學(xué)術(shù)英語原文4單元

1、His Politeness Is Her PowerlessnessDeborah TannenThere are many different kinds of evidence that women and men are judged differently even if they talk the same way. This tendency makes mischief in discussions of women, men and power. If a linguistic strategy is used by a woman, it is seen as powerl

2、ess; if it is used by a man, it is seen as powerful. Often, the labeling of“ women ' s language ” as “ poreflects the view of women' s behavior through the lens of menBecause they are not struggling to be one-up, women often find themselves framed as one-down. Any situation is ripe for misin

3、terpretation. This ambiguity accounts for much misinterpretation by experts as well as nonexperts, by which women' s ways of thinking, utterin a spirit of rapport, are branded powerless.Nowhere is this inherentambiguity clearer than in a brief comment in a newspaper article in which a couple, bo

4、th psychologists, were jointly interviewed. The journalist asked them the meaning of “ beingvery polite. Th”e two experts responded simultaneously, giving different answers. The man said, “ Subservience. ” The woman said, “ Sensitivity.ex”perBtsoth were right, but each wasdescribing the view of a di

5、fferent gender.Experts and nonexperts alike tend to see anything women do as evidence of powerlessness. The same newspaper article quotes another psychologist as saying,“ A man might ask a woman, Will you pleasstore?where a woman might say,Gee, I really need a few things from thestore, but I ' m

6、so tired. T'he” woman 'stsyle is called “ covert, a te”rmt feel she has thesuggesting negative qualities like being “ sneakyand” “ underhanded. The reason offered for this is power. The woman doesn to ask directly.Granted, women have lower status than men in our American society.But this is

7、not necessarily why they prefer not to make outright demands.The explanation for a woman 'insdirectness could just as well be her seeking connection. If you get your way as a result of having demanded it, the payoff is satisfying in terms of status: You-up because o'therersonestyle seemsare

8、doing as you told them. But if you get your way because others happened to want the same thing, or because they offered freely, the payoff is rapport. You ' rneeither one-up nor one-down by being happily connected to others whose wants are the same as yours. Furthermore, if indirectness is under

9、stood by both parties, then there is nothing covert about it: That a request is being made is clear. Calling an indirect communication covert reflects the view of someone for whom the direct“_g_1”I CC II”natural ”and a vie“w lmogoircealcomm”on among men.Indirectness itself does not reflect powerless

10、ness. It of situations where indirectness is the prerogative of others in power. For example, a wealthy couple who knows that their servants will do their bidding need not give direct orders, but simply state wishes: The woman ofthe house says,It ' s chilly in here,and the servant sets about rai

11、singtemperature. The man of the house says, “ It d'innser time, a”nd the servant sees about having dinner served. Perhaps the ultimate indirectness is getting someone to do something without saying anything at all: The hostess rings a bell and a maid brings the next course; or a parent enters th

12、e room where children are misbehaving and stands with hands on hips, and the children immediately stop what they ' re doing.Entire cultures operate on elaborate systems of indirectness. For example, I discovered in a small research project that most Greeksassumed a wife who asked,Would you like

13、to go to the party?that she wanted to go. They felt that she wouldn want to go. Furthermore, they felt, she would not state here preference outright because that would sound like a demand. Indirectness was the appropriate means for communicating her preference.Japanese culture has developed indirect

14、ness to a fine art. For example, a Japanese anthropologist, Harumi Befu, explains the delicate exchange of tended the invitation, Befu first had to determine whether it was meant literally or just pro forma, much as an American might say,t bring it up if she dbut would noWe' ll have to have you

15、over for dinner some time you to turn up at the door. Having decided the invitation was meantliterally and having accepted, Befu was then asked what he would like toeat. Following custom, he said anything would do, but his friend, alsofollowing custom, pressed him to specify. Host and guest repeated

16、 this exchange an appropriate number of times, until Befu deemed it polite to answer the question politely by saying tea over rice as the lastcourse of a sumptuous meal. Befu was not surprised by the feast because he knew that protocol required it. Had he been given what he asked for, he would have

17、been insulted. But protocol also required that he make a great show of being surprised.This account of mutual indirectness in a lunch invitation may strike Americans as excessive. But far more cultures in the world use elaborate systems of indirectness than value directness. Only modern Western soci

18、eties place a priority on direct communication, and even for us it is more a value than a practice.Evidence from other cultures also makes it clear that indirectness does not itself reflect low status. Rather, our assumptions about the status of women compel us to interpret anything they do as refle

