Based on the cross-cultural communicative method and pragmatical method, the author tries to investigate the types of pragmatic failure and the potential causes by test and interview, aiming to find out the problems and give some suggestions to arouse students’ pragmatic awareness, to avoid unnecessary pragmatic failures and to improve their pragmatic competence. Through the survey, the author finds that pragmatic failure usually appears in pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic aspects; the teachers have a good knowledge of pragmatic failure and the situation of pragmatic failure among students; negative language transfer, the difference of culture and values between China and western countries are the core causes of pragmatic failure. There are 100 students and four teachers who participate in the investigation. They are the subjects of the research. The students are sophomore and juniors in English major who are randomly chosen from the School of Foreign Languages in a Guangxi Normal University. In addition, the teachers are those who teach the students of English major in a Guangxi Normal University.

The paper sought to make an analysis of Ndebele sonnets by Simon J. Nondo and Joseph N.T. Dupute. Before a detailed study of the sonnets is made, a discussion of the nature of poetry and the various poetic genres is done. This discussion is intended to show the place of sonnets within the wider field of poetry. Fourteen sonnets are analysed in respect of their form, themes and language. Of these six were written by Nondo and eight by Dupute. The analysis revealed that African writers have borrowed the sonnet forms from the western world. The Petrarchan, Spenserian, Shakespearean and Miltonic rhyme schemes might not have been possibly used in the Ndebele sonnets studied but alliterative concords and stylistic devices are used in the sonnets to enrich the sonnets and create a unique style.