Unit 5 Language新編大學(xué)英語第二版第三冊課文翻譯

1、Unit 5 LanguageHow I Discovered WordsHelen KellerThe most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March,

2、 1887, three months before I was seven years old. On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mothers signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the st

3、eps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or

4、surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle. Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward

5、 the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. Light! Give me light! was the wordless cry of my soul,

6、 and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me. The morn

7、ing after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the

8、word d-o-l-l. I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spel

9、ling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them, pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been with me several

10、 weeks before I understood that everything has a name. One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap, also spelled d-o-l-l and tried to make me understand that d-o-l-l applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words m-u-g and w-a-

11、t-e-r. Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that m-u-g is mug and that w-a-t-e-r is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new

12、 doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my tea

13、cher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasu

14、re. We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapid

15、ly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly, I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten-a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was

16、flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned

17、 to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together

18、. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow. I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them-words that were to make the world

19、 blossom for me, like Aarons rod, with flowers. It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come. 我是怎樣識字的在我記憶中，我一生最重要的日子是我的老師安妮曼斯菲爾德沙利文走

20、進我生活的那一天。至今，每當(dāng)我想起這一天仍會驚嘆不已：是這一天把（我過的）截然不同的兩種生活連在一起，那是1887年3月3日，離我7歲生日還有三個月。我那個重要的日子的午后，我呆呆地站在我家的門廊上，內(nèi)心充滿了期盼。從我母親給我的手勢和屋子里眾人來來往往的忙碌中我隱約猜到將有不同尋常的事發(fā)生，于是我來到門口，在臺階上等著。午后的陽光透過覆蓋著門廊的忍冬花簇照射到我仰起的臉龐上。我的手指近乎下意識地?fù)崤@些熟悉的葉片和花朵。它們剛剛抽葉開花，迎來南方溫馨的春天。至于我的未來究竟會出現(xiàn)什么樣的奇跡，我茫然不知。幾個星期來，憤怒和怨恨一直折磨著我。這種激烈的情感爭斗之后是一種極度的疲憊。你可曾在航

21、海時遇上過濃霧？那時，你仿佛被困在了觸手可及的一片白茫茫中，不見天日。你乘坐的巨輪，靠測深錘和測深線的指引，舉步維艱地靠向海岸，既緊張又焦急不安；而你則心里怦怦直跳，等著什么事情發(fā)生。我在接受教育之前正像那艘巨輪，所不同的是我連指南針或測深線都沒有，更無從知曉離港灣還有多遠(yuǎn)。我的心靈在無聲地疾呼：“光明！給我光明吧！”而就在那個時刻，愛的光芒灑在了我的身上。我感覺到有腳步由遠(yuǎn)及近，于是我伸出了手，以為會是母親。有人抓住了我的手，將我抱住并緊緊地?fù)г诹藨牙铩Ｕ沁@個人的到來，把整個世界展示給我，最重要的是，給我?guī)砹藧?。在老師來到我家的第二天上午，她把我?guī)У搅怂姆块g，給了我一個玩具娃娃。這娃娃

22、是帕金斯學(xué)校的小盲童們送給我的禮物，勞拉布里奇曼給娃娃穿上了衣服，不過這些是我在后來才知道的。我玩了一小會兒之后，沙利文小結(jié)慢慢地在我的手上拼出了“d-o-l-l”（玩偶）這個詞。我一下子便對這種手指游戲產(chǎn)生了興趣，而且試著模仿它。當(dāng)我終于正確地拼出了這幾個字母時，內(nèi)心充滿了孩子氣的喜悅和自豪。我跑到樓下找到母親，伸手拼出了“玩偶”所含的字母。當(dāng)時我并不知道我是在拼一個單詞，甚至還不知道有“單詞”這么回事；我只是像猴子那樣用手指進行模仿。在接下來的幾天里，我就這樣，雖然并不知詞識義，卻學(xué)會了拼寫好些單詞。這些單詞中有“別針”、“帽子”、“杯子”，還有些動詞，如“坐”、“站”和“走”。但是等我懂

23、得了每樣?xùn)|西都有名字時，已經(jīng)是我和老師在一起好幾個星期之后的事了。一天，我正在玩我的新玩具娃娃，這時，沙利文小姐把我的大布娃娃放在我的膝上，又給我拼了一遍“d-o-l-l”，想讓我懂得“d-o-l-l”這個單詞適用于這兩件東西。就在當(dāng)天早些時候，我曾和她因“m-u-g”和“w-a-t-e-r”這兩個詞發(fā)生過爭執(zhí)。沙利文小姐想讓我記住“m-u-g”是“大杯”，而“w-a-t-e-r”是“水”，但我卻總是把這兩個詞的意思給弄混。失望之余她暫時擱起這一話題，但一有機會她就馬上舊事重提。我卻對她一遍又一遍的努力感到忍無可忍，于是就抓起新的玩具娃娃，狠狠地砸在了地板上。當(dāng)我感覺到腳邊摔碎的玩具娃娃時，產(chǎn)

