发布时间 : 星期三 文章Unit 4 Language and Economy课文翻译大学体验英语四更新完毕开始阅读
Unit 4 Language and Economy
Passage A A Stateless Language That Europe Must Embrace
The study of literature is not only civilized and civilizing — encompassing, as it does, philosophy, religion, the history of events and the history of ideas — but popular and practical. One-sixth of all those who receive bachelor?s degrees from the College of Arts and Sciences are English majors. These graduates qualify for a surprising range of jobs. Their experience puts the lie to the popular superstition that English majors must choose between journalism and teaching: in fact, English majors also receive excellent preparation for future careers in law, medicine, business, and government service. Undergraduates looking forward to law school or medical school are often advised to follow a strict regimen of courses considered directly relevant to their career choices. Future law-school students are advised to take courses in political science, history, accounting, business administration — even human anatomy, and marriage and family life. Future medical school students are steered into multiple science courses — actually far more science courses than they need for entrance into medical school. Surprisingly, many law schools and medical schools indicate that such specialized preparation is not only unnecessary, but undesirable. There are no \for law school — and for the practice of law — is that preparation which makes a student capable of critical thinking; of clear, logical self-expression; of sensitive analysis of the motives, the actions, and the thoughts of other human beings. These are skills which the study of English is designed to teach.
Entrance into law school, moreover, generally requires a bachelor?s degree from an accredited institution, a minimum grade point average, and an acceptable score on the Law School Admission Test (L.S.A.T.). This test has three parts. The first evaluates skills in reading comprehension, in figure classification, and in the evaluation of written material. The second part of the test evaluates control of English grammar and usage, ability to organize written materials, and competence to edit. The third part evaluates the student?s general knowledge of literature, art, music, and the natural and social sciences. Clearly an undergraduate major in English is strong preparation for the L.S.A.T. As for medical schools, the main requirement for admission is only thirty-two hours of science courses. This requirement is certainly no impediment to a major in English. Moreover many medical schools require a minimum score on the Medical College Admissions Test, another test which offers an advantage to the well-rounded liberal arts student. The M.C.A.T. evaluates four areas of competence: skill with synonyms, antonyms, and word association; knowledge of basic mathematics from fractions through solid
geometry; general knowledge of literature, philosophy, psychology, music, art, and the social sciences; and familiarity with those fundamentals of biology, chemistry, and physics taught in high school and in introductory college courses. The English major with a solid, basic grounding in science is well prepared for this test and for medical school, where his or her skills in reading, analysis, interpretation, and precise communication will equip him or her to excel. The study and practice of medicine can only benefit from the insights into human behavior provided by the study of literature.
Such insights are obviously also valuable to the student who plans a career in commerce. Such students should consider the advantages of an English major with an emphasis in business: this program is designed to provide a liberal education, as well as to direct preparation for a business career. The need for such a program is clear: graduates with merely technical qualifications are finding jobs in business, but often failing to hold them. Both the Wall Street Journal and the Journal of College Placement have reported that increasing numbers of graduates from reputable business schools find themselves drifting from one job or firm to another, unable to hold a position for longer than twelve months. Employers complain that these apparently promising young men and women are simply not competent communicators: because they are not sufficiently literate, they cannot absorb managerial training; they cannot make effective oral presentations; they cannot report progress or problems in their writing; they cannot direct other workers. Skill in analysis and communication is the essence of management. Consequently the English major with an emphasis in business is particularly well prepared for a future in business administration. Nearly four hundred companies in fields ranging from banking and insurance to communications to manufacturing were asked whether they hired college graduates with degrees in English, even when those graduates lacked special training in the industry: Eighty-five percent of the companies said that they did. College graduates with degrees in English are working successfully in marketing, in systems engineering, in personnel management, in sales, in programming, in project design, and in labor relations.
English majors are also at work in the thousand occupations provided by government at all levels. Consider, for example, the federal government—by a very wide margin, America?s biggest employer. In organizations ranging from the Marine Corps to the Bureau of Mines, from the Commerce Department to the National Park Service, the federal government employs a work force of nearly three million men and women. English majors may qualify for many of these jobs. Recently, 51 federal agencies were asked the same question: whether they hired college graduates with English degrees but
without special job training, 88 percent of these federal employers said yes. The list of federal positions for which English majors may qualify ranges from Claims Examiner to Foreign Service Officer to Highway Safety Management Specialist. Again, those who seek positions of high reward and responsibility may be asked to take a test — the federal government uses the Professional and Administrative Career Examination, or P.A.C.E., to evaluate applicants for about 10,000 jobs each year — and again, the test focuses on language skills: comprehension, analysis, interpretation, the ability to see logical relationships between ideas, and the ability to solve problems expressed in words. Not surprisingly, competent English majors often receive very high scores on the P.A.C.E. In short, a major in English is neither restricting nor impractical: the study of English is excellent preparation for professional life.
