美国外语教育的历史考察

A Historical Research on American Foreign Languages Education

摘要:

关于美国外语教育史的研究, 现有研究成果一般是以历史事件为主线的短时段研究。 实际上, 从中长时段看, 美国的外语教育史呈现出比较明显的三个阶段: 二战前、 冷战时期和后冷战时期。 二战前的 美国外语教育以人文主义教育为主, 与美国国家战略几乎毫无关联, 美国政府没有制定任何支持外语教育的 政策; 《1958 年国防教育法》 开创了美国外语教育立法的先例, 外语教育首次被纳入美国国家战略体系, 冷 战时期, 美国外语教育最大的特点是外语+地区研究的教育模式兴起; 后冷战时期, 美国政府重点支持 “关 键语言” 战略, 与国家安全战略联系更加紧密, 重点培养国家情报人员, 强调语言能力的提升, 而对国别地 区研究有所淡化。 仅强调语言技能而忽略国别地区的研究, 无疑不利于美国文化与世界其他文明的有效沟通 和理解。 美国的外语教育虽然不是很成功, 但有些经验值得我们反思, 如多部门协调联动机制, “关键语 言” 的确定, 外语助推国别区域研究, 重点支持研修国际对手或 “敌人” 的语言等。

Abstract:

American foreign languages education has experienced the evolution from liberal education to instrumental education. Its instrumentalism has been mainly reflected in serving national strategy. Historically ,American foreign languages education can be roughly divided into three phases, period before World War II ,the Cold War years, and the post-Cold War years. Before the Second World War American foreign languages education was dominated by liberal education, which was almost irrelevant to the US national strategy. The US government did not formulate any policies to support foreign languages education. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 set a precedent for US foreign languages education legislation. For the first time, foreign languages education was incorporated into the US national strategic system. During the Cold War the most important feature of American foreign languages education was the rise of the languages and area or international studies model. Since the end of the Cold War, the US government has been focusing on supporting the _" critical languages_" strategy, which has been more intertwined with the national security strategy ,mainly for training national intelligence personnel which emphasizes language skills and capabilities, while foreign area studies have been downplayed. Emphasizing language skills while ignoring cultural research in other countries or regions is undoubtedly not conducive to effective communication and understanding between American culture and other civilizations in the world. Although American foreign languages education has not been so successful as anticipated ,we can draw on its experiences ,such as the inter-departmental coordinating mechanism, the design of critical languages strategy,languages plus area studies model and support for the languages of the adversaries, and so on.