24、生了一種強烈的快感。在這種強烈的情感發(fā)泄之后，我沒有一絲傷感或懊悔之情。我從沒有喜歡過那個玩具娃娃。在我所生活的那個無聲、黑暗的世界里是沒有柔情或情感的。我感覺到老師已把碎片掃到了壁爐爐床的一邊，此時我有一種滿足感，因為讓我不快的東西已不復(fù)存在了。她給我拿來了草帽，我知道我將要走出屋子，到溫暖的陽光下。一想到這（如果一種無法用言語表達的感覺也可以稱為想法的話），我便高興地又蹦又跳。我們沿著小路來到了井房，井房上布滿了忍冬，它的芳香深深地吸引了我們。有人正在抽水，老師把我的一只手放到了噴水口下方。涼爽的水流過我的一只手，這時她在我的另一只手上拼寫了“水”這個詞。開始她拼得很慢，接著拼得很快。我站

25、在那兒一動不動，所有的注意力都集中在她手指的移動上。剎那間，我朦朧地意識到了些什么，仿佛記起了被久久遺忘的什么東西那是一種恢復(fù)思維的激動。不知怎的，語言的奧秘一下子展現(xiàn)在我的面前。這時我明白了，“w-a-t-e-r”指的就是從我手上流過的那美妙無比的涼爽的東西。這活生生的字眼喚醒了我沉睡的靈魂，賦予了它光明、希望和喜悅，使它獲得了自由！誠然，障礙依然存在，但那是一些假以時日終究會被消除的障礙。我離開井房，心中充滿了求知的欲望。萬物皆有名，而每個名字又引申出一種新的 概念。在我們回家的路上，我感到我觸摸到的每件東西似乎都有生機。那是因為我在用剛剛賦予我的新奇的眼光看待每樣?xùn)|西。進門時我記起了那個

26、被我摔破的娃娃。我摸索著來到了路床邊，撿起那些碎片，試著把他們拼接在一起，但卻徒勞無益。這時我的眼里滿是淚水，因為我意識到了自己先前干了些什么，而且有生以來第一次感到了悔恨和難過。那天我學(xué)會了很多新詞?，F(xiàn)在我已記不清都是些什么詞了，但我還記得其中有“媽媽、爸爸、姐妹、老師”。這些詞使得整個世界在我面前綻放，“有如亞倫的神杖，開滿了鮮花”。在這個重要的日子就要結(jié)束時，已很難找到一個比我更加幸福的孩子了。我躺在自己的小床上，回味著這一天所給予我的欣喜，渴望著新的一天的到來。這是我有生以來從未有過的期盼。Not Just Parrot-TalkScientists have taught a par

27、rot English. So what? This time, it seems, the bird not only says the words but also understands them. Alex, an African grey parrot residing at Americas Purdue University in Indiana, has a vocabulary of about 40 words with which he identifies, requests and sometimes refuses more than 50 toys. He see

28、ms to manipulate words as abstract symbolsin other words, to use a primitive form of language. In many birds, communication takes the form of simple, stereotyped signals. Some birds, like parrots, are capable of learning huge repertoires of phrases by mimicking each other or other species. But, unti

29、l now, there has been no evidence that any bird could make the big leap to associating one sound exclusively with one object or quality. Alex can. Dr Irene Pepperberg, his trainer, exploited the natural curiosity of the parrot to teach him to use the names of different toys. The trainer and an assis

30、tant play with the toys and ask each other questions about them. To join in, the parrot has to compete for the trainers attention. The results have been spectacular. Alex rapidly learned to ask for certain objects, identifying them by words for shape, colour and material (e.g. three-cornered green p

31、aper, or five-cornered yellow wood). He is asked to repeat words until he gets them right and is then rewarded by being given the object to play with. Dr Pepperberg believes it is important that the bird is not rewarded with food, because that would make him think of words as ways of getting treats

32、rather than as symbols for objects. Twice a week, Alex is tested and he normally gets about 80 % of the objects right. The mistakes are usually small omissions (for instance, he forgets to name the colour of an object) rather than specific errors. To discover if he really is able to grasp concepts l

33、ike colour and shape, he is shown entirely novel combinations. When first shown a blue piece of leather he said blue hide even though the blue objects he had previously seen were all keys or made of wood. This suggests that he is aware that words are building blocks that can be used in different com

