PRAGMATICS FAILURE

By:

PUPUT YULIANAWATI (S200170013)

MAGISTER OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
2018
A. Introduction
Communication is part of the important one human live in order to establish a
relationship in the society. Teaching a good communication and the way to deliver to the
students is important so that it does not create misunderstandings. Pragmatik failure occurs
for there are different culture, ethnic, and different background knowledge between speaker
and hearer.
Pragmatic failure (Thomas 1983: 91) is the failure of the communication participant
to understand what is meant by what is being said. The cause of pragmatic failure in
transferring messages in communication, including translation, can be explained from the
pragmalinguistic aspect to the sociopragmatic aspect (Thomas 1983: 99) which is the two end
continuum of one's pragmatic abilities. Pragmalinguistik capabilities include the ability of
speakers and speakers to use language forms related to the pragmatic function of a speech or
its illusionary power, such as speech acts and routine conversation.
Pragmatic failure associated with identity in one way or another, the identification
will lie in the heart of the problem. In other situations, and communicative factors will be
much more important in determining the nature of the problem. Pragmatic failure may occur
in the interaction between each individual pair, including native speakers who use the same
language.
Pragmatic failure according to Thomas (1983: 91) is the failure of communication
participants to understand what is meant by what is said. Thomas (1995: 176) states that
pragmatic failure can be analyzed using nine pragmatic previews ranging from close to
pragmalinguistik sphere to the closest to the sociopragmatic realm: (1) disambiguation, (2)
interpretive bias, (3) polysemic, ( 4) assign complete meaning, (5) metonymy, (6) speech
acts, (7) principles of cooperation, (8) interpersonal thimbles, and (9) indirectness; and (10)
the principle of politeness.
Pragmatic failure has occured on any occasion on which hearer perceives the force of
speaker’s utterance as other than speaker intended s/he should perceive it. For example:
a. H perceives the force of S’s utterance as stronger or weaker than S intended s/he
should perceive it;
b. H perceives as an order an utterance which S intended s/he ahould perceive as a
request;
c. H perveive S’s utterance as ambivalent where S intended no ambivalence;
d. S expects H to be able to infer the force of his/her utterance, but on relying on a
system of knowledge or beliefs which S and H do not, in fact, share.
B. The Types of Pragmatik Linguistic
The cause of pragmatic failure in transferring messages in communication, including
in translation, can be explained from the pragmalinguistic aspect to the sociopragmatic aspect
(Thomas1983: 99) which are the two ends of the continuum of one's pragmatic abilities.

a) Pragmalinguistic
Pragmalinguistic capabilities include the ability of speakers and speakers to use the
forms of language associated with the pragmatic function of a speech or power
ilocutionary, such as speech acts and regular conversation. An example of
pragmalinguistic failure is taken from Richards (1983: 116), which describes the
situation when Japanese people express gratitude in English:
1. English : Look what I’ve got for you! (maybe a gift)
Japan : Oh! I’m sorry. (in Japanese, ‘thank you’ may not sound sincere
enough)
English : Why sorry?

2. Compliementer : You’ve lost a lot of weight. What have you been doing?
Recipient : You shouldn’t overdo it. You are looking quite thin
(Holmes and Brown: 526)

b) Sociopragmatic
On the other hand, sociopragmatic abilities include the ability of communication
participants to select and use language-based forms of socio-cultural knowledge related to
speech-related relationships that include power, social distance, and weight or lack of
message content, as well as the usual interactional rules used, such as turn strategy and
politeness strategies. The example of sociopragmatik:

(Holmes and Brown: 528)

C. Origins and Causes of Pragmatic Failure

According to (Thomas 1983; Tannen 1984; House 1990; Hurley 1992; Hale 1996),
pragmatic failure may relate from developmental and proficiency factors such as:

1. Negative transfer of discourse stretches or linguistic strategies.

2. Undue overgeneralizations of L2 forms to inappropriate settings,
3. Anxiety to communicate as clearly as possible,
 4. Luck of cultural knowledge,
5. Excessive and restrictive usage of textbook language, or
6. The limited language to which learners are exposed in the classroom.

Understanding the origins and causes of pragmatic failure certainly requires an awareness of
how hearers process utterances, which processing strategy they use and why they reach a
particular interpretation (Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995).

D. How to avoid Pragmatic Failure?

Avoid misunderstandings and will provide him with relevant information (Sperber 1994;
Mascaro and Sperber 2009). Learner’s pragmatic awareness or meta-pragmatic abilities.
(Holmes and Brown 1987; Olshtain and Cohen 1990, 1991; Reynolds 1995; Peterson and
Coltrane 2003) give some solution:

1. The use of authentic material (films, video clips, TV, etc).

2. Bring native speakers to the classroom to share experiences and do role playing.
3. Students must collect data from their family, friends, classmates or acquaitances to
discuss interactive behavior and examine possible pragmatic failures, their causes and
solutions.

E. Conclusion
In communicate with other people, it is need of pragmatic knowledge. Pragmatics is the
study of the usefulness of language, how to understand the meaning of the speech conveyed
by speakers, and the word with the context to communicate. In communicating should also
understand with whom we speak, and how the culture, so we are not wrong in interpreting the
meaning of the speech. If the listener is wrong in interpreting the meaning of the speaker's
speech, there will be a pragmatic failure. Pragmatic failure is the failure of communication
participants to understand what is meant by what is said. This is caused by several factors.
Therefore, learning pragmatics is important, so we can achieve success in communicating
with others.
 REFERENCE

Thomas, J. A. 1983. ‘Pragmatic Failure’. Unpublished MA dissertation. University of

Lancaster.

Thomas, J.A. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London:

Longman.
Internet Source, Accessed on, April 10, 2018.
https://prezi.com/rhog_fhupxq5/pragmatic-failures-in-intercultural-communication/