A Study Of Cost And Benefit Of English Learning At Tertiary Level From The Perspective Of Economics Of Language

In recent years,linguists as well as educators have been conducting lots of researches on how to make English education,especially College English education scientifically effective but they could not find some feasible methods to solve the problems existing in College English education.At the end of 20^th century,with the introduction of the notion of economics of language to China,some domestic scholars began to analyze the English education problems from the perspective of economics of language and made some achievements.Language,as an indispensable tool in human economic activities,is a kind of economic resource which can be gained by investment of human beings like other kinds of skills,so language has the economic characteristics which are value,utility,cost and benefit.On the basis of economic of language theory and from the perspective of economics of language,the thesis is going to find out the relationship between cost and benefit on English learning of Chinese at tertiary level.This thesis takes the methods of questionnaire and interview to collect data and make an empirical research,trying to find out the factors which influence the relationship between cost and benefit on English learning,and giving some useful and feasible suggestions on reform and adjustment of Chinese English education policy.The research tries to answer the following questions:What is the relationship between cost and benefit of English learning at tertiary level?If the relationship indicates direct ratio,what are the contributing factors and what are the implications?If the relationship indicates inverse ratio,what are the contributing factors and what are the implications?The thesis is composed of six chapters.The research background,research purpose and significance of the study are the main content of the first chapter.Chapter Two presents the literature review which includes definition of economics of language,overview of researches on economics of language abroad,and current situation of researches on foreign language education in China.Through researching,the present author finds that most of the economic analysis of language is theoretical,and empirical research related is insufficient and lack of data support.Chapter Three deals with the four economic characteristics of English education in China:value,utility,cost,and benefit.The value of English education means that through learning English,people can gain more chances for the future career development and gain more opportunities to keep contact with English culture.Only in the condition that peopleconsider English learning is valuable,will they choose to learn English.The utility of English education means the satisfaction achieved by English learning and this kind of satisfaction can push people to learn English more actively in return.The cost of English education refers to time and money spent in English education.In addition,according to the actual state of the national condition,there are some other cost of English education including family environment,school environment and years spent in English learning,language attitude,English learning objectives and frequency of English use in written form and spoken form in this thesis.The benefit English education contains two categories which are market benefit and non-market benefit.Market benefit refers to the dominant income caused by English language skills,and for the subjects?college students?related to the present research,the market benefit refers to the scores of various kinds of English examinations such as final examination of college English and CET-4.The non-market benefit means the opportunities to contact with the culture of English speaking countries provided by English skills?The contents of non-market benefit will not going to be analyzed further according to the aims of the present research,but it provides research orientations for the further research?.Chapter Four shows the research methodology,which consists of research questions,research design and research procedures.The main research methods of this study are questionnaire and interview.The study collects 317questionnaires by means of email and among them there are 300 valid ones.According to the aims of this thesis,the present author chooses the 75 copies of the questionnaires of the high cost-high benefit set and the 156 copies of questionnaires of the high cost-low benefit set as the subjects of the data collection and data analysis.That is to say,there are 231 copies of questionnaires in total to be analyzed in this study?In the other 69 copies of questionnaires,there are 15 and 54 copies which belong to the low cost-high benefit set and low cost-low benefit set respectively.These 69 copies of questionnaires have no practical meaning and help to the research problems and research purpose,so these 69 copies will not be analyzed?.In addition,the study conducts 10 interviews as supplementary explanation to the questionnaire and chooses two of the interviews which are representative as case studies randomly.Chapter Five is the part of data analysis and result discussion.The result shows that objective factors including family environment,school environment and years spent in English learning can affect the relationship between cost and benefit of English learning.Better family environment and school environment can have a positive effect on the subjects'learning,thus the subjects can receive higher benefit.As for the age when someone starts to learn English,according to the result of data analysis,the earlier,the better.Subjective factors including English language attitude,English learning motivation and frequency of use in written form and spoken form can affect the relationship between cost and benefit of English learning.Subjects who have positive language attitude and integrative motivation can have higher English learning benefit and usually,the higher frequency of English exercise in written and spoken forms,the higher benefit it brings.Then the present author concludes the implications brought by the above factors and gives some instructive and feasible suggestions on the reform and adjustment on college English education and English education policy.Chapter Six,the last chapter of this thesis,is the conclusion part.There does exist the problem of“time consuming but low efficiency”in Chinese College English education,and to make some changes,the government,families,schools,English teachers and students should unite together and work together under the guidance of the theory of economics of language.Undoubtedly,there are some limitations in this study.Choices of the target universities and colleges are restrained,and the numbers of questionnaire and interview are limited because of the limitation of time and resource,so the research results are confined to some extent,but the present author hopes that this thesis could help to push college English education to reform scientifically and develop healthily and become a good start for the further research in this field.