主标题：The end of the English Major
副标题：Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?
主标题：英语专业的终结
副标题：在全国各地的大学里，人文学科的招生人数直线下降。发生了什么?
1. enrollment in 报名、注册
2. the humanities 人文学科
3. free fall 自由下落，自由落体，比喻猛跌不止，骤降
P1
The crisis, when it come, arrived so quickly that its scale was hard to recognize at first. From 2012 to the start of the pandemic, the number of English majors /on campus at Arizona State University/ fell from nine hundred and fifty-three to five hundred and seventy-eight.
Records indicate that the number of graduated language and literature majors/ decreased by roughly half, as did the number of history majors. Women's studies lost eighty percent.
危机来得如此之快，以至于一开始很难认识到它的规模。从2012年到疫情开始前，亚利桑那州立大学英语专业人数从953人下降到578人。记录显示，毕业的语言文学专业人数减少了大约一半，历史专业的人数也减少了一半。妇女研究人数减少了80%。
1. when it came 插入语
2. scale 规模
3. on/off campus 在校/离校
4. women's studies 女性研究
5. Records indicate that...
6. 本段人数减少时用到的词：fall, decrease, lost
P2
"It's hard for students like me, who are pursuing an English major, to find joy in what they're doing,", Meg Macias, a junior, said one afternoon /as the edges of the sky over the campus went soft.
It was late autumn, and the sunsets came in like flame on the thin paper on the way to dusk. "They always know there's someone who wishes that they were doing something else."
“像我这样攻读英语专业的学生很难从他们正在做的事情中找到快乐，”一天下午，大三学生梅格·马西亚斯（Meg Macias）说道， 那时校园上空的天空变得柔和起来。深秋时节，夕阳像火焰一样照在薄纸上，只是近黄昏。“他们知道，总有一些人希望他们做别的事情就好了。”
1. pursue an English major 攻读英语专业
2. 第一句it's hard... 中，to find...作主语，students作不定式逻辑主语。
3. 大一：freshman； 大二：sophomore； 大三：junior； 大四：senior
4. soft: (声音、光线或色彩) 柔和的 •a soft pink 柔和的粉红色 •the soft glow of candlelight 柔和的烛光
5. sunset 落日，夕阳，残阳
6. come in，文中表示夕阳到来
7. dusk 黄昏
8. wish that 使用了虚拟语气，与现在事实相反，从句用一般过去时
P3
A.S.U., which is centered in Temple and has more than eighty thousand students on campus, is today regarded as a beacon for the democratic promise of public higher education. The university's tenure-track English faculty is seventy-one strong- including eleven Shakespeare scholars.
In 2021, A.S.U. English professors won two Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other department in America did. For students interested in English literature, it can seem a lucky place to land.
亚利桑那州立大学以坦普尔大学为中心，在校学生超过8万，今天被视为公立高等教育民主承诺的灯塔。该大学的终身制英语教授有七十一人，其中包括十一位莎士比亚学者。2021年，亚利桑那州立大学的英语教授获得了两项普利策奖，比美国任何其他院系都多。对于对英文文学感兴趣的学生来说，这似乎是一个幸运的地方。
1. be centered in 坐落于，以...为中心
2. beacon /ˈbiːkən/ 灯塔
3. democratic /ˌdeməˈkrætɪk/ 具有民主精神的
4. tenure-track adj. 终身职位的 tenure: （尤指大学教师的）终身职位，长期聘用
5. faculty /ˈfæk(ə)lti/ <美> 全体教员
6. strong： ADJ You can use strong when you are saying how many people there are in a group. For example, if a group is twenty strong, there are twenty people in it. 多达…的
• Ukraine indicated that it would establish its own army, 400,000 strong. 乌克兰表示它将建立自己的军队，多达40万人。
7. Shakespeare scholars 莎士比亚学者
8. Pulitzer Prizes 普利兹奖
9. a lucky place to land. 注意land的用法
P4
On campus, i met many students who might be moved by these virtues but left pulled toward other pursuits. Luiza Monti, a senior, had come to college as a well-rounded graduate of a charter school in Phoenix.
She had fallen in love with Italy during a summer exchange and fantasized about Italian language and literature, but was studying business- "It's a safeguard thing," Monti told me. "There's an emphasis on who is going to hire you."
