۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Methodology

۳٫ Results and Discussion

۴٫ Conclusion

References

In recent years, the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan has undergone considerable changes and development. As a consequence, many international business transactions are carried out between the representatives of different languages and cultures. This article focuses on pragmatic failures detected in the collected corpora of 100 business letters written in English by Kazakhstani business professionals to their international partners. A number of examples has been identified which clearly demonstrates noticeable discrepancy between cultural and linguistic contexts of speech units making communication process complicated. In the study, we have identified several reasons for pragmatic failures in communication through business correspondence including a mixture of different cultural standards of the structural and linguistic processing of business correspondence, a mixture of different genres in one business text with a combination of several communicative purposes, a lack of language skills of the authors of business letters in English (spelling, grammar, lexical errors), etc.

Introduction

In the current worldwide trade context, many companies are involved in international business activities. In this setting, effective cross-cultural communication is becoming an integral part of contemporary business world. Since, as many researchers assert, sometimes the cultural norms of the target language and the first language writing conventions are transferred to the second language resulting in pragmatic failure (Ziran & Zhuang, 1986; Ya & Ling, 2002; Ya, 2001; Zamborlin, 2007; Zhenbin, 2007, etc.), i.e., miscommunication and misunderstandings or “the failure to the inability to understand what is meant by what is said” (Thomas, 2006, p. 24). Taking into account the area of cross-cultural communication breakdown Thomas (2006) identifies two types of pragmatic failure, i.e., pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. In most cases pragmalinguistic failures occur “when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2”, whereas sociopragmatic failures are “the result of a failure to identify a situation correctly” (Umale, 2005, p.20). These communication breakdowns are especially crucial in business communication since improper interpretation of business messages may lead to the failure of business transactions, waste of financial asserts, or the legal responsibility. For example, in accordance with the ELISE (1996-1998) and the ELUCIDATE (1999-2000) projects’ findings the lack of cross-cultural skills of European trade managers become one of the main reasons of a considerable business loss (Hagen 2001). Some scholars (Black, Gregersen & Mendenhall, 1992; Adler, 2002; Ferraro 2010) believe that communication breakdowns in intercultural settings are mostly caused by the inability to decode and recognise “different ways of thinking and behaving, rather than by inadequate professional practice (Garcia-Yest, 2013, p. 197).