34、binations. Still, a vocabulary of adjectives and nouns hardly amounts to mastery of a language. The scientists have been looking for evidence that Alex understands more complicated ideas. One unexpected breakthrough was when he learned to say no. He picked this up from the conversations between the

35、trainer and her assistant and seems to understand at least one meaning of the wordrejection (for instance, when Dr Pepperberg tries to play with him and he does not feel like it). He can also count to five when asked how many objects are being shown. There are occasional hints that he has grasped ev

36、en more advanced concepts but Dr Pepperberg is cautious. Public reaction to the abilities of chimpanzees to use sign language has recently descended from excitement to bitterness and nobody dare make extravagant claims any more. It is not that people doubt the ability of apes to accumulate a large v

37、ocabulary of signs. The argument is about whether apes can understand syntax. Examples which seem to show them doing so are few and disputed. For instance, Washoe, the first and most famous of the talking chimpanzees, once pointed to a swan and signed water bird. Or did she? Dr Herbert Terrace of Co

38、lumbia University pointed out that she might simply have signed water and bird in quick succession. Other sceptics argue that, in the course of a lifetime, it would be surprising if such apes did not occasionally produce syntactical combinations of signs by pure chance. A more serious criticism is t

39、hat the apes are responding to unconscious cues from their trainers. Unconscious cueing is known as the clever Hans effect in honour of a famous horse in nineteenth-century Germany. Hans appeared to knock out the answers to mathematical sums with his hoof. In fact, the horse was not doing the sums b

40、ut was responding to subtle signs from the crowd which told him when to stop. When the crowd did not know the answer, Hans could not do the sum. Dr Pepperberg believes that her experiments are free of such an effect because speech is less easy to cue than sign language. She argues that this makes ta

41、lking parrots better subjects than signing apes for probing the limits of animal intelligence. She would like to see Alex (or, even better, a young parrot) compared with children to see if the bird discovers ideas in the same order as the children do and exactly where the children leave the bird beh

42、ind. 外國口音第一節(jié)對我來說，我的確傾向于以口音來判斷我所遇到的人。我并不是說自己是勢利小人，只喜歡有上流社會口音的人；但是，跟一個新結(jié)識的人在一起，我從來都不會感到自在，只有在我能夠根據(jù)他們說的話判斷出他們是哪里人之后，感覺才會不同。如果是個英國人，我還能判斷出“啊，他是利物浦人”，或者“他可能上過公立學(xué)?！?，我就會覺得更自在。這樣我就知道該和他談些什么以及他能夠告訴我些什么。（如果）對方是外國人，也一樣。就個人而言，我喜歡外國人說話帶點明顯的口音，這樣我就知道自己是在和法國人、加納人、波蘭人或別的什么國家的人交談。所有對我來說，外國人話大力氣改掉自己的本族語口音，想方設(shè)法去說標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語，

43、似乎是毫無意義的。如果對方很明顯是法國人，我就知道沒有必要（與他）談?wù)摪迩蚧蜷_愛爾蘭人的玩笑。坦率地說，我覺得外國口音更吸引人。我無法解釋為什么，但如果說話人帶有外國口音，那么即便是說最最普通的事，也會顯得妙趣橫生。第二節(jié)盡管如此，（口音）得有個限度，要能讓人聽懂。如果口音太重，你非得費勁地去弄明白對方想要說什么，就會妨礙談話的進行，而且交談也就無法連貫，（因為）你的設(shè)法把對方的聲音整理成能夠明白的話語。我所指的并非是這么重的口音，而是那種讓你馬上明白對方是哪國人，但又不妨礙你聽懂他的話的那種口音。我認(rèn)為大多數(shù)外國人都有這樣的口音，真的。老實說，只有極少數(shù)聽覺特別靈敏、模仿能力極強的人才能說還

44、算純正的英國英語。即使能夠那樣，他們的英語聽起來也會很可笑，因為他們可能學(xué)會的是一種非常明顯的地方口音，甚至是與自己的氣質(zhì)特點完全不相稱的上流社會口音。但是大多數(shù)學(xué)英語的外國人都非常熱衷于去掉自己的外國口音，并且為此浪費了很多時間。第三節(jié)換一個角度來看，我得理解他們，甚至欽佩他們。因為我自己法語說得還可以，如果別人認(rèn)為我是法國人，我就感到很開心，如果別人一聽就知道我是英國人，我也會感到很泄氣。同樣的，對我來說，帶英國口音的法語實在是太難聽了，而且當(dāng)我聽自己的同胞在糟蹋法語時，總是感到很不自在。所以我想外國人聽到自己的同胞說蹩腳英語時，也會有同感的。然而，法國朋友告訴我，略帶英國口音的發(fā)育絲毫不

