【正文】 er Samovar has proposed, “As a kind of cultural information must be explained by another culture, crosscultural munication occurs.” (Samovar, 1981:41) Crosscultural munication is a kind of mon and longstanding social phenomenon. Generally it refers to the munication activities of national members of different languages and culture backgrounds.Pragmatic failure is proposed by Jenny Thomas. It is defined as “can’t understand the real meaning of words” Pragmatic failure can be divided into two kinds, pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. (Thomas, 1983: 91112) In crosscultural munication, because of the different speaking manners of how to present information, organize argument, express politeness, what people say may be unsuitable for English native speakers’ habits, or people may just apply their native language habits mechanically to English. Under such circumstances, it’s easy to cause munication failure. That is the explanation of pragmalinguistic failure. We can avoid or correct it through English teaching, because this kind of pragmatic failure stays in language itself. As for sociopragmatic failure, it is caused by the ignorance and lack of knowledge to both sides’ different social values, and behaviors, etc. But there is no absolute boundary line between pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. In the entire history of munication(傳播學(xué)), crosscultural munication is a fairly young field. From the beginning until now, it is also but half a century of history. The history is divided into four stages. In the first stage(before 1950), . Hall first put forward the word “intercultural munication” in his book The Silent Language in 1959. This starts the real systematic development of crosscultural munication. In the second stage (19601969), more munication researchers entered the field. During this period, crosscultural munication began to lay the foundation in the academic field. . Oliver’s Culture and Communication (1962) and A. Smith’s Communication and Culture, the two books are the representatives. In the third stage (19201979), the works of crosscultural munication have mushroomed. Each author seemed to have different ideas on crosscultural munication. The most important periodical The International Journal of Relations is first issued in 1977. In the fourth stage (from 1980 to now), the turmoil finished. Entering 1990s, crosscultural munication has became a mature discipline (陳國(guó)明，2009：69). There are many factors contributing to the development of crosscultural munication. The five most important factors are the development of technology, the globalization of economy, the widespread immigration, the development of multiculturalism, and the deemphasis of nationstate ( 陳國(guó)明，2009：35). The Purposes of This StudyWith China’s accession to the WTO and the economic globalization, the munication between China and the world bees more and more closely. Many people find that they have a good mand of English vocabulary, and a certain ability of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. But in concrete situations of munication, misunderstandings often emerge, and even affect the normal munication seriously. Pragmatic failure in crosscultural munication can cause misunderstandings between native speakers and foreign language speakers, destroy the effective munication, and even make the harmonious interpersonal munication bee nervous. This study’s goals are to discuss some mon pragmatic failures in daily munication, analyze the reasons why people make such kind of pragmatic failures, and provide some effective methods for people to develop crosscultural municative petence, to bee aware of cultural differences and to overe pragmatic failures. The study aims to let the people have a basic knowledge of pragmatic failure and provide some ways to improve people’s petence in crosscultural munication. 2. Types of Pragmatic Failure Pragmalinguistic Failure As we have mentioned before, pragmalinguistic failure refers to the spoken language which are not in accordance with the native English speakers’ habits, and the misuse of expressions applying mother tongue mechanically into English. More specifically, pragmalinguistic failure refers to that people in the munication choose the inaccurate language expressions according to context, which violate the pragmatic principles. The mon pragmalinguistic failure includes the following kinds: 1) inconformity to the idiomaticity of the native English speakers, and the misuse of English expressions。 3) the Chinese words being equal to English words。 5) the same structure can be used in different situation, etc (戈林，2011:74). This kind of failure remains at the level of language itself. It can be corrected and avoided by means of teaching. Here we are going to discuss some mon pragmalinguistic failures in crosscultural munication. The Real Meaning of “Do you have time?”Imagine that you were a Chinese in a New York’s street, and you just came down from the bus, a female was following you. Suddenly, she caught up with you, and asked “Do you have time?” Maybe you would be surprised and frightened, because in your country or in your cultural awareness, a girl or a woman who is greeting you “Do you have time? (你有時(shí)間嗎？)” in the public places, you may infer that she was a prostitute. You probably would walk away quickly and give her no answer with a disdainful expression, and she may look at you strangely and confusedly. This is a kind of mon phenomenon occurs in our daily crossmunication. People just interpret the sentences foreigners speaking to them literally and prehend them in their thinking patterns. The real meaning of this short sentence is “What time is it?” There is another greeting word which may lead to the similar situation. “Hello” is a frequentlyused greeting in the daily life. But the greeting sometimes is not suitable in some cases. For example, if a female on the street keeps saying “Hello”,