| The 911 terrorist attack is the second Sputnik in U.S history,which makes American realize the tremendous impact of terrorism and cultural conflict on the U.S.future.Thus the national security become the superior concern for in the new century.In order to secure the America’s future,diminish the negative impact of cultural shock thus maintain the dominant position in the whole world,the U.S just puts forward the security language education strategy,that is,the critical language education strategy,thus the issue of language education is put at the height of national strategic level,the securing function of language becomes quite prominent,language becomes a practical tool for U.S competing against other countries in the world.For the U.S,the "Critical languages" just refer to the "critical foreign languages",which are those less commonly taught world languages highly related with America’s national security.The "Critical languages" have the strong connection with the political stability,military power,diplomatic relationship,information security,the economic development,the harmonious relationship between different ethnic groups,the cultural exchange and education cooperation.In 2006,President Bush put forward the National Security Language Initiative(NSLI),in which he stressed the key critical foreign languages for U.S are:Arabic,Chinese,Korean,Russian,Hindi,Japanese,Persian and Turkish.The dissertation begins with the ideological source-tracing of U.S "Critical languages" education strategies,the historical developments can be divided into three periods,the first period(from 1950s--1960s)was mainly triggered by the competition between U.S and the former Soviet Union for the No.1 position in the world,the second period(from 1970s--1980s)was mainly triggered by the economic competition between U.S and Japan,the third period(from the 1990s-2010s)was triggered by the terrorist attack and the rising of China.The dissertation also resorts to the language planning theories and the language need analysis at the societal level.The imperative of "Critical languages" education strategies partially attributes to the U.S domestic and overseas interest and security,and partially owes to the serious lack of critical languages talents.With the guidance of language securing ideology,the U.S began to plan the "Critical languages" education strategies and some measures taken to implement the strategies are also explored.There are two parts in the planning system,in the first part:the planning on national defensing part,several federal government departments just like Department of Education,Department of State,Department of Defense and Department of Intelligence work together to release some legislations and acts and correspondingly the related program cluster also studied.In the second part:the planning on domestic and civilian security part,the joint efforts among the education system,the private section,the heritage community etc.also show that there are many legislations and acts on critical language education planning.The dissertation also explores the implementing measures and reinforcing strategies on the critical languages education in the U.S.Chinese language is also listed as the critical language in the U.S,as a case study,the paper traces back the historical development of Chinese language education in U.S,the reasons of listing Chinese language as a critical language,the related legislations and acts on how to plan the Chinese language education in U.S,the Chinese language programs,the implementing measures and reinforcing strategies on Chinese language are all retrieved.The "Critical languages" education strategy is directed by the U.S government,this language education planning is designed from the top of the nation,make the best of joint efforts among the different government departments,and make sure states follow federal efforts and work together to turn out more legislations and acts,to take measures to implement those legislations and acts.In the "Critical languages"education strategic system,the national defensing language education strategy and the domestic and civilian language education strategy are complementary to each other,the national defensing language education is the pioneer,and the domestic and civilian language education is the reserving pool.It is obvious that there have been some achievements on those strategies,and there are also some problems and difficulties for implementation.This is an interdisciplinary study,which relates the education policy studies and the sociology of language,and the main research methods are literature reviewing and documentation analysis,comparative studies and case analysis.At the end of this dissertation,the suggestions for foreign language planning in China are presented based on the summary of the main features on American "Critical languages" education strategies,meanwhile the promotion Chinese language overseas for Chinese government is also discussed based on America’s Chinese language education strategies. |
PDF Full Text Request