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青年人的四种选择 Lesson 2 Four Choices for Young People 在毕业前不久,斯坦福大学四年级主席吉姆?宾司给我写了一封信,信中谈及他的一些不安。 Shortly before his graduation, Jim Binns, president of the senior class at Stanford University, wrote me about some of his misgivings. 他写道:“与其他任何一代人相比,我们这一代人在看待成人世界时抱有更大的疑虑……同时越来越倾向于全盘否定成人世界。” “More than any other generation,” he said, “our generation views the adult world with great skepticism… there is also an increased tendency to reject completely that world.” 很明显,他的话代表了许多同龄人的看法。 Apparently he speaks for a lot of his contemporaries. 在过去的几年里,我倾听过许多年轻人的谈话,他们有的还在大学读书,有的已经毕业,他们对于成人的世界同样感到不安。 During the last few years, I have listened to scores of young people, in college and out, who were just as nervous about the grown world. 大致来说,他们的态度可归纳如下:“这个世界乱糟糟的,到处充满了不平等、贫困和战争。对此该负责的大概应是那些管理这个世界的成年人吧。如果他们不能做得比这些更好,他们又能拿什么来教育我们呢?这样的教导,我们根本不需要。” Roughly, their attitude might be summed up about like this: “The world is in pretty much of a mess, full of injustice, poverty, and war. The people responsible are, presumably, the adults who have been running thing. If they can't do better than that, what have they got to teach our generation? That kind of lesson we can do without.” 我觉得这些结论合情合理,至少从他们的角度来看是这样的。 There conclusions strike me as reasonable, at least from their point of view. 对成长中的一代人来说,相关的问题不是我们的社会是否完美(我们可以想当然地认为是这样),而是应该如何去应付它。 The relevant question for the arriving generation is not whether our society is imperfect (we can take that for granted), but how to deal with it. 尽管这个社会严酷而不合情理,但它毕竟是我们惟一拥有的世界。 For all its harshness and irrationality, it is the only world we've got. 因此,选择一个办法去应付这个社会是刚刚步入成年的年轻人必须作出的第一个决定,这通常是他们一生中最重要的决定。 Choosing a strategy to cope with it, then, is the first decision young adults have to make, and usually the most important decision of their lifetime. 根据我的发现,他们的基本选择只有四种: So far as I have been able to discover, there are only four basic alternatives: 1)脱离传统社会 1)Drop Out 这是最古老的方法之一,任何年龄的人无论在任何地方,也无论是否使用迷幻剂都可以采用。 This is one of the oldest expedients, and it can be practiced anywhere, at any age, and with or without the use of hallucinogens. 那些认为这个世界残酷、复杂得令人难以忍受的人通常会选择这个办法。 It always has been the strategy of choice for people who find the world too brutal or too complex to be endured. 实质上,这是一种寄生式的生活方式,采取此策略的人通过这样或那样的方式寄生于这个他们蔑视的社会,并且拒绝对这个社会承担责任 By definition, this way of life is parasitic. In one way or another, its practitioners batten on the society which they scorn and in which they refuse to take any responsibility. 我们中的一些人对此很厌恶——认为这种生活方式很不光彩。 Some of us find this distasteful – an undignified kind of life. 但对于那些卑微、懒惰又缺乏自尊的人来说,这也许是可行的最可以忍受的选择了。 But for the poor in spirit, with low levels of both energy and pride, it may be the least intolerable choice available. 2)逃避现实社会 2) Flee 这个策略早在远古就有先例。 This strategy also has ancient antecedents. 自文明诞生以来,就有人企图逃避文明社会,希望寻求一种更为朴素、更富田园风情、更为宁静的生活。 Ever since civilization began, certain individuals have tried to run away from it in hopes of finding a simpler, more pastoral, and more peaceful life. 与那些脱离传统社会的人不同,这些人不是寄生者。他们愿意自食其力,愿意为社会作出贡献,可是他们就是不喜欢这个文明世界的环境。确地说,不喜欢这充满丑恶和紧张的大都市。 Unlike the dropouts, they are not parasites. They are willing to support themselves and to contribute something to the general community, but they simply don't like the environment of civilization; that is, the city, with all its ugliness and tension. 这种方法的问题在于无法大规模地进行实践。 The trouble with this solution is that it no longer is practical on a large scale. 不幸的是,在我们的地球上,高尚的野蛮人和未被破坏的自然景色已越来越少;除了两极地区以外已经没有未开发的土地了。 Our planet, unfortunately, is running out of noble savages and unsullied landscaped; except for the polar regions, the frontiers are gone. 少数富有的乡绅还可以逃避现实去过田园生活——但总的说来,迁移的潮流是向相反的方向流动。 A few gentleman farmers with plenty of money can still escape to the bucolic life – but in general the stream of migration is flowing the other way. 3)策划革命 Plot a Revolution 在对民主进程单调乏味的运作方式毫无耐心或相信只有武力才能改变基本社会制度的那些人中,这一策略颇受欢迎。 This strategy is always popular among those who have no patience with the tedious working of the democratic process or who believe that basic institutions can only be changed by force. 它吸引了每一代年轻人中那些更为活跃和更具理想主义的人。 It attracts some of the more active and idealistic young people of every generation. 对他们来说,这种策略具有浪漫的吸引力,通常以某位魅力非凡且令人振奋的人物为其象征。 To them it offers a romantic appeal, usually symbolized by some dashing and charismatic figure. 这一策略简单明了并具有更大的吸引力:“既然这个社会已经无可救药,那就让我们砸碎它,在它的废墟上面建一个更好的社会。” It has the even greater appeal of simplicity: “Since this society is hopelessly bad, let's smash it and build something better on the ruins.” 我的朋友中有些是革命者,他们中的一些人过得相当满足。 Some of my best friends have been revolutionists, and a few of them have led reasonably satisfying lives. 这部分人其实是那些革命并未成功的人,他们可以继续兴高采烈地策划*,直至老态龙钟。 These are the ones whose revolutions did not come off; they have been able to keep on cheerfully plotting their holocausts right into their senescence. 另外一些人年纪轻轻就死了,死在监狱里或街垒旁。 Others died young, in prison or on the barricades. 但最不幸的是那些革命成功的人。 But the most unfortunate are those whose revolutions have succeeded. 他们极度失望,看到他们*的权力机构又被新机构所替代,而新机构依旧是那样冷酷,那样毫无生机。 They lived in bitter disillusionment, to see the establishment they had overthrown replaced by a new one, just as hard-faced and stuffy. 当然,我并不是说革命一无所成。 I am not, of course, suggesting that revolutions accomplish nothing. 一些革命(美国革命,法国革命)确实将事情变得越来越好。 Some (The American Revolution, the French Revolution) clearly do change things for the better. 我只是想说革命无论成败,那些策划革命的革命者们都注定要失望。 My point is merely that the idealists who make the revolution are bound to be disappointed in either case. 因为胜利的曙光无论如何也不会照耀在他们梦想中的那个摆脱了人类一切卑劣的灿烂的新世界上。 For at best their victory never dawns on the shining new world they had dreamed of, cleansed of all human meanness. 相反,它照在了一个熟悉的平庸的地方,这个地方仍旧需要食品杂货和污水排放。 Instead it dawns on a familiar, workaday place, still in need of groceries and sewage disposal.

