different languages However, most of them have a confused understanding of cross-cultural differences and pay little attention to the pragmatic failure in their English writing Therefore, it is very important for teacher to make students have a clear understanding of cultural differences and its influence on English writing 3.1.1 Some Researchers’ Study of the Cultural Teaching The causes of pragmatic failures in English writing are diversiform, as mentioned in previous chapter All the factors determine that to develop students’ pragmatic competence in English writing is not a simple job, and several language teachers and scholars have plunged themselves into the study to find a better process Patrick R Moran points out that “Culture has many definitions, because it is multifaceted……For most part, these definitions present culture as an abstract entity that can be separated from the experience of participating in it” (2003: 13) Therefore, instead of using “culture” as the focal point of definitions, he uses “cultural experience”, which means the encounter with another way of life He explains that the cultural experience consists of the cultural content, the activities in which students engage this content, the outcomes that are intended or achieved, the learning context, and the nature of the relationship the teacher www.ijellh.com 643 develops with students Then he gives the four interconnected learning interactions the cultural experience consists (2003:15) First, “knowing about” includes all activities that consist of gathering and demonstrating acquisition of cultural information—facts, data, or knowledge about products, practices, and perspectives of the culture Second, “knowing how” involves acquiring cultural practices—behaviors, actions, skills, saying, touching, looking, standing, or other forms of “doing” Third, “knowing why” deals with developing an understanding of fundamental cultural perspectives—the perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes that underlie or permeate all aspects of the culture Forth, “knowing oneself” concerns the individual learners—their values, opinions, feelings, questions, reactions, thoughts, ideas, and their own cultural values as a central part of the cultural experience It deals with self-awareness The researcher’s emphasis on cultural experience is a special contribution and is different from the general cross-cultural teaching As a matter of fact, the foreign language learning is a kind of experience of foreign culture, so cultural experience is the characteristic feature of culture teaching in EFL Then, teachers should encourage students to experience the related culture knowledge of target language Besides, teachers can shift students’ unconscious cultural experience into conscious one by the direct or indirect communication with foreigners When students acquired the related cultural experience, teachers may lead them communicate their own experience and it can help them build active cross-cultural consciousness and competence On culture teaching, Damen (1987:327) describes it in terms of culture learning Based on her definitions of culture learning (derived principally from ethnography), she proposed five teacher roles: counselor, participant, observer, resident pragmatic anthropologist, mediator, and fellow learner Her analysis of teachers’ roles gives us important implication that teachers are not only teacher in culture teaching, but also counselor and fellow learner and so on English teachers should realize the importance of culture teaching, and experience the culture learning actively, try to become an effective culture learner, and then cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness and competence www.ijellh.com 644 3.1.2 Integrating Culture Teaching with Learning Teachers have various roles in culture teaching So teachers should facilitate the communication process or to regulate the relationship between the participants and various activities, and act as independent participant within learning-teaching group Besides, teachers should have this competence themselves and take account of the feasibility of teaching In culture learning, students cannot only rely on the class, but also on the self-study They can experience culture through the cultural practices and then learn the culture Moran P R (2003: 54) mentioned that cultural practices comprise all the actions that members of the culture carry out as part of their way of life, including language These actions involve people engaged in communication, giving and receiving messages, transacting meaning, achieving ends Teachers should not only introduce students the Culture, which includes the value orientation, social policy and so on, but also pay attention to teaching culture, which includes the attitudes and customs in everyday life Moreover, as Chinese culture and foreign one are diverse in many aspects, students need to start from the understanding of mother tongue and culture to grasp the target one Through learning cultural elements one after another, the learners eventually put the pieces together so that a total and unified picture of culture is formed 3.2 Cultivation of Cultural Awareness in English Writing Teaching There is close relationship of culture and writing However, there is little student value the importance of cultural differences, which would cause the pragmatic failure, in their English writing In order to improve the efficiency of the Chinese college English writing course, culture teaching centers on cultivating cultural awareness of the students The stereotyped pattern of teaching advance composition in most students’ idea is something like this: the teacher gives a topic and each student writes a paper on it; then the teacher grades the paper So, the student is in a passive position from beginning to end, and he has a tendency to assume that the only reader of their writings will be the teacher, which certainly dose not enhance his appetite for writing As mentioned by Moran P R., the cultural experience is an interactive activity, so the teaching of culture is the interactive activity in www.ijellh.com 645 which foreign language learners are active participant to acquire foreign cultural knowledge Then, Chinese students writing English compositions, an activity of conveying ideas and interpreting it in a foreign language, also is an interactive between writers and readers In so different cultures of China and West, the meaning of the same object may be different So, in order to make their meanings understood, they need to know the cultures of their target readers, whether on the surface or at the deep level Writing is a means of communicating ideas, and the most important reason for learning to write is that a student learns how to communicate more effectively As a form of intercultural communication, Chinese students’ writing a good English composition is to achieve the purpose of effective intercultural communication To minimize misunderstanding, which caused by pragmatic failure, in English writing, one needs to raise the cultural awareness to promote the understanding of cultures because misunderstanding is most likely to happen out of ignorance Since culture is the influential background that would interfere with the writing, it is important that by culture teaching teachers introduce cultural knowledge in writing class to students so that they can alert to the difference the native and the target culture in their learning and writing, in other words, develop students’ cultural awareness Influenced by their teachers’ emphasis, most students only value the grammar and vocabulary in English writing Zhou Aimin (1999: 265) pointed out that in order to guarantee that students write abundantly, the teacher should not worry (at least for the time being) about the grammatical or mechanical mistakes in their papers And students should not be threatened