A Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Perspective on Teaching Intercultural Communication

Abstract: Politeness in speech acts plays a crucial role in maintaining harmonious interpersonal relationships within society. People from different sociocultural backgrounds often have divergent understandings of what constitutes politeness, reflecting varied cultural pragmatic presuppositions. Intercultural Communication Skills by Don Snow, published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, is a widely used textbook for public English courses on Intercultural Communication in Chinese universities. The textbook features authentic language and a moderate level of lexical difficulty. Each unit comprises "typical cases of cross-cultural pragmatic failures between Chinese and American interactions + analysis + conceptual interpretations". The textbook’s primary focus is on how to interact with Westerners, emphasizing American individualistic values of politeness while inadequately addressing or occasionally misinterpreting Confucian relational ethics inherent in Chinese politeness. Drawing upon sociological research on the Chinese concept of "face", this paper supplements the textbook’s analysis with additional insights from a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective to enhance classroom teaching. The fundamental difference between Chinese and Western politeness lies in their interpretations of "personhood": the "role-bearing individual" in Chinese culture versus the "rights-bearing individual" in Western contexts. Keywords: Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure, Politeness, Confucian Relational Ethics, Concept of Face. Title: A Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Perspective on Teaching Intercultural Communication Author: Guan Jingying International Journal of Novel Research in Humanity and Social Sciences ISSN 2394-9694 Vol. 11, Issue 6, November 2024 - December 2024 Page No: 29-36 Novelty Journals Website: www.noveltyjournals.com Published Date: 21-November-2024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14199083 Paper Download Link (Source) https://www.noveltyjournals.com/upload/paper/A%20Cross-Cultural%20Pragmatics%20Perspective-21112024-2.pdf