Pragmatics as a new branch of linguistic science was first introduced into China in the 1980s, and in pragmatic research developed rapidly。 Chinese scholars have introduced and discussed this issue raised by western philosophers and linguists like Thomas (1983), Grice (1975), Searle (1969) as well as Levinson (1986), Leech (1983), etc。。 Grice develops his theory of conversational implicatures。 He lists four principles of cooperative principle: quantity, quality, relation and manner。 The most important cooperative principle in human communication is linguistic politeness put forward by Leech (1983)。 He holds that in communication, participants should follow the politeness principle of maxim, generosity maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy maxim。 However, different cultures have different values of politeness and have different expressions in their speech acts。 These differences may lead to pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication。  文献综述

In the previous years, many Chinese scholars also contribute to the field and carry out many valuable researches。 He Ziran, the professor of linguistics, researches in pragmatics and applied linguistics。 He has translated and written some books on linguistic pragmatics: A survey of Pragmatics (1988), Pragmatics and English Learning (1997) Explorations of Linguistic Pragmatics (2000), and Notes on Pragmatics (2002)。 According to Hu Wenzhong (2002), characteristics of culture may be concluded five aspects: Culture is not biological inheritance but social legacy; Culture is not innate but something acquired through learning; Most part of culture is unconscious; Culture serves as people’s behavioral guidelines; Culture is dynamic, and its forms are related to certain historical periods。来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-

Therefore, it is of great importance to conduct a comprehensive research in the light of intercultural communication。 Thus a research on pragmatic failure is promising。 This paper mainly analyzes the causes and countermeasures of pragmatic failures, which can not be found in the available works。