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Affiliation of Author(s):英语学院
Journal:亚洲环境中的英语文学研究国际会议
Funded by:其他研究项目
Abstract:The English Department in China and Its Predicament: Towards a Cross-Cultural Perspective in the Study of English Zhang Jian, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China The Department of English in China has a special mission: to raise students’ English language proficiency. Language learning, together with job prospects it will bring, is considered the main purpose and has assumed paramount importance, so that the study of literature has become only a secondary enterprise. If there is a problem with the study of English, it is its marginalization within the Department of English itself. Outside the campus, the over-emphasized English language education causes problem, too, as more time is allocated to learning English than the native language, and more interest is created in foreign culture than in the native culture. This debate over English or Chinese is ultimately a debate over cultural priority and arouses the awareness that language is not just culture, but also politics. The history of the study of English and American literature in China shows a gradual development of this awareness. From enthusiastic acceptance in the early 1980s, to reflection and self-awareness in the 1990s, and finally to revisionism and adjustment, the study of English in China gradually recognized the importance of having a Chinese perspective or a Chinese agenda. The question of how to get beyond imitation and how to make real contribution to English and American literary scholarship, forces one to reflect on the method of one’s research. Examples of successful research work have shown us that the study of English in Asia, to be really valuable and not imitative, must be rooted in the native cultural tradition and must be carried out in a cross-cultural perspective.
Indexed by:Journal paper
Volume:2007-11
Translation or Not:no
Date of Publication:2007-11-03
First Author:Zhang Jian
