来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月28日
Another summer, another dispiriting announcement for English teachers: according to the admissions service Ucas, a third fewer 18-year-olds have applied to study the subject at university this year than in 2012. English academics are beginning to lose their jobs.
又是一个夏天，又是一个让英语教师沮丧的消息：根据招生服务机构英国高等院校招生办公室(Ucas)的数据，今年申请在大学学习英语专业的18岁学生数量比2012年减少了三分之一。英语学者正开始失业。
Those who teach the subject know why: a championing of science degrees that has emphasised supposedly superior employability; an instrumentalisation of education; and an alienating set of curriculum reforms. A primary school emphasis on linguistic terminology and an unintuitive approach to sentence construction is taken through to secondary school. A decline in interest in pupils’ own responses to great literature has been noted.
教授这门学科的人都知道原因：支持强调所谓优越就业能力的理科学位；教育的工具化；以及一系列令人反感的课程改革。从小学到中学，强调语言术语和非直觉的造句方法。人们注意到，学生对伟大文学作品的反应兴趣在下降。
University College London appointed the first professor of English in 1828 – but it was a few years later at King’s College London that the study of literature was given more emphasis and deliberately set against a utilitarian model of education. “Knowledge cannot be poured into the mind like a fluid mechanically transfused from one vessel to another,” wrote HJ Rose, who became the second principal of King’s. “Literature teaches the wisdom of men better and wiser than ourselves , and prepares us best of all for the examination of those moral and intellectual truths which are not only the worthiest exercise of our reason, but most concern our future destiny.”
1828年，伦敦大学学院任命了第一位英语教授，但几年后，文学研究才在伦敦国王学院得到重视，并有意反对功利主义的教育模式。“知识不能像液体一样从一个容器机械地注入另一个容器，”后来成为国王学院第二任校长的教授写道。“文学教给比我们自己更优秀、更明智的人类智慧，并最能使我们准备好去检验那些道德和知识的真理，这些真理不仅是我们最值得运用的理性，而且关系到我们未来的命运。”
English language and literature are now among the UK’s most successful exports; passports to work and life across the globe. English graduates are found throughout the creative industries, in law, the civil service, diplomacy, advertising, politics; they are entrepreneurs, teachers, digital innovators – all areas where the skills of critical analysis, lateral thinking and flexibility are prized. The Canadian prime minister is an English graduate; the first American woman in space studied it alongside physics. But, as Prof Rose knew, the subject can provide far more: it is a way to think about our relations with each other and with nature, about our rights and moral responsibilities, and the powers and limits of science; it demands that we at least try to see the world from others’ points of view.
英语语言和文学现在是英国最成功的出口产品之一；全球工作和生活的通行证。英语毕业生遍布创意产业、法律、公务员、外交、广告、政治；他们是企业家、教师、数字革新者——所有这些领域都重视批判性分析、横向思维和灵活性的技能。加拿大总理是英语专业毕业生；第一位进入太空的美国女性在物理学之外辅修了英语语言和文学。但是，正如罗斯教授所知，这门学科可以提供更多的东西：是一种思考我们彼此之间、与自然之间的关系、思考我们的权利和道德责任、以及科学的力量和局限的方式；它要求我们至少试着从别人的角度看世界。
Literacy is not just about sounding out a sentence – it includes emotional literacy, historical literacy, and literacy in the structures of power and rhetoric: who is telling you this? How? Why? Is it working? What do you think? Language is one of the most powerful tools humans possess: we all need thoughtful training in how to manage it, and how to protect ourselves from those who abuse it. Helping children to be safe online, for instance, includes teaching them to read for manipulation and intent. Finally, literature provides deep, complex, lifelong pleasure, which too often gets forgotten as a worthy end in itself.
读写能力不仅仅是说出一个句子——它包括情感素养，历史素养，以及对权力和修辞结构的素养：这是谁告诉你的？怎么用？为什么？有效吗？你怎么认为？语言是人类拥有的最强大的工具之一：我们都需要经过深思熟虑的训练，学会如何管理语言，以及如何保护自己免受滥用语言的人的伤害。例如，帮助孩子们安全上网，包括教他们读懂操纵和意图。最后，文学提供了深刻、复杂、终身的乐趣，而这种乐趣本身就有价值，却常常被人遗忘。