从ESP角度来看,商务英语本质上是跨国商务活动使用的一种共通语(Business Lingua Franca),其核心价值在于国际商务环境中实现有效交流的语言能力。从学科/专业角度来看,商务英语具有独特性的语言交流能力源于跨学科的交叉性。商务英语作为一门极富发展潜力的交叉学科,尽管其交叉性得到广泛认同,但因交叉融合而产生的基本问题尚未得到很好的解决,导致商务英语学科/专业定位不清晰、学科基础薄弱、学科要素不够全面、课程设置创新不足、教学内容与手段与经济发展和技术的进步不够同步、复合型师资质量仍需提高跨学科研究的管理制度与政策有待创新等,这些都成为商务英语发展滞后于我国经济发展的关键问题,亟待通过新文科建设加以解决。对此,本文提出了相关建议。

From the perspective of ESP, Business English, in nature, is a transnational Business Lingua Franca whose core value lies in the capacity to communicate in an international business environment. From the perspectives of disciplines/majors, Business English focuses on the communicative ability that comes from multidisciplinary fusion and has been well-accepted as an emerging academic discipline formulated by its character of interdisciplinary fusion and multidisciplinary crossing. However, the primary problems originating from the multidisciplinary fusion have remained unsolved even up to now, making Business English?s positioning still unclear and the research foundation relatively weak. The problems hinder the discipline and the specialty of Business English from further development. Developing Business English by building its discipline and updating its curriculum is urgent; it is crucial to have the teaching content and means to keep updated with economic growth and technological progress. Besides, the teaching staff of Business English need to improve their interdisciplinary academic literacies and the policies of administrating policy on interdisciplinary research require substantial reform. Those abovementioned are the main hindrances making business English lag behind domestic economic development. For these problems, the paper presents practical solutions, which the New Liberal Art earnestly calls for.