Introduction
Any news on English education in China today is now no news, but this most recent one may offer us some fresh food for thought.
On 6 November 2018, an article entitled ‘Is the English major a “guilty conscience” major?’Footnote 1 (‘Guilty Conscience’) in Wenhui Daily – a major Chinese newspaper published in Shanghai – sparked a lasting debate among not only stakeholders directly linked to the program but also the general public. Authored by the chair of Shanghai Advisory Committee on College English Teaching, this pointed article called into question the efficacy of nationwide English undergraduate programs. In the article, the English major was blatantly referred to as a major with a ‘guilty conscience’Footnote 2 on the grounds that it was considered to have failed almost in all aspects: falling short of student needs, unable to meet social demands, and ultimately, failing to serve the country's interests adequately. The author concluded by predicting a doomed future for the major if no radical changes were to be made.
The response to this article was overwhelming. Shortly after its appearance on the internet, it was circulated across various WeChat channels, with over 100,000 views on the newspaper's offical channel alone. The English department heads were among the first to react, publishing defensive comments on social media, joined by English teachers, students, as well as non-stakeholders including social commentators from all walks of life. The debate also received immense scholarly attention, eliciting an array of papers and a special column dedicated to the issue in a local academic journal. It was even chosen as the essay topic for the doctoral program entrance exam at a national key university.
Being a ‘home-bred’ English major, I felt intrigued and encouraged to take an analytical look at this unfolding debate. Despite the published voices in defence of the major and the decade-long efforts since the initiation of curriclum reform and adaptation (Chang, Reference Chang2006; Dai & Hu, Reference Dai and Hu2009; Jiang, Reference Jiang2014; Sun, Reference Sun2011; Wang, Reference Wang2015, among others), I intended to find out how the ‘crisis’ was interpreted and discussed on social media, whether the alarming call was perceived as reality or exaggeration, and, in case of a real one, whether and how it could possibly be reverted.
The English major in China
Despite its overwhelming presence in the country's higher education today, the English major in China actually has a humble origin. The official birth of the major is recorded in 1862, when the country's first modern foreign language training institution – the Metropolitan Institute of Foreign Languages – was established (Cheng & Curtis, Reference Cheng and Curtis2010). Historically, it was at a critical turning point when English first received its overdue recognition, being elevated from ‘a barbaric tongue’ to ‘a vehicle for gaining access to Western science and technology’ with projected economic and political benefits (Adamson, Reference Adamson2004: 22). During the Republican Era, it grew into a credible major as most higher education institutions opened up their own programs in English literature or the English language (Dai & Hu, Reference Dai and Hu2009). However, this initial growth came to a halt during the Cultural Revolution, when foreign powers were curtailed and foreign language education in China reached its nadir (Hu, Reference Hu, Silver, Hu and Iino2002; Jin & Cortazzi, Reference Jin, Cortazzi, Ho and Wong2003).
The recovery from the aftermath of the political movement took time, yet the need for English-proficient personnel was acutely felt as the country repositioned itself for the modern world. The listing of English language education as a top national priority (Hu, Reference Hu2005) served as a prelude to a nationwide burgeoning of English major programs. By 2015, less than four decades since English was made the primary foreign language to be taught at the tertiary level (Chang, Reference Chang2006), the English major undergraduate program was offered in 994 out of the 1,448 baccalaureate degree-granting institutions, with 570,000 officially enrolled students (Wang, Reference Wang2015).Footnote 3
Not only has the major expanded in size, it has also branched into a variety of English majors, with the main branches being translation and interpretation, business English, educational English, English in diplomacy, and tourism English, with all the program enrollees subject to one uniform national assessment – the Test for English Majors (Jin & Fan, Reference Jin and Fan2011). Despite well intentioned efforts to empower students with more marketable skills, the pluralization of the English major has met with problems concerning the systematicity and quality of training, which to a large extent have undermined English major graduates’ competitiveness (Chang, Reference Chang2006; Dai & Hu, Reference Dai and Hu2009; Jiang, Reference Jiang2014; Wang, Reference Wang2015).
