With the globalization of the contemporary economy and society, intercultural communication becomes more and more frequent. Any ignorance of cultural customs and values, which are deeply contained in the language and culture of a nation, will probably cause misunderstandings, or even hostility between interlocutors.Language is a part of culture and also the carrier of culture. We need the help of language to spread and pass on culture; so only correctness is not enough in learning a language, we need to know the cultural background of that language. In daily communication, we can’t talk whatever topics or use any words we think of; some taboo topics and taboo words should be avoided, for if we disregard it, we will meet obstacles or fail to communicate in intercultural communication. Thus, it is necessary to know language taboos in Chinese and Western cultures and also the pragmatic failures caused by misusing language taboos.This thesis deals with the issue of language taboo and cultural pragmatic failures of Chinese students. After a discussion of theoretical knowledge about pragmatic failure and language taboo, and critical review of previous studies in this topic, a questionnaire about language taboos was given to 82 students and a small group interview to 20 students. The results indicate that Chinese students make pragmatic failure easily in language taboos, and students’ feedback in taboo words is worse than that in taboo topics. Then based on the collected results of students’ pragmatic competence in taboos, the reasons for these pragmatic failures are analyzed and the implications for English language teaching and learning are discussed.