45、會令他們感到難受，相反，還相當(dāng)動聽呢。我還聽說佩特拉克拉克之所以能在法國成為成功的歌手，部分原因是因為她的英國口音。所以我想，最著名的說英語的法國人之一，就是那位叫莫里斯謝瓦利埃的演員，他靠一口明顯的法語口音成就了一番事業(yè)。其實若他愿意，他也許可以不帶那么重的口音。我把他和我的一個顯然很有語言天賦的法國朋友進行對比。我的這個法國朋友和我一起在英國的時候，總被人誤認(rèn)為是受過良好教育的英國人。因為他的說話方式，我的應(yīng)該朋友便以為他對英國生活的某些方面非常了解，而這些只有在英國生活多年才會了解的。因而夜里從酒吧回來以后，他經(jīng)常得讓我解釋一些事情給他聽。我不知道他花了多少時間糾正口音，但或許他更應(yīng)該花

46、時間擴大詞匯量和加強對英國的了解。既然英語是這樣一種國際性的語言，我認(rèn)為我們應(yīng)該接受更多的口音，而學(xué)習(xí)者更應(yīng)該注重（語言）結(jié)構(gòu)和詞匯的學(xué)習(xí)而不是口音（的純正）。Science Looks Twice at TwinsIf twins interest you, Twinsburg will fascinate you. Every summer since 1976, this little town outside Cleveland, Ohio, has been invaded by twins. Last summer 2,356 sets of twins showed up fro

47、m around the world to watch and take part in parades, fireworks, magic acts, a 5K race, and more than 100 contests: contests to honor the oldest twins, the youngest, the most alike, the least alike, the twins with the widest combined smile. Had you been there, you might have noticed a large group of

48、 scientists who also attend the festival. Some come seeking clues to the causes of health problemsskin diseases, cancer, and heart attack, for example. Others are interested in how it feels to be a twin. But of all the scientists, perhaps the ones doing the most importantand most controversialwork a

49、re those who study nature and nurture, that age-old question of how we come to be the kind of people we are. Why are some of us good at math, or writing, while others excel at art or basketball? What causes the differences in our intelligence, talents, and tastes? Are they largely determined by the

50、genes we inherit from our parents (nature)? How much do our experiences in life (nurture)the social environment we grow up inhave to do with it? If you were a scientist interested in this question, wouldnt you love to study identical twins? Just think of it: two people who developed from the same fe

51、rtilized egg. That is, two people with the exact same set of genes. Any differences between such identical twins would have to be the result of differences in their environment. But could you also say that any similarities were the result of having the same genes? Not really. Remember, most twins sh

52、are a similar environmentsame house, food, relatives, and so on. The only way you could accurately measure the effects of nature and nurture would be to study identical twins raised apart, in different environments. Over the last ten years, a team of scientists led by psychologist Thomas J. Bouchard

53、 Jr. has studied about 65 pairs of identical twins who were raised apart. Theyve also studied about 45 fraternal twins who were raised apart. The scientists bring each pair of twins to the University of Minnesota for a week of intensive testing. Doctors and dentists on the team give the twins thorou

54、gh physical examinations. They record the twins height, weight, eye color, ear shape, and head length. Meanwhile, psychologists give the twins 1Q and personality tests. To measure personality, the psychologists try to determine things like how much the twins worry, whether they are cautious or reckl

55、ess, and how creative they are. They measure these and other traits by the twins responses to statements such as I rarely, if ever, do anything reckless and The flames of a wood fire stimulate my imagination. By the end of the week, each twin has answered about 15,000 questions. Bouchards team has b

56、een startled by the similarities between twins raised apart. The twins often have surprisingly similar gestures and postures, for instance. In pictures, many of the twins strike nearly identical poses. And some of the identical twins discover they have led remarkably similar lives. The first set of

57、identical twins Bouchard studied, the Jim twins, were adopted by different families four weeks after they were born. They grew up in Ohio, 45 miles away from each other. When they were reunited at the age of 39, they discovered a series of striking similarities. Both were named Jim. Both drove the s

58、ame model blue Chevrolet, liked woodworking, chewed their fingernails, and owned dogs named Toy. Both started having late-afternoon headaches at the age of 18. The sort of similarities the Jim twins discovered are common with the twins the Minnesota team has studied. Some critics of the Minnesota st

59、udy say the coincidences are not surprising. They argue that everyones life has enough details that a number of coincidences are bound to exist. Whats more, for every coincidence discovered by a pair of identical twins raised apart, a skeptic could point to a vast number of undiscovered differences. The same two twins might have different model television sets and support different football teams. But the differen