These problems have become more prominent with the country's hastened pace of modernization, as English majors started to be challenged by a mixture of ongoing changes in the global and the national context. Most evident was the pressure to compete with graduates from a variety of other disciplinary backgrounds, from national institutions, and increasingly from degree-granting programs provided in an English cultural setting. Due to inertia in the face of change, ‘[i]t took about ten years for the full extent of the crisis to be realised’ (Chang, Reference Chang2006: 519).
Over the past decade, a number of rescue proposals have been put forward by home experts and scholars in foreign language education, focusing heavily on curriculum reform (Chang, Reference Chang2006; Dai & Hu, Reference Dai and Hu2009; Sun, Reference Sun2011; Wang, Reference Wang2015; Zhong & Jiang, Reference Zhong and Jiang2015). The issue has also been brought to government's attention, with relentless efforts being made to address the crisis. Since 2013, the ongoing project of reform has seen the revision of the National Standards for Teaching Quality in English Major Undergraduate Programs through eight national-level expert consultant meetings and discussion among over 30 experts from home and abroad, during which five editions of the reform guidelines were made, and over 40 drafts with revised wording produced. The section on curriculum reform alone has undergone five survey-based discussions at national conferences (Zhong & Jiang, Reference Zhong and Jiang2015). Despite the decade-long efforts invested in restoring vigor to the English major while checking its expansion, there does not seem to be a radical change in sight. The programs continue to chug along with an increasing number of graduates bewildered and dismayed by what was once perceived as the most desirable major in the market.
Data and analysis
With over 549 million monthly active users (Tencent, 2015), WeChat has overtaken microblogs to become the most influential social media app in China (Kantar, Reference Kantar2017). This popular service has become increasingly active in academic settings, where the platform affords an efficient way of information delivery and sharing, satisfying university users’ needs for high-quality content (Gan & Wang, Reference Gan and Wang2015). Popularity and content quality aside, a more important reason for the current study to focus on the social media discourse is to reveal the view of the ‘average’ user, that is, an extended group of students and teachers who, despite being stakeholders, often have little power and involvement in initiating changes to the program. Moreover, opinions published in the more ‘serious’ journalistic or academic discourse tend to appear more reserved and rhetorically toned to possibly conceal or obscure the real picture.Footnote 4
To explore the WeChat readers’ responses to the English major crisis, an ideal data source would be the comments on the original newspaper article. However, as neither the newspaper website nor its WeChat official account incorporates a comments section, a less direct approach entailed collecting comments following five of the most read WeChat articles on the English major debate. These articles were selected by a keyword search (yingyu zhuanye ‘English major’) with a date filter (published shortly after 6 November 2018) and a popularity-based recommendation using the WeChat search function. After screening for and deleting comments not of relevance to the current studyFootnote 5, a total of 293 comments were copied into separate files and were numbered in the order in which they originally occurred in the comment section (see Table 1).
Table 1: Five most read WeChat articles on the English major crisis and the respective comments analysed in the study
Note: The article view count is based on the statistics recorded by the official account (up to 8 March, 2019), which rounded figures over 10,000 to the nearest thousand.
The article with the most views among the five was one posted on a weekly news feed channel attached to Wenhui Daily. Entitled ‘Some colleges and universities are cutting their English majors; English departments are being ‘closed and transformed’; why is the English major getting a “red card”?’ (‘Red Card’), the article presented an overall dismal picture of the English major.
The next two most viewed articles were posted on the official account operated by YeeWorld, a famous translation company. The eye-grabbing title ‘OMG, time to close the English major? Is the English major really a “chicken rib”?Footnote 7 What do you think?’ (‘OMG’) caught the attention of many subscribers. This comment invitation cue was well received as it yielded the most fervent set of responses (84 comments). The account manager posted the other article two days later as a self-attempted answer: ‘Time to close the English major? Opinions from 14 big figures in the field of language study’ (‘14 Big’). This response article attempted to put forward a balanced response by quoting a host of expert opinions containing criticism, justification, and advice.
With a similar attention-begging title ‘Sorry, (I'm afraid) the English major is a “chicken rib”’ (‘Sorry’), another article posted on a student-run official account issued an unauthoritative opinion conveyed in a somewhat sarcastic tone. The author critically reviewed the rise and decline of the major and sketched a self-rescue plan for the students, before ending the article on a dissuasive note, ‘Of course, if you have another option, I'd advise you not to choose the English major’.
