Abstract:In the modern society, people with different cultural backgrounds communicate with others more and more frequently. As every country has its own culture, intercultural communication becomes one of the most important activities in the world. English, as the world-wide language, becomes more and more important. However, in the process of communicating in English, Chinese learners usually make mistakes because of various problems. This thesis did a survey on pragmatic failure, which is regarded as the most important reason to cause failure in communication. Based on a testing paper to senior English majors at Honghe University, this thesis aims to explore the current situation of students’ pragmatic competence. After analyzing the data, it can be shown that the pragmatic competence of English majors is still at a lower level and pragmatic failure in speech acts is still obvious to a greater or less degree. According to the results from the survey, the author discusses the main reasons for pragmatic failures, i.e. negative pragmatic transfer, inappropriate language input, and improper teaching. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to improve pragmatic competence and avoid pragmatic failure.

Key Words: Senior English majors; Pragmatic failure; Pragmatic competence

摘 要:在当今社会，人们之间的交往越来越频繁。由于各国之间有着不同的文化背景，因此跨文化交际成为当今世界最重要的活动之一。而英语作为一种世界性的通用语言也变得越来越重要。然而，中国的英语学习者在用英语进行交际的过程中常常会因为各种各样的问题而引起交际行为的中断。本文主要针对引起的交际失败的最主要原因——语用失误展开调查研究。本文旨在通过书面测试的形式，以调查红河学院英语专业学生的语用现状。从研究数据中得知英语专业学生的语用能力普遍较弱，学生在各种言语行为上都存在不同程度上的语用失误。基于对调查结果的分析，作者总结了造成语用失误的原因主要是语用负迁移，不恰当的语言输入以及不合适的教学方式。因此，必须采取措施提高学生语用能力，避免语用失误。

关键词：英语专业大四学生；语用失误；语用能力