A学英语既有乐趣又有回报
文学的研究—— 包含对哲学、宗教、历史事件的发展和观念由来的研究，不仅是文明的，并且有教化作用， 而且是流行的和实际的。在所有从文理学院毕业并获得学士学位的人中，有六分之一的主修英语。让人惊异的是可，这些毕业生能胜任范围相当广泛的工作。他们的经验表明，这种广泛流行的偏见是错误的，即英语专业的学生只能从事新闻或教学工作：事实上，主修英语的学生也为未来从事法律、医学、商业和公职等职业做了相当好的准备。
有人时常劝告期望上法学院或医学院的大学生要学习与他们的择业有直接联系的严格指定的课程。有人还建议未来法学院的学生应该选修政治、历史、会计、商业管理，甚至人体解刨学、婚姻和家庭生活等课程。未来医学院的学生被引导去学习多种理科课程，实际上，这些课程比他们考入医学院所需要的理科课程要多得多。令人惊讶的是，许多法学院和医学院却指出，如此专门化的准备不但没有必要，而且并不可取。没有什么“法律预科”课程：上法学院和从事法律行业的最好的准备是培养学生能够进行批判性的思考；能够进行清晰的合乎逻辑的自我表达，能够对他人的动机、行动和思想进行敏锐的分析。这些技能也正是英语专业要教给学生掌握的技能。
此外，要进入法学院就读，通常需要具有合格院校颁发的学士学位，还需要拿到最低限度的各课平均积分点，并和在法学院录取考试中取得一个通得过的分数。这项测试包括三个部分：首先是测试阅读理解、图形分类和书面材料评估等能力。测试的第二部分是考核对英语语法和词汇用法的掌握能力，组织书面材料的能力和文字编辑的能力。第三个部分是检验学生的文学、艺术、音乐、自然科学和社会科学的一般知识。显而易见，主修英语的学生参加法学院的录取考试回得心应手。
至于医学院，入学要求的一条知识修满32个学时的理科课程。这一要求对主修英语的学生来说肯定不成问题。另外，许多医学院校要求学生必须在医学院入学考试中取得规定的
最低分，这一测试对全面发展的文科学生来说有十分有利。医学院入学考试检测四方面的能力：同义词、反义词和词语联想能力；从分数到立体几何的基本数学知识；文学、哲学、心理学、音乐、艺术和社会科学的常识；以及熟悉中学和大学初始阶段教过的生物学、化学和物理学基本原理的程度。立刻基础扎实的主修英语学生完全有能力参加这一考试和医学院入学考试，他们的阅读、分析、阐述和准确交流的能力使他们更胜一筹。学医和行医只会从对人的行为的洞察中受益无穷，而这种洞察却是文学研究才能提供的。
很显然，如此的洞察力对计划以经商为业的学生来说也是很有价值的。这样的学生应该考虑的是，挑选主修对商科有侧重的英语了成是有优势的：这种课程的目的在于在提供文科教育的同时，也为从商职业做准备。对这种教育计划的需求是显而易见的：只有技术性资格的毕业生能找到从商工作，但却经常难以居其位。《华尔街杂志》和《大学生毕业杂志》都有报道，说越来越多的著名商学院的毕业生发现他们自己经常从一种工作或一家公司跳槽到另一个工作或另一家公司，在一个工作岗位上干不了十二个月。雇主们抱怨说，这些表面上年轻有为的男女们根本不会有效地交流，因为他们的文字能力不够强；他们不能够从管理人员培训中穴道东西；他们不能够进行有效的口头表达；他们不能用书面形式报告他们的工作进展或问题；他们不能够知道其他工作人员。然而，分析和交流的技能却是管理的最根本的需要。
因此，偏重商业经营管理的主攻英语的学生为未来从事商业管理作好了充分准备。对涉及从银行、保险到通信乃至制造业等总多领域的将近400家公司进行了有关调查，针对是否聘用具有英语学位文凭的大学毕业生在营销、系统工程、人事管理、销售、编程、项目设计和劳资关系等领域都工作得十分出色。
主修英语的学生也正在各级政府提供的上千种岗位上工作。就拿可以算得是美国最大的雇主的联邦政府来说吧。从海军陆战队到矿务局，从商业部到国家公园服务处，联邦政府各种机构雇佣的劳动大军近三百万人。主修英语的学生适合做其中的许多工作。最近，向51个联邦政府机构调查了同一个问题：是否聘用有英语学位文凭而却没有受过专门行业训练的大学毕业生，88%的这些联邦政府单位的回答是肯定的。主修英语的毕业生能胜任联邦政府的一系列工作，从索赔审议到外交官到公路安全管理专家等等。再说，那些要求高薪的人可能还需要参加一种考试，也就是说，联邦政府每年都要举行“业务和管理职业考试”对大约10 000 种工作岗位的求职者进行考核，而测试的焦点仍是侧重语言技能；理解、分析、阐述、理解概念间逻辑关系的能力，以及解决用文字表述问题的能力。毫不奇怪，主修英语的学生在这一考试中获得高分。
简而言之，英语的课程既无局限性又很实用：学习英语是对职业生涯的绝好准备。
Passage B Could “Japanglish” be a Legitimate Language?
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