The last of the five articles chosen was an insider's confession made by an English major student self-identified as John (‘The English major: A student's perspective’, ‘John’). John articulated his views on the issue based on a survey he conducted among 933 English major students from several universities. Though a self-claimed top student in the program, he explicitly expressed regret for having chosen the major. Unsurprisingly, this acute piece received vigorous responses from English major students and teachers alike whose 81 comments were the second largest in number, yet they were the most thorough in content (totalling 11,054 characters).
After the data were collected, I read through the texts to get a general impression of the comments and developed a transparent coding scheme. Each comment was coded for author identity (i.e., self-identified English major student, teacher, student of other majors, and the unidentified) and attitude. It should be noted that although it is highly likely that a respectable proportion of the ‘unidentified’ group were actually stakeholders who left a comment preferring not to reveal their identity, I coded the data strictly based on presence or absence of an explicit mention. As the WeChat comments examined in this study were found to be more thorough than blog responses which feature a relatively clear attitudinal divide (e.g., Wang & Fang, Reference Wang and Fang2018), the commenters were categorized based on their expressed or implied opinions in relation to the value and/or fate of the English major, i.e., the optimist, the pessimist, and the realist. An optimist chose to express openly a strong belief in the value of the English major and/or its bright future (e.g., ‘ … all these credits go to the English major!’ ’14 Big’). In contrast, a pessimist saw only the negative aspects and/or predicted a gloomy future (e.g., ‘The once immensely popular major nowadays finds itself deep in dilemma’, ‘Red Card’). A realist refrained from making straightforward praises or criticisms, but resorted to learned facts or experienced events (e.g., ‘I know I would never in my life go further to become a postgraduate in the English language and literature, which would mean to say goodbye to gold and silver’, ‘John’). Another group of ‘ironists’ was added to encode very brief and often uninformative comments which was mainly meant to ridicule or tease (e.g., ‘A rational decision it is to make English the “number one major” in Chinese universities!’, ‘Sorry’). An experienced researcher in Chinese rhetoric studies was invited to separately code the comments who agreed with me on 94.5% of the coding. We discussed the discrepancies until reaching a consensus. The English translation of the excerpts cited in the paper was confirmed by the Chinese expert and another scholar in Chinese–English translation studies.
Findings and discussion
On the whole, the comment posters were mostly made up of the realists (n = 224, 76.5%), with 106 generally neutral comments and 118 evidently negative evaluations. In the second place were the pessimists (n = 33, 11.3%), who see little value in continuing to administer the English major program. Also engaged in the discussion were a small group of sharp-tongued ironists (n = 20, 6.8%). The smallest group of all was yet made up of the optimists (n = 16, 5.5%) who remained unswervingly positive amidst the pervasive negativity. For a generous evaluation, I counted the comments of both the optimists and the neutral realists as ‘positive’ and those made by the pessimists and the downbeat realists as ‘negative’. I chose to leave the comments of the ironists aside due to the ambiguity in judging attitudinal nuances in ironic comments. Even with this preferential treatment, the results seemed to lean towards a ‘negative’ (51.5%) versus a ‘positive’ (41.6%) attitude.
In terms of identity, while over half of the commenters preferred to remain unidentified (n = 191, 65.2%), the rest chose to reveal their identities as English major students (n = 83, 28.3%), non-English major students (n = 14, 4.8%) or faculty members (n = 5, 1.7%). A breakdown of the attitude results suggested that both the self-identified English major and the unidentified group tended to hold a negative attitude, with 42.2% of the English-major comments being ‘positive’ (optimists plus neutral realists) and 57.8% being ‘negative’ (pessimists plus downbeat realists), and 40.3% versus 49.2% for the unidentified group. This attitudinal convergence between the two groups also seemed to support the presumed underestimation of the number of stakeholders as calculated on the basis of explicit self-identification. Interestingly, though perhaps expectedly, all the 20 ironists chose to remain unidentified, and the low number of self-identified teachers tended to hold a positive view, consisting of one optimist and four realists, with two realists sounding an upbeat note.
In defence of the English major
Readily noticeable in the optimistic-toned messages were the proud devoted English majors (n = 10, 12.0% of the self-identified English majors), as reflected in Excerpts 1–3. Despite a vague mention of opportunities (Excerpt 1), these commenters mainly based their defence of the English major on their personal interest in the subject. Though a key driver in determining undergraduates’ major decision (Smart, Feldman & Ethington, Reference Smart, Feldman and Ethington2000), personal interest alone may not adequately explain the motivation of the large body of enrolees.
