【Abstract】The pragmatic failures made by the Chinese English learners in their daily communications with the English native speakers and the ways how to reduce the occurrence of the pragmatic failures are addressed in the paper. Additionally， some suggestions about the avoidance of pragmatic failure are proposed in English language teaching.
　　【Key words】pragmatic failures； cultural context； language teaching
　　Pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas and its nature is that the hearers can not understand the implications of the speakers’ utterances， even the cultural conflict happened. He Ziran indicated that pragmatic failures were not caused by the abuse of the grammar rules but the ways of the conversation which violate the native speakers’ expressing habits as well as thinking modes and the speaker can not express his intended meanings at the apposite time and context.
　　Thomas （1983） classified pragmatic failures into pragmaticlinguistic failures and sociopragmatic ones.
　　Pragmalinguistic failures refer to the communicating failures caused by the lack of pragmatic knowledge as well as the negative transfer of the learners’ mother language. In addition to this， the non-native speakers’ comprehending the communicative contexts based on their stereotyped ideas cultivated in mother tongue context will definitely make such troubles.
　　Example：（In an office， a foreign businessman shows his thanks to a Chinese secretary.）
　　Foreign businessman：Thanks a lot， that’s a great help.
　　Chinese secretary：Never mind. It’s my duty to do so.
　　The Chinese secretary embarrassed the foreign businessman. “Never mind” is used to response to the apology from the speaker and not suitable for accepting other’s appreciation. “Duty” means that the speaker does not want to do something. Instead， she should say “Don’t mention it. It’s a pleasure.”
　　Sociopragmatic failures relate to the failures that occurred in the dialogues when the people do not have a clear idea on the cultural differences between the East and the West.
　　Example：（Xiao Hong asked a foreigner to help her take photos and told him the operation instructions. Before starting， the foreigner made sure how to operate it.）
　　Foreigner：Shall I push this button？
　　Xiao Hong：Of course.
　　For Chinese people， “Of course” sounds quite right， because it is a close correspondence with the Chinese phrase“當然”， showing that the speaker are sure of something. While the foreigner thought that the student laughed at his ability of operating the camera and doubted his intelligence as well. Due to the cultural difference， “of course” implies that the speaker has explained the instructions clear enough， and any normal intelligent person can understand it. The proper way should be “Exactly”， or “Yes”.