Abstract   
 
         Pragmatic failures of politeness in inter-cultural communication have been very common phenomena and to a large extent are influencing smoothness and effectiveness of communication seriously, which are the focus of this paper confined
in intercultural communication between Chinese and English native speakers. This paper describes pragmatic failures in some categories of polite speech acts and gives a new approach to analyze the causes that lead to such failures.
In terms of daily speech acts, such as greetings, compliment, farewell, refusal apology request and so on, pragmatic failures in practice are illustrated and simply discussed. In this paper, the main causes are classified into three categories, which are politeness transfer, different culture-based cognitive environment，and improper choice of context. The prototypical politeness of individuals in intercultural communication will be transferred into the communication consciously or unconsciously. The formation of cognitive environment is based on the native culture and the most relevant culture factors are always playing as reference points and prototype to influence the communication. The relevant context with optimal relevance will come up first in one’s culture and plays to proceed the communication. Such different prototypical understanding of context in different cultures and languages inevitably result in communicative failures.
To summarize from a new perspective, this paper explores politeness failures in
Inter-cultural communication, presents the discussion of causes in the light of cognitive view and provides a reference for English learning and teaching, as well as intercultural communication.
Key Words: pragmatic failures, politeness, cognitive, prototype, relevance
                                                                            

摘 要    
跨文化交際中的禮貌語(yǔ)用失誤已經(jīng)成為一個(gè)普遍的現(xiàn)象，在很大程度上嚴(yán)重影響著交際的順利進(jìn)行和有效性，這正是本論文研究的主要問(wèn)題。本論文描述了幾種禮貌言語(yǔ)行為中的語(yǔ)用失誤，給出一個(gè)新的視角來(lái)分析導(dǎo)致這些失誤的成
因。 
本論文對(duì)日常言語(yǔ)行為中的禮貌語(yǔ)用失誤進(jìn)行了描述和簡(jiǎn)單地分析，例如對(duì)招呼語(yǔ)，稱(chēng)贊語(yǔ)，告別語(yǔ)，拒絕語(yǔ)，道歉語(yǔ)，請(qǐng)求語(yǔ)等中出現(xiàn)的禮貌語(yǔ)用失誤進(jìn)行闡述。在此基礎(chǔ)上，本論文將其主要的成因分為三類(lèi)，即禮貌遷移，以文化為基礎(chǔ)的不同的認(rèn)知環(huán)境和不恰當(dāng)?shù)恼Z(yǔ)境選擇。在跨文化交際中，個(gè)人類(lèi)典型的禮貌觀念會(huì)有意識(shí)或無(wú)意識(shí)地轉(zhuǎn)移到交際中來(lái)，也就是說(shuō)不適用于二語(yǔ)的禮貌規(guī)則會(huì)遷移到交際中，從而導(dǎo)致禮貌語(yǔ)用失誤。認(rèn)知語(yǔ)境的形成是以母語(yǔ)文化為基礎(chǔ)的，最相關(guān)聯(lián)的文化因素總是作為參考點(diǎn)和類(lèi)典型來(lái)影響交際。不同的認(rèn)知環(huán)境導(dǎo)致對(duì)關(guān)聯(lián)的禮貌語(yǔ)境的不同理解，因此這種不同的理解會(huì)引起禮貌語(yǔ)。不同文化和語(yǔ)言中對(duì)語(yǔ)境的典型性理解和構(gòu)建不可避免的會(huì)造成交際失誤。
總的來(lái)說(shuō)，本論文突破傳統(tǒng)的分析角度，從一個(gè)新的觀點(diǎn)出發(fā)剖析跨文化交際中的禮貌語(yǔ)用失誤現(xiàn)象，并在此基礎(chǔ)上歸結(jié)出三大成因，利用認(rèn)知語(yǔ)言學(xué)的理論和觀點(diǎn)來(lái)分析其成因，為英語(yǔ)的學(xué)習(xí)與教學(xué)，以及跨文化交際等方面提供了參考和借鑒。
關(guān)鍵詞：語(yǔ)用失誤；禮貌；認(rèn)知；類(lèi)典型；關(guān)聯(lián)

Contents          

Acknowledgments i
Abstract in English ii
Abstract in Chinese iv
1  Introduction 1
1.1  Overview on Politeness 1
1.2  Overview on Pragmatic Failures 1
1.3  Pragmatic Failures in Politeness 2
2  Literature Review 3
2.1  Review of Politeness Studies at Home and Abroad 3
2.1.1  Politeness Study Abroad 3
2.1.2  Politeness Study in China 4
2.2  Studies of Pragmatic Failures at Home and Abroad 4
2.2.1  Studies of Pragmatic Failures  Abroad 4
The notion of pragmatic failure has been initially defined by British linguist 4
2.2.2  Studies of Inter-cultural Pragmatic Failure in China 5
2.3  Study in Pragmatic Failure of Politeness 5
2.4  Review on Causes of Pragmatic Failures in Politeness 6
3  The Study 7
3.1   Specific Phenomena of Pragmatic Failures in Politeness 7
3.1.1  Greeting Failures Description and Analysis 7
3.1.2  Request failures Description and Analysis 9
3.2  Effects of Politeness Failures on Intercultural Communication 9
3.3  Cognitive Analysis of Causes for Politeness Failures 10
3.3.1  Focus Causes 10
3.3.2  Introduction of Prototype Theory and Category 11
3.3.3  Introduction of Relevance Theory 12
3.4  Cognitive Analysis on Focus Causes for Pragmatic Failures of Politeness 13
3.4.1  Cognitive Analysis on Politeness Transfer by Prototype Theory 13
3.4.2  Cognitive Analysis on Different Culture-Based Cognitive Environment by Prototype and Relevance Theory 14
3.4.3  Cognitive Analysis or all Improper Choice of Context 14
4  Conclusion 15
References 17