(1) As an English major, I believe if you truly love the language, you shouldn't think that much. Just commit to your study, and you'll find so many doors an English degree will open to you. (Sorry_6, 28 likes)Footnote 8
(2) I'm an English major, and I'm very proud of it! I know far more about literature and the English language than the unprofessional, and I can write and speak much better. I also learn to appreciate literary works much better than the amateur readers. (14 Big_44)
(3) This is my first year in the program. I would say this path is a choice that I would never regret … For me personally, language and literature are the sacred light that has saved me from the quagmire of life. (John_61)
Among the optimists, some tended to highlight the active role the English major plays in making a valued contribution to the country's development. The overflowing passion in Excerpt 4, for instance, framed learning English as ‘a patriotic enterprise’ (Gao, Reference Gao2012). By proposing that the English major is tasked with the lofty mission to enhance the country's international profile, comments of a similar tone could work to appeal to nationalistic sentiment.
(4) We should not close the English major. Apart from language skills, English majors should … learn more current political issues [so that they will be able to] convey the voice of China – the reality and the long history of our motherland! … We cannot work against the call of the time by closing the English major or combining it into other majors. (OMG_19, 35 likes)
Diehard supporters aside, the majority of the positive-sounding comments were made on a realistic basis (n = 106, 86.9% of the ‘positive’ comments), as shown in Excerpt 5:
(5) I'm against closing the English major in all universities … closing the major would substantially reduce the number of English language personnel … with no talents to carry on the research on language, how can further progress be made in AI? (14 Big_8, 45 likes)
In addition to acknowledging the expertise of English majors in professional areas, some respondents maintained that on the whole, the English major is performing well though its status is relatively undermined by a number of underperforming programs:
(6) It is not that we should close the English major, but that the institutions lacking the resources should be denied the credential to run the program … (OMG_15, 43 likes)
(7) … We certainly do not need a nationwide flourish of English major programs. Leave foreign language programs to foreign language universities, please! (OMG_5, 141 likes)
Also featured in the neutral comments was the attempt to shift the blame onto individuals or attribute the problem to societal or institutional factors:
(8) There is no ‘chicken rib’ major, only ‘chicken rib’ students. (Sorry_3, 87 likes)
(9) I'm an English major student. Our teachers told us that there are reasons other than the external ones why we can't find a job that is satisfactory. These are personal reasons … (Sorry_2)
(10) … Many students nowadays adopt a utilitarian mindset … I always tell my students one cannot expect to learn much in four years … The establishment of every academic major has been carefully discussed and validated – it is a shame that our students just fail to see the good intention behind. (John_6, 43 likes)
(11) If the English major is a ‘chicken rib’, then (I guess) all the other majors would be ‘chicken thighs’. (Sorry_37)
(12) How many talents are ruined by the Gaokao (China's National College Entrance Examination) system?! … I know someone who meticulously calculated his decision to choose the English major, yet only to find himself unsuitable for it … instead of talking about eliminating the English major, I'd suggest eliminating Gaokao!! (14 Big_22)
(13) Nowadays most people are eager for quick success, and we can't blame students for being utilitarian and practical when the society is advocating utilitarianism and practicality! The social atmosphere inevitably has an impact on individuals. (John_56)
Instead of blaming the program, the commenters in Excerpts 8–10 tended to hold the individual student accountable for their own failure. That is, rather than viewing the program as failing the students, it is the students who have failed the program. Interestingly, the student respondent in Excerpt 9 seemed to have uncritically adopted the opinion imposed by his/her teachers, who, like the author of Excerpt 10, may sound vaguely didactic in their defence for the major. The playful comment in Excerpt 11 joked about other majors being ‘chicken thighs’ – a metaphor derived from the ‘chicken rib’ idiom. Beyond its surface reading that the English major is inferior to the other majors (i.e., chicken rib is worth less than chicken thigh in terms of culinary value), the intended message suggested that English-major students fare no worse than other majors (i.e., chicken rib and chicken thigh are both chicken parts; hence no fundamental differences between the two), which are not worthy of credit for their banal performance (i.e., both are but ordinary ‘chicken’ rather than high-end varieties.) In addition to the weak programs at large, the blame was also placed on the national college entrance exam (Excerpt 12) and the ideological trends fuelled by the rapid economic development (Excerpt 13).
