语文终究是语文──与王晓明教授商榷

Language is after all Language

胡适所谓“国语的文学”的“文学”是广义的，他固然重视小说、诗、戏剧等狭义的文学样式，也重视实用性的非文学体裁。正是在“五四”新文化运动中文学创作实绩丰硕堪称大家的人们，敏锐地指出语文与文学的区别，重视语文的实用性。看来，“把语文看作是工具型的，把语文看做应用文化”，并非如王教授所说的是“最近”的事。时下的语文教学和语文高考侧重实用性是符合语文学科特性的。语文教学要改革，但不论怎样改革，文学只能是语文的重要部分，语文终究是语文。

The 'literature' in 'litelature of language' mentioned by Hu shi was in its broad sense. He paid attention to the literature forms in the narrow sense such as novels, poems and plays, and he paid attention to the non-literature forms, the practical writings. It was those celebrated writers with splendid achievements in literary creation in the new cultural movement of the May Fourth Movement that pointed the differences between language and literature, and stressed the practicality of language. So, it is not a 'recent event' (as professor Wang has put it), 'to regard language as a tool, as a practical cultural form'. And the present language teaching and entrance examinations lay stress on the practicality of language is in accordance with the nature of lan- guage. language teaching calls for reform, but whatever you do, literature is but an important part of language, language is after all language.