19、cting low status. Anthropologist Elinor Keenan, for example, found that in a Malagasy-speaking village on the island of Madagascar, it is women who are direct a nd men who are indirect. And the villagers see the men way of speaking, using metaphors and proverbs, as the better way. For them, indirect

20、ness, like the men who use it, has high status. They regard women ' s direct style as clumsy and crude, deba sing the beautiful subtlety of men ' s language. Whether women or men are direct or indirect differs;s style is negativesleyevnaluatedwhat remains constant is that womenas lower in st

21、atus than the mens.各種各樣的證據(jù)表明： 即使女性和男性說話方式相同，人們對(duì)他們的看法還是不同。 這種傾向?qū)е掠嘘P(guān)女性、男性和無能耐的討論紛爭(zhēng)不斷。女性說話講究方式方法被認(rèn)為是低微 無能，而換成男性則被認(rèn)為是有能力的表現(xiàn)。視女性的語言為低微無能者的語言常常反映出男性看女性行為的視覺角度。女性不為高人一等而拼搏，往往就被認(rèn)為是低人一等。在任何情況下都極容易發(fā)生誤會(huì)。 這也說明了為什么專家和非專家常常把女性以友善語言表述出來的思維方式曲解成低微無 能的表現(xiàn)。沒有什么能比一家報(bào)社刊登的采訪片段更能清楚地說明這種根深蒂固的歧義。采訪對(duì)象是一對(duì)心理學(xué)家夫婦，當(dāng)記者問他們“表現(xiàn)得非常有禮

22、貌”的含義時(shí)，這兩位專家同時(shí)給出不同的答案。男性回答說：“服從”。女性回答說：“敏感”。兩位專家都是正確的，只不過每個(gè)人描述的是不同性別的觀點(diǎn)。專家和非專家都習(xí)慣把女性的任何行為看為低微無能的表現(xiàn)。以上同一篇報(bào)刊文章援引另一位心理學(xué)家的話說：“一個(gè)男人會(huì)這樣問一個(gè)女人：請(qǐng)你去一趟商店好嗎？同樣的情況下女人會(huì)說：哎，我真的需要從商店買點(diǎn)東西，但是我實(shí)在太累了。女性的這種表達(dá)方式被稱為“隱蔽的”，該詞含有“鬼祟”和“秘密”等貶義，而這樣表達(dá)的原因歸咎于一 個(gè)“權(quán)”字，女人覺得她沒有權(quán)利直接提出要求。的確，在我們（美國）社會(huì)里，女性的地位比男性低，但這不等于說她們不愿意提出直 截了當(dāng)?shù)囊蟆Ｅ缘倪@

23、種間接方式很可能是因?yàn)樗齻冊(cè)谂ふ夷撤N關(guān)系。如果愿意在自己的要求下得到滿足，結(jié)果就是社會(huì)地位的勝利：你高人一等，因?yàn)閯e人按你的意志行事。 而如果你的愿望得到滿足是因?yàn)樗说脑竿『煤湍愕囊恢?，或者是因?yàn)閷?duì)方心甘情愿， 結(jié)果就是融洽和諧。當(dāng)你和對(duì)方的需求一致而一拍即合時(shí)，你既不高人一等，也不低人一等。 而且如果雙方都了解這種間接方式，那就不存在什么隱蔽： 提出的要求很明確。 稱間接的溝通方式為隱蔽反映出那些青睞直接溝通方式的人的觀點(diǎn)，即直接的方式才是 “自然的”、“合乎邏輯的”，這種觀點(diǎn)在男性中更普遍。間接方式本身并不反映低微無能。我們不難想象出權(quán)勢(shì)者中有特權(quán)的人是怎樣使用間接 方式的。例如，一位有錢的夫婦用不著直接向聽命于他們的用人發(fā)號(hào)施令，而只須簡單地說明其愿望，房子的女主人說：“這兒冷，”用人就會(huì)去調(diào)高室溫；房子的男主人說：“是晚飯的時(shí)間，”用人就會(huì)擺桌上菜?；蛟S終極的間接是什么都不用說就能使某人做某事：女主人 按一下鈴，女仆端上下一道菜； 家長走進(jìn)有孩子正在嬉鬧的房間，雙手叉腰一站，他們就會(huì)戛然而止。所有文化都靠以“間接”二字所形成的復(fù)雜而精巧的體制去運(yùn)作。例如，我在做一個(gè) 小規(guī)模的研究項(xiàng)目時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)：當(dāng)妻子問“你想去參加那個(gè)聚會(huì)嗎？”，大多數(shù)希臘人認(rèn)為他們的妻子是在暗示她想去。他們認(rèn)為如果妻子不想去，她就不會(huì)提出這個(gè)問題。