Overall, the defence for the English major was jointly voiced by a mixture of literature enthusiasts, conservative patriots and pragmatic realists, as well as cynical ironists. However, this defence did not seem particularly strong given the mixed feelings half-concealed or hushed by the pressure of social media.
A major with a truly ‘guilty conscience’
In contrast to the clear affection expressed by the optimists, the pessimists are equally candid about their regret and dismay (Excerpts 14–16); some even go further to warn off prospective students (Excerpts 17–19).
(14) As an English major graduate, I think it should have been closed long ago. I regret not changing my major back then!!! (OMG_14, 44 likes)
(15) … I graduated as an English major 18 years ago and have regretted my choice ever since … (John_31)
(16) As an English major, (I would say) time to close it – stop all that torture. (14 Big_9, 45 likes)
(17) As an English major graduate, I have seriously told my family to never, ever send my younger brothers and sisters to the English major program. (14 Big_4, 69 likes)
(18) It might be alright not to close (the English major) yet, but I would not recommend anyone to choose it. (14 Big_17, 27 likes)
(19) Voice of a humble English major: Please close the English major in most ‘watery’Footnote 9 schools. Keep it exclusive. Please stop cheating (students) out of money for a B.A. degree … I strongly urge anyone who reads this comment to never, ever choose the English major. (14 Big_34)
Others minced no words about the harsh reality faced by English majors, including employment difficulties (Excerpt 20), unsubstantial courses (Excerpt 21), incompetent teachers (Excerpt 22), and irresponsible professors (Excerpt 23), as described in the ‘Guilty Conscience’ article.
(20) Has anyone bothered to take a look at the employment figures? Everyone knows the reality facing English majors today … (employers) would not give a thought to English majors, not even a look at their CVs. (14 Big_3, 73 likes)
(21) It's not all students’ fault – can schools escape the blame? Who's responsible for our pain of sitting through ‘chicken rib’ classes? I've been suffering for four years learning English! The courses are really ‘chicken ribs’!!! (OMG_3, 215 likes)
(22) To be honest, some teachers can't speak proper English themselves, how can we expect them to teach the students properly? Instead of does it make sense to you? they would still say what to say, understand? A slap in their faces! The students have to learn all by themselves … (Red Card_7, the original English italicized)
(23) The English language education in China is going downhill one generation after another, yet is there no ‘contribution’ from the experts mentioned in the article? Too many cooks spoil the soup. The so-called ‘experts’ have awful language skills themselves, while daydreaming about their so-called ‘decent academic career’ all day long, reducing English education to a mess! They are the culprits! (Red Card_2, 45 likes)
It is not surprising, however, to see the students being vocal about their dismay, given the various inadequacies in what might be described as a malfunctioning system, as one commenter questioned the conscience of those sitting at the top:
(24) It is the biggest shame of the English major that a student trained in the program has no sense of identity with the major itself. The English major experts, scholars, and professors are busy getting their papers and monographs published, running from one seminar to another, and making passionate speeches on the ‘conscience’ of the English major … How many of them really take a moment to ask themselves the question, ‘Have I done my duty as an English teacher?’ (John_72)
The absurdity in referring to the ‘guilty conscience’ of a major seems to be explained away by getting down to the conscience of those in charge of the operation and administration of the program – experts whose opinions matter, and who can make decisions with a choice not to suffer from the consequences thereafter. Blaming the personified English major for its ‘guilty conscience’ might be a rhetorical means to soften the potential conflict, as the author of the ‘Guilty Conscience’ article appeared to threaten the face of these experts: ‘[T]hey are fully aware of the crisis, only that they decide to sustain the development of the established program even at a risk to dismiss the needs of the country and society; they decide to safeguard the interests of the professors even at the expense of students’ interests’.
