“语用失误”由英国语言学家托马斯于1983年在《跨文化语用失误》一文中首次提出。其危害性在于会引起操本族语者与外语学习者之间的误会,破坏人们之间的交际,使和谐的人际关系变得紧张。托马斯把语用失误划分为两类:语言语用失误和社交语用失误。语用失误是跨文化交际失败的重要根源,可以反映学习者语用能力的强弱。 “Pragmatic Failure” was first proposed by British linguist Thomas in his article “Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure” in 1983. Its harmfulness lies in that it will cause misunderstanding between the native speaker and the foreign language learner, undermining the communication between people and making the harmonious interpersonal relationship become nervous. Thomas divided pragmatic failure into two types: verbal pragmatic failure and social pragmatic failure. Pragmatic failure is an important source of cross-cultural communication failure, which can reflect learners’ pragmatic competence.