by their teacher’s stressing aspects of refined grammar and usage, which would not be conducive to a productive atmosphere for active writing Except for the culture introduction in English writing, imitation is also an important factor to reduce pragmatic failure in learning to write “a teacher can analyze with the students different styles of writing, the choice of words, the presentation of humor, detailed descriptions, and the rhetorical device, as well as dramatic dialogues World famous writings in different genres can also be served as models to imitate, and let the students to write summaries, outlines, situations and consequences, and analysis” (Zhou Aimin, 1999: 268) Through the imitation, students may get more awareness and a better understanding of the www.ijellh.com 646 cultural differences in English writing 3.3 Some Countermeasures on English Writing Teaching and Learning 3.3.1 Making Writing Meaningful As we know, most of the students had apparently devoted more time to grammar and form than to content in English writing Though using correct grammar and vocabulary provides a perfect frame for content, a paper without clear purpose and adequate content is like a frame without a picture Teaching writing is not and easy task, because learning to write in a foreign language is not simply a matter of knowing how to write things down in the target language Students are aware of the cultural differences but ignore it in English writing process One of the reasons is that they are not able to realize the important purpose of writing is communication, and have a tendency to assume that the only reader of their writings will be the teacher In order to make writing meaningful, teachers are responsible for helping them attain a vision that they are not merely students but writers Teachers may emphasis that students’ compositions will something in the tangible sense of performing a social action, and the pragmatic view may be translated into practice For example, the essay writing task is: Text A centers on the letter the taxi driver wrote to his friend Ed However, only part of the letter is revealed in the story Now reconstruct the letter to Ed in the name of the taxi driver Teacher can change the task into writing a letter to students’ own friend in real world Then students suddenly have a purpose for writing and written language had become meaningful Meaningful writing can stimulate students’ interest, motivation, and aspiration in writing and it also helps them pay more attention to pragmatic failure which would cause misunderstanding of readers 3.3.2 Combining Writing with Reading Reading is the foundation of writing In order to help cultivate students’ cultural awareness, teachers may acquaint them with the English writing style and thought of native speakers through reading critically In English writing class, teachers should train the students’ ability of critical reading by contrasting writing styles, thought patterns and using of proverbs or idioms between Chinese people and native English-speakers By contrasting www.ijellh.com 647 those two patterns, the students’ cultural awareness between Chinese and English will be raised Besides, teachers should explain the root of differences, and then the students can better understand the features of English in writing and thinking so as to improve their sensitivity to cultural difference in thought pattern, writing style and language use Moreover, teachers should ask the students to notice those differences when they read other English articles to enhance their awareness of the characteristic of English The reading material chosen for students would better be concerned with typical laws, morality, and social phenomena of certain Western countries which are different from China After reading the given essay, teachers can design some tasks to check whether the students correctly understand the essay, such as writing a summary and a speech for classroom discussion Finally, teacher should give students freedom in selecting a topic or theme related to the reading material for their own essays, and each student may choose a specific topic about which he feels strongly or has something he really wants to say Except for the choosing reading material for students, teachers can also combine text analysis in the reading class with writing to help them acquaint with the thought pattern and its related writing style of English In traditional intensive or extensive reading class, teachers put most emphasis on individual linguistic point of vocabulary and grammar, but neglect the devices of cohesion and coherence and ways of ending, which is just what students need to pay attention to because those aspects display the writer’s thought pattern and writing style So, in reading texts of typical English writing style, teachers need to pay more attention to the analysis of the structure of the text, pointing out the use of devices in connecting sentences or paragraphs and explaining the relation between writing style and thought pattern so as to make students familiarize with the writer’s style and thought pattern From the combination of text analysis with writing helps the students acquainted with the style and the thought pattern of the writer of target language To reduce the pragmatic failures, which caused by the lack of cross-cultural knowledge, in students’ English writing, students need to develop their cultural awareness and have a clear understanding of the differences between Chinese and English ways of writing as well as thinking By applying the proposed suggestions, teachers will be better able to help the www.ijellh.com 648 students acquaint with thought patterns of native English speakers and their writing styles and guide them to write quality English compositions Conclusion This thesis has made a proposal for development of college students’ competence in English writing based on the study of pragmatic failures in their English writing It discussed the causes of pragmatic failures in students’ English writing, and then, proposed several ways to develop their writing competence Students’ comparatively low level of pragmatic competence in English writing is mainly because of their insufficient or vague understanding and recognition of the target culture Therefore, enhancing culture teaching and put more emphasis on pragmatic failure in English writing class is of great importance Then several suggested implications for pedagogy and some perspectives based on the analysis of causes are discussed for both teachers and students to develop students’ English writing competence Thinking of the present situation of the college English writing course, we believe that the adoption of these suggestions will contribute to improving the efficiency of traditional classes www.ijellh.com 649 References: Miller, G A 1974 Psychology, Language and Levels of Communication In Silerstein, A (editor) Human Communication New York: John Wiley 106 Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing 1989 Language and Culture Foreign Language Teaching And Research Press Moran, P R 2003 Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Damen, L 1987 Culture learning: The fifth dimension in the language classroom Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley www.ijellh.com 650 ... West, the meaning of the same object may be different So, in order to make their meanings understood, they need to know the cultures of their target readers, whether on the surface or at the deep... need to start from the understanding of mother tongue and culture to grasp the target one Through learning cultural elements one after another, the learners eventually put the pieces together... wrote to his friend Ed However, only part of the letter is revealed in the story Now reconstruct the letter to Ed in the name of the taxi driver Teacher can change the task into writing a letter to