在校园里，我遇到了许多学生，他们可能被这些美德所感动，但又觉得自己被其他追求所吸引。大四学生路易莎·蒙蒂（Luiza Monti）是凤凰城一所特许学校的多才多艺的毕业生。她在一次暑期交流中爱上了意大利，并幻想着意大利语言和文学，但她正在学习商业——“这是一种保障措施，”蒙蒂（Monti）告诉我，“重点是谁会雇用你。
1. virtues 美德
2. well-rounded adj. 丰满的；面面俱到的；多才多艺的；（语句）有表达力的
3. charter school 特许学校，契约学校；委办学校
4. summer exchange 暑期交换
5. safeguard：~ (against sth)something that is designed to protect people from harm, risk or danger 安全设施；保护措施 •Stronger legal safeguards are needed to protect the consumer. 需要有更有力的法律措施来保护消费者。
6. emphasis: ~ (on/upon sth)special importance that is given to sth 强调；重视；重要性
P5
Justine Kovach, another senior, loved to write and always had. He'd blown through thousand-odd pages of "Don Quixote" on his own and looked for more big books to keep the feeling going. "I like the long, hard classics with the fancy language," he said.
另一位大四学生贾斯汀·科瓦奇（Justin Kovach）喜欢写作，而且一直如此。他自己翻阅了一千多页的《堂吉诃德》，然后开始寻找更多的大部头来保持这种感觉。他说:“我喜欢长篇、晦涩、语言华丽的经典作品。”
1. blow through 文中指的是翻阅书籍
2. odd adv. （用于数字后）大约，左右
3. on one's own
4. the long, hard classics with the fancy language 长篇、晦涩、语言华丽的经典作品。”
P6
Still, he wasn't majoring in English, or any kind of literature. In collage- he had started at the University of Pittsburgh- he'd moved among computer science, mathematics, and astrophysics, none of which brought him any sense of fulfillment.
But he never doubted that/ a field in STEM - a common acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics- was the best path for him. He settled on a degree in data science.
尽管如此，他并没有主修英语或任何文学。在大学里——他从在匹兹堡大学求学开始——他在计算机科学、数学和天体物理学之间辗转，这些都没有给他带来任何成就感。但他从不怀疑，STEM领域——科学、技术、工程和数学的常用首字母缩写——对他来说是最好的道路。他决定攻读数据科学学位。
1. sense of fulfillment 成就感
2. acronym /ˈækrənɪm/ n. 首字母缩略词
acronym VS initialism: The key difference between them is that we pronounce acronyms as a word and initialisms as a list of letters.
3. settle on sth: to choose or make a decision about sth after thinking about it 选定；决定 •Have you settled on a name for the baby yet? 你给孩子起好名字没有
P7
For the decline at A.S.U./ is not anomalous. From 2012 to 2020/ the number of graduated humanities majors at Ohio State's main campus/ fell by forty-six percent. Tufts lost nearly fifty percent of its humanities majors, and Boston University lost forty-two.
Notre Dame ended up with half/ as many as it started with, while SUNY Albany lost three quarters. In 2018, the university of Wisconsin at Steven Point /briefly considered eliminating thirteen majors, including English, history, and philosophy, for want of pupils.
因为亚利桑那州立大学的衰落并不反常。从2012年到2020年，俄亥俄州立大学主校区人文专业的毕业生数量下降了46%。塔夫茨大学失去了近50%的人文专业毕业生，波士顿大学失去了42%。最后，圣母大学的学生人数只有开始时的一半，而纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼分校的学生人数减少了四分之三。2018年，由于学生短缺，威斯康辛大学史蒂文波因特分校曾短暂考虑取消英语、历史和哲学等13个专业。
1. for表原因
2. anomalous adj. 异常的；不规则的；不恰当的
3. fall by 下降了
4. 最终 end up with
5. while 与此同时
6. briefly adv. 简短地，简要地；短暂地，暂时地
7. eliminate /ɪˈlɪmɪneɪt/ v. 剔除，根除；对……不予考虑，把……排除在外
8. want n. 缺乏，缺少；贫穷，贫困；渴望的东西，需要的东西
P8
During the past decade, the study of English and history at the collegiate level has fallen by a full third. What's going on?
The trend mirrors a global one; four-fifths of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation reported falling humanities enrollments in the past decade.
