Pragmatic failures in L2 English learners: a cross-cultural mixed-methods study of implicature and presupposition

This paper explores the pragmatic failure in L2 English learners and its implicature and presupposition in cross-cultural communication. A convergent mixed-method design was employed, and 120 Arabic- and Japanese-speaking learners were requested to complete Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. The results indicate systematic group differences in pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failures which are influenced by cultural norms and L1 transfer. The quantitative findings indicate that the implicature processing is more difficult than presupposition and that affective variables (especially anxiety and confidence) have a strong impact on pragmatic accuracy. Qualitative analysis brings out roles of cultural expectations, emotional constraints and minimal exposure to authentic discourse. The intercultural-relevance model of pragmatic failure, the combination of cognitive, sociocultural, and affective levels, is suggested in the study. The pedagogical implications of the findings are explicit pragmatic teaching and affect-sensitive teaching to improve L2 communicative competence.