Intercultural Communication Studies XVI: 2 2007 Jia Pragmatic Diversity, Pragmatic Transfer, and Cultural Identity

This paper investigates the cultural differences at the pragmatic levels that operate in the process of intercultural communication. It argues that it is the differences of cultural norms or conventions underlying the use of English as a Lingua Franca, or what is called pragmatic diversity, and the tendency of people from different cultures to judge and evaluate the behavior of others by their own cultural standard and criterion that often lead to miscommunications or communication breakdowns. The paper also assumes that the pragmatic norms or conventions, those operating in the behavior of invitation and the (in)direct request in particular, may largely help to demonstrate the membership of the interlocutors in a given situation in the intercultural interactional settings. In the paper, examples from personal experiences in intercultural interactions are employed to support the author’s argument. We would like to begin ‘Pragmatic Diversity ’ and its influence on intercultural communication with some illustrative facts or examples from the personal experiences of my friends in their interaction with their American friends during their stay in America. The point of giving the examples is to illustrate that the English spoken by the Chinese diverges from Anglo-American English as it has different cultural norms or conventions operating at the pragmatic level. As a result, misinterpretations of the speakers ’ intentions of either side occur. And hence, misunderstandings and even worse consequences are inevitable. We will examine what is odd or (systematically) deviant from the so called Anglo-American standard at the pragmatic level and what problems of understanding these oddities may present. The first example comes from one of my friend’s experience when he was teaching the graduate students in a communication program in one of the universities in the States