语言政策视角下的中国外语教育发展趋势

The trend of Chinese foreign language education development from the perspective of language policy

中国外语教育改革是近20年以来的社会热点话题,涉及外语教育和应用的种种问题常被用来当作推动外语教育改革的理由和依据。然而,外语在我国并不只属于外语教育这一个领域,它已成为社会语言生活的重要内容,可借助于语言社会学或者语言政策研究的成果进行考察。我国的外语国情有自己的独特性,外语政策则是个多元的综合体,包括关于外语地位的政策、外语教育政策、外语应用政策、翻译政策。以此为起点考察外语教育的未来发展方向,可以发现这样六个趋势:1)改革是不变的主题;2)内容和主体的多元化逐渐增强;3)资源的有效开发愈加重要;4)复合型教育愈加重要;5)行业标准愈发重要;6)承载的社会功能逐渐减少。

Foreign language education(FLE) reform remains a heated topic for the past twenty years. Any problem related to FLE and language practice is often used as reason and evidence to promote reform. However, foreign language(FL) in China not only belongs to the field of FLE, it has also become an important part of social life, which can be investigated by means of Sociology of Language or Language Policy Studies. FL situation in China has its own uniqueness. Foreign language policy(FLP) is a complex system, including policies regarding FL status, FLE, FL practice and translation. Based on such knowledge of FLP, there are six trends in FLE development that should be emphasized: 1) reform is a constant theme; 2) the diversity of FLE’s content and agents tends to increase; 3) the comprehensive exploitation of resources becomes more important than ever; 4) interdisciplinary FLE becomes more important; 5) FLE industry standard plays a more important role; 6) the social functions that FLE carries gradually reduce.