在过去的十年中，大学水平的英语和历史学习下降了整整三分之一。这是怎么回事？这一趋势反映了一种全球趋势；经济合作组织(Organization for Economic Cooperation)五分之四的国家报告称，过去十年人文学科的入学人数有所下降。
1. collegiate 美/kəˈliːdʒiət/ adj. 大学的；学院的；大学生的
2. What's going on? 这是怎么回事？
3. mirror 反射，折射
4. falling humanities enrollments 动名词作宾语
P9
"Until about four years ago, i thought it was a reversible situation - that those who profess the humanities/ hadn't been good enough at selling them to students", James Shapiro, an English professor at Columbia, told me in his office one day. "I no longer believe that, for two reasons."
“直到大约四年前，我还认为这是一个可逆的情况——那些教授人文学科的人在向学生推销人文学科方面做得不够好，”哥伦比亚大学的英语教授詹姆斯·夏皮罗(James Shapiro)有一天在他的办公室告诉我。“我不再相信这种说法，原因有两点。”
1. reversible 可逆转 /rɪˈvɜːrsəb(ə)l/
2. profess 传授 /prəˈfes/
3. no longer 不再
P10
One reason was the way of the world. Shapiro picked up an abused-looking iPhone from his desk. “Technology in the last twenty years /has changed all of us,” he went on. “How has it changed me? I probably read five novels a month until the two-thousands. If I read one a month now, it’s a lot. That’s not because I’ve lost interest in fiction. It’s because I’m reading a hundred Web sites. I’m listening to podcasts.” He waggled the iPhone disdainfully.
其中一个原因是世界的运行方式。夏皮罗从办公桌上拿起一部看起来很破旧的iPhone。“过去二十年的技术改变了我们所有人，”他接着说。“它如何改变了我? 2000年前我大概一个月读五本小说。如果我现在一个月读一本，那就很多了。这并不是因为我对小说失去了兴趣。因为我浏览了上百个网站。我在听播客。”他轻蔑地摇晃着iPhone。
1. pick up / put down the phone
2. abused-looking 看起来很破旧的
3. fiction n. 小说；虚构的事，谎言；杜撰，编造
4. disdainfully /dɪsˈdeɪnfəli/ adv. 轻蔑地；倨傲地
5. waggle: /ˈwæɡl/ ( informal ) to make sth move with short movements from side to side or up and down; to move in this way 使上下移动；使来回摆动 • Can you waggle your ears? 你能让耳朵来回动吗？
P11
The other reason was money. Shapiro put down the phone and grabbed a departmental memo that lay on his desk. With a blunt pencil, he scribbled on the back a graph with two axes and an upside-down parabola.
He labelled the start of the graph “1958”—the year after the Soviets launched Sputnik, when the National Defense Education Act appropriated more than a billion dollars for education.
另一个原因是钱。夏皮罗放下电话，抓起桌上的一份部门备忘录。他用一支钝铅笔在背面潦草地画了一个有两个坐标轴和一个上下颠倒的抛物线的图形。他将图表的开始标记为“1958年”——苏联发射人造卫星后的第二年，当时《国防教育法》拨款超过十亿美元用于教育。
1. a departmental memo 一份部门备忘录
2. blunt :/blʌnt/ adj. 钝的，不锋利的；直言不讳的，说话生硬的
3. scribble /ˈskrɪb(ə)l/ v. 潦草地写，匆匆地写；乱涂，乱画
4. axes: /ˈæksɪz/ n. 轴线；轴心；坐标轴（axis 的复数）；斧头（axe 的复数）
5. upside-down adj. 颠倒的；乱七八糟的
6. parabola /pəˈræbələ/ n. 抛物线
7. soviets /ˈsəʊvɪəts/ n. 苏联政府；苏联人（Soviet 的复数）
8. sputnik /'spʌtnit; 'spu-/ n. 人造卫星（前苏联制造）
9. appropriate :~ sth (for sth)to take or give sth, especially money for a particular purpose 拨（专款等） •Five million dollars has been appropriated for research into the disease. 已拨款五百万元用于这种疾病的研究。
P12
That was the beginning of the glory days of the humanities,” he continued. Near the plummeting end of the parabola, he scribbled “2007,” the beginning of the economic crisis. “That funding goes down,” he explained. “The financial support for the humanities is gone on a national level, on a state level, at the university level.”
那是人文学科辉煌时期的开始，“他继续说。在抛物线的暴跌末端，他潦草地写下了“2007年”，这是经济危机的开始。“这笔资金减少了，”他解释说。“对人文学科的财政支持在国家层面，在州层面，在大学层面消失了。
1. glory days 光辉岁月
2. plummet: /ˈplʌmɪt/ v. （数量、价值等）暴跌；（尤指从高处）坠落
3. financial support 财政支持
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