The Pragmatics in Cross-Cultural Communication

摘要

Cross-cultural communication is an inseparable part of linguistic theory and application. The present paper discusses cross-cultural communication from a pragmatics perspective. The first section of this paper is a brief introduction to the study of cross-cultural communication. Differences between communicators that come from different cultural background and cultural norms often give rise to misunderstanding. In section two of this paper, I illustrate eight aspects of differences on which cross-cultural communication can falter: talk or silence; what to say; pacing and pausing; listenership; intonation; indirectness; cohesion and coherence; and compliment responses in politeness. From these eight aspects, we can have a better understanding of what is meant by what is said and how communicative failure rises. The last section of the paper makes a summary to the issues discussed preceding it.