劍橋雅思11Test4Passage3閱讀原文翻譯 This Marvellous Invention

劍橋雅思11 Test4 Passage3閱讀原文翻譯

段落A

Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions – the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread – may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

在人類所有各種各樣的發(fā)明中，語言必定占有重要位置。其他發(fā)明-輪子，農(nóng)耕，切片面包-可能改變了我們的物質(zhì)生活，但語言的出現(xiàn)才讓我們成為人類。與語言相比，其他所有發(fā)明在重要性上都黯然失色。這是因為我們目前所取得的一切都建立在語言之上，并源自于它。沒有語言，我們永遠(yuǎn)不可能登上凌駕于所有其他動物，甚至自然本身的至高地位。

段落B

But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’. This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to language’s unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind’s greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

但語言的至高地位并不僅僅是因為它首先出現(xiàn)。就自身而言，它是一種極其精密復(fù)雜的工具，但其基礎(chǔ)理念卻又如此簡單：“這一偉大的發(fā)明可以利用25或26種聲音組合成無窮無盡、各種各樣的表達(dá)。這些發(fā)音自身雖然與我們心中所想并無相似之處，但卻使得我們可以借此向他人展露出心中的所有秘密。令那些原本無法透視我們心靈的他人知曉我們?nèi)康南胂笠饽?，以及我們靈魂中的所有震撼悸動“。這就是在1660年，位于凡爾賽附近Port-Royal修道院中那些著名的法語語法大師們所用來精煉地闡釋語言精髓的措辭，在那以來再也沒有其他人能用更加雄辯的方式來高度贊頌語言所取得成就輝煌燦爛、舉足輕重了。即便如此，在所有這些贊頌之詞中還是存在著一個問題，因為對于語言獨一無二成就的敬辭掩蓋了一個簡單卻又至關(guān)重要的不一致性。語言是人類最偉大的發(fā)明-只是除了，它根本不是發(fā)明出來的。這種顯而易見的悖論正是我們癡迷于語言的核心原因，它包含著許多自身的秘密。

段落C

Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these configurations of mouth -p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,s,h,a,e and so on – amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.

語言的創(chuàng)作顯得如此精妙，以至于除了將它想象成某個大師級工匠所造就的完美作品之外，再也沒有合適的比喻。若非如此，這個工具如何能用僅僅三十多個讀音就組合出這么多的含義。就它們自身而言，這些不同口型所發(fā)出的聲音-p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,s,h,a,e等等-不過就是一些混亂的聲響，沒有任何含義的噪音，不具備表達(dá)能力，也不具備解釋的力量。但將它們送進(jìn)語言機(jī)器的齒輪進(jìn)行加工，讓它用一種十分特別的順序?qū)λ鼈冞M(jìn)行排列，這些原本毫無意義的氣流就會變得無所不能：從感嘆存在的永恒乏味，到揭示宇宙的基本規(guī)律。

段落D

The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody – from pre-modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl – to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick. Language conceals art.

然而，語言最非比尋常的特點在于，一個人并不需要是個天才才能讓它的齒輪開始運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。語言機(jī)器讓幾乎每個人-從亞熱帶稀疏草原上過著原始生活的采集者，到生活在城郊雜亂地區(qū)的后現(xiàn)代哲學(xué)家-都可以將這些無意義的聲響結(jié)合在一起，傳達(dá)出無限多種微妙的感受，而且整個過程顯得不費(fèi)吹灰之力。然而，正是這種頗具欺騙性的輕而易舉，讓語言成為它自身成功的受害者。日常生活中，它的偉大總是被視為理所當(dāng)然。語言的齒輪運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)的如此流暢，以至于一個人很少會費(fèi)心停下來去思考，要讓它工作所必需的豐富資源和專業(yè)知識。語言掩蓋了藝術(shù)。

段落E

Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of language’s design. One of the showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish word ?ehirlili?tiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than ‘you are one of those whom we can’t turn into a town-dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together – most of its components cannot even stand up on their own.)

通常來說，只有外語所帶來的疏遠(yuǎn)，以及他們諸多奇異古怪的特征，才能讓我們意識到語言設(shè)計的奇妙。一些語言所展現(xiàn)出來的最引人注目的特征之一，是其構(gòu)建超長單詞，并由此可以用一個詞匯來表達(dá)英語中要用一整句話才能說明白的含義的能力。例如，土耳其詞匯?ehirlili?tiremediklerimizdensiniz所表達(dá)的含義為：“你是那種我們無法轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)槌抢锶说娜恕?。（以防你好奇，這一巨大的字眼真的是一個單詞，而不是許多不同單詞拼接而成-其大部分組成元素不具備任何含義）。

段落F

And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma’a (‘when he had made it suitable for her’) might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse – the thrifty compactness of its construction. The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun ‘it’ in the English translation ‘when he had made it suitable for her’, then the answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?

如果這聽起來像是某種例外，那么請考慮下蘇美爾語。這種語言在大約5000年前由生活在幼發(fā)拉底河岸的人們使用。他們發(fā)明了書寫，因此使得文字記錄歷史成為可能。像munintuma’s（當(dāng)他為她把它準(zhǔn)備合適的時候）這樣的蘇美爾單詞，可能看起來比剛才提到的土耳其巨詞要簡潔許多。然而，它令人印象深刻的地方并不在于長度，恰恰相反，在于其構(gòu)架的簡約緊湊。該單詞由不同的片段組成。每個片段對應(yīng)特定的含義。這一流暢的設(shè)計使得單個聲響也能傳遞有用的信息。事實上，甚至聲音的缺失也被用來表達(dá)某種特定的意思。如果你想問，蘇美爾單詞中的哪部分對應(yīng)英語翻譯“當(dāng)他為她把它準(zhǔn)備合適的時候”中的“它”，那么答案只能是沒有。提醒你一下，這是一種非常獨特的沒有，是位于中間空白片段的沒有。當(dāng)時的語言編制是如此精良，以至于即便是沒有發(fā)出的聲音，當(dāng)被仔細(xì)置于特定的位置時，也會被賦予特定的功能。誰能夠提出如此精妙的設(shè)置呢？

>> 雅思 托福 免費(fèi)測試、量身規(guī)劃、讓英語學(xué)習(xí)不再困難<<