Research on pragmatic failure in Business English based on cultural awareness

Shandong Vocational College of Foreign Affairs Translation, Weihai, Shandong, China

Abstract

Business English is an important part of business negotiation. From the perspective of cultural differences in various countries, the pragmatic failure in the negotiation process is inevitable. This paper introduces the manifestation pattern of pragmatic failure in English, and establishes a hierarchical structure by the use of AHP, of which the target layer is the most prone areas of pragmatic failure; the criteria layer is the fuzzy words, people’s names, tense and mood; the scheme layer is the food culture, traditional culture and etiquette culture, and also evaluates the most prone areas of pragmatic failure in these three aspects. The results show that, the probability of pragmatic failure for the food culture in Business English is the highest, followed by the etiquette culture. Under the premise of combination with the actual situation, this paper analyzes the rationality of the model.