王艳 鄢家利 曾绪

Abstract:Every word has its meaning, which includes both surface meaning and deep meaning. To achieve certain pragmatic effects, speakers often have certain intention when saying something. People in different cultures think differently with the same utterance, which is attributed to intercultural difference.

Key words: Intercultural Difference; Effects; Speaker's Intention

中图分类号： H319文献标识码： A文章编号：1672-1578（2011)09-0012-01

J.L.Austin isolated three basic categories of speech act theory: locutionary act—the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference, illocutionary act—“In saying X, I was doing Y”, perlocutionary act—“By saying X I did Y” or “By saying X and doing Y, I did Z”. Among the three speech acts, Austin put the emphasis on illocutionary act.

However, Searle, Austins gifted pupil perfected Austins theory and, at the same time, he claimed that the meaning of a sentence is entirely determined from within. About this point, I cannot agree with the author more who had written a paper named “Meaning and Speech Act Theory”, through which he emphasized the importance of speakers intention in the speech act theory.

“… If the speaker uses the sentence metaphorically, then it has the metaphorical meaning which the speaker intends it to have.”A sentence only has its sentence meaning, while the speaker entrusts it different understanding by intention. To get communication proceeded smoothly, the hearer has to gain knowledge of the speakers intention. In other words, the speaker and the hearer, rather than anyone, are the most important subjects of the whole communication.

By intention, different people from different races, countries, even different provinces in the same country, have different concepts. We just focus on the difference between Eastern and Western countries. There are two examples in the following.

Example one: An English student came to China as an exchange student and lived with a Chinese family. On his first day in the house, he said,” It is a little hot today, isnt it?” On hearing this, the Chinese host opened the air-conditioner immediately.

Example two: A Chinese student went to England as an exchange student and lived with an English family. Some days after his arrival at the house, he said,” It is hot in there, isnt it?” The English host was watching TV at that time and replied “Yes, this is the weather in this season.”

In example one, the English said something with the intention of stating a fact and getting an effect of phatic communication, while the Chinese misunderstood the speakers meaning and did something the speaker didnt intend to do.

In example two, the Chinese said something with the intention of doing something, say open the air-conditioner, while the English misunderstood his intention and did nothing the speaker wanted him to do.

It is the cultural difference that leads to the misunderstanding of intention. As we know, English people with extroverted personality prefer to talk about weather as a means of communication while Chinese people, with introverted personality prefer to express the real purpose in an indirect way.

Of course, the two examples are more ideal than practical, because many Chinese people who have received higher education know the fact of weather in English peoples daily talking and many English people also begin to know more about China.

Anyhow, the two examples have given us a clear picture of the importance of intercultural understanding in grasping the speakers intention.

Words have definitions and sentences have conventional usages, but only linguistic acts have meaning. As the subject of the communication process, the speaker should know more about cultural difference; as important as the speaker, the other subject, the hearer, is also supposed to know more about cultural difference with the purpose of getting a better understanding of the speakers intention to guarantee the success of communication.

Bibliography：

[1]Levinson, S. Pragmatics[M].Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1983.

[2]邓炎昌，刘润清. 语言与文化--英汉语言文化对比[M]. 上海:外语教学与研究出版社,1989.

[3]桂诗春,王初明. 当代语用学[M]. 上海：外语教学与研究出版社,2004.

[4]姜望琪. 当代语用学[M].北京:北京大学出版社,2003.

[5]何自然. 语用学概论[M].长沙:湖南教育出版社,1988.

[6]索振羽. 语用学教程[M].北京:北京大学出版社,2000.

作者简介：王艳(1986)，女，现为西南科技大学外语学院英语语言文学在读研究生，主要研究方向为二语习得，语用学。

鄢家利(1966)，女，现为西南科技大学外国语学院副教授，主要研究方向为二语习得，语用学。

曾绪（1963），男，1963年出生，现为西南科技大学外国语学院教授，主要研究方向为语用学，二语习得。