Being practical is everything
Although practical concerns were mentioned as a possible reason for the fall of the English major in all the five articles, John's article appeared the most impressive, ending with the author's avowed determination to bid adieu to the English major: ‘I know I would never in my life go further to become a postgraduate in the English language and literature, which would mean to say goodbye to gold and silver’.Footnote 10 In the article, John also made a special mention of his poor family background and his ‘dream to become a profit-chasing businessman’. This unabashed yet sincere confession elicited sympathy from several commenters who claimed a similar experience or shared John's pain:
(25) … as an English major graduate, I also harboured the dream of exploring the beauty of humanity, but I got ‘exploited once in the capitalist market’ upon graduation … I think this article speaks my heart… (John_20)
(26) … if I could choose again, I'd never in my life choose the English major … I want to stay as far as possible away from English, and I don't want to end up as poor as dirt. Wish me good luck. (John_11)
Not only did the student commenters find they could relate to John's practical mindset, the underrepresented teachers, too, seemed to show a similar understanding:
(27) It is admirable that the author can speak his mind so frankly. He is not alone … There is nothing shameful about securing a comfortable life before taking the leisure to appreciate the beauty of the language … (John_2, 67 likes)
Intriguingly, a couple of comments referred to Jack MaFootnote 11 – a legendry businessman who started off as an English-major-trained teacher of business English (Clark, Reference Clark2018).
(28) Speaking of gold and silver, (may I remind you that) Ma Yun is himself an English major. (John_5, 46 likes)
(29) Ma Yun got his degree in business English from a non-211/985 universityFootnote 12, yet his is a special case. Most business English majors do not differ much from those major in English language and literature. (Studying) English language and literature is a little far from making big money … (John_30)
China's ‘pragmatic turn’ (Zhao, Reference Zhao1997) has led to its fast-tracked economic development. In parallel with the frantic pace of growth is a thickening air of consumerism and utilitarianism (as noted in Excerpt 13). Although utilitarianism may have its bearing on the decline of humanities majors around the world, Chinese students – born into a time of economic wealth unimaginable for their parents’ generation – seemed more strongly encouraged to explore economic opportunities for individual success. The anxiety to secure their economic future was perhaps stronger among students from families of a lower socioeconomic status.
More depressingly, however, this desire to succeed quickly could have led those with an interest in the subject to trade their ‘unrealistic’ dream for a secure paycheck (Excerpt 25). However, given the wide wealth gapFootnote 13, it is hard to gauge how many Chinese students are prepared to mould themselves into being the ‘ideal English major’, who ‘live[s] in the lap of enormous wonder’ and yet ‘look up[s] and smile[s] in gratitude and pleasure’ (Edmundson, Reference Edmondson2013).
In the absence of the aforementioned peace of mind, the best one would manage to achieve is but a superficial ‘possession’ of the subject – again, for practical purposes – as sarcastically mocked by one commenter:
(30) … Though it is understandable to want to make more money after graduation, I wonder whether you would regret it somewhat if you find yourself dumb watching others talking about Kant or Shakespeare at a buffet party. (John_70)
Conclusion
This paper presents an analysis of the recent debate on the English major crisis in China based on social media data. By profiling the attitidinal positioning in the WeChat comments on five representative opinion pieces, it deconstructs the commenters’ perceptions of the English major in relation to its value and place in the country's changing educational landscape. On the whole, the findings point to a faulty system desperate for change. With optimistic enthusiasm overwhelmed by pessimistic visions and realistic concerns, the ‘crisis’ of the English major in China seems to be more than rhetorical hyperbole.
Although the decline of the liberal arts subjects in general, and English language and literature, in particular, may be a shared concern across institutions and cultures, some of the revealed problems in China's specific case warrant future research into the challenges English language majors face in an EFL institutional setting at large. With the proliferation of English in higher education, the efficacy of a language-based academic discipline in an EFL educational context deserves reconsideration and reconstruction. Research is also needed to locate the problems, and to seek reality-informed solutions to save the English major from drowning. Above all, what we seem to need now is a reality check: Despite its glorious past, can the English major survive and thrive ino the new era of China's growth?
NINGYANG CHEN received her BA in English from Xi'an International Studies University, Shaanxi, then went on to pursue graduate study at Fudan University, Shanghai. She has just joined School of Foreign Languages, Soochow University, Jiangsu, as a post-doc, teaching English major undergraduates. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, writing in English as an Additional Language, and linguistic change in modern Chinese. Her recent publications have appeared in Corpora and Chinese Semiotic Studies. Email: rosaliechen@126.com