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第十个人 Lesson Ten The Tenth Man 就在第二天下午3点(闹钟上的时间),一个军官走进了牢房。这是他们几星期以来见到的第一位军官。他非常年轻,甚至小胡子的形状也显示出他不够老练,左边的胡子剃得重了点。 It was at three the next afternoon (alarm clock time) that an officer entered the cell; the first officer they had seen for weeks – and this one was very young, with inexperience even in the shape of his mustache which he had shaved too much on the left side. 他就像一个初次登台领奖的小学生一样窘迫不安,他说起话来粗鲁无礼,似乎要显示一种他并不具备的力量。 He was as embarrassed as a schoolboy making his first entry on a stage at a prize-giving, and he spoke abruptly so as to give the impression of a strength he did not possess. 他说道:“昨天夜间城里发生了几起谋杀,一名军事长官的副手、一位中士和一个骑自行车的女孩被杀。”他又说道:“我们不在乎女孩的死。法国男人杀死法国女人不关我们的事。” He said, “There were murders last night in the town. The aide-de-camp of the military governor, a sergeant and a girl on a bicycle.” He added, “We don't complain about the girl. Frenchmen have our permission to kill Frenchwomen.” 很明显他事先仔细斟酌了他的讲话,但他的嘲弄做过了头,他的表演也很业余。 He had obviously thought up his speech carefully beforehand, but the irony was overdone and the delivery that of an amateur actor: 整个场面就像手势字谜游戏那样矫饰做作。 the whole scene was as unreal as a charade. 他接着说道:“你们知道自己为什么来这里,你们在这里好吃好喝,过着舒适的日子,而我们的人却在工作和战斗。不过现在你们必须付出代价了。不要怪我们,要怪你们自己的杀人凶手。我的命令是集中营里每十个人要有一个被枪决。你们有多少人?”“报数。”他厉声喝道人们闷闷不乐地照办了。“28,29,30.”人们知道不用数他也知道人数,这不过是他玩的把戏中不可省略的一句台词…… He said, “You know what you are here for, living comfortably, on fine rations, while our men work and fight. Well, now you've got to pay the hotel bill. Don't blame us. Blame your own murderers. My orders are that one man in every ten shall be shot in this camp. How many of you are there?” He shouted sharply, “Number off,” and sullenly they obeyed, “…… twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.” They knew he knew without counting. This was just a line in his charade he couldn't sacrifice. 他说道:“那么,你们的名额是三个,我们并不关心是哪三个人。你们可以自己选择。死刑于明天早上7点执行。” He said, “Your allotment then is three. We are quite indifferent as to which three. You can choose for yourselves. The funeral rites will begin at seven tomorrow morning.” 他玩的把戏结束了,人们可以听到他的脚步响亮地敲击着沥青路渐渐远去。 The charade was over: they could hear his feet striking sharply on the asphalt going away. 查维尔忽然很想知道他打的手势是什么字。要他们猜的是不是“夜间”,“姑娘”,“旁边”或“30”。不,不是。谜底肯定是“人质”。 Chavel wondered for a moment what syllable had been acted —“night,”“girl,”“aside,” or perhaps “thirty,” but it was of course the whole word—“hostage. ” 牢房里很长时间没人说话。后来一个叫克拉夫的阿尔萨斯人开口道:“好了,我们有人自愿吗?” The silence went on a long time, and then a man called Krogh, an Alsatian, said, “Well, do we have to volunteer?” “废话。”一个职员说道。他是一个上了年纪的戴着夹鼻眼镜的老头。他接着说道:“没人会自愿,我们必须抽签。除非有人认为应按年龄决定——最老的先死。” “Rubbish,” said one of the clerks, a thin elderly man in pince-nez, “nobody will volunteer. We must draw lots.” He added, “Un-less it is thought that we should go by ages —the oldest first. ” “不,不行。”另一个人说道,“那不公平。” “No, no,” one of the others said, “that would be unjust. ” “这是自然规律。” “It's the way of nature.” “那算什么自然规律。”又一个人说道,“我有个女儿,5岁时就死了。” “Not even the way of nature,” another said. “1 had a child who died when she was five……” “我们必须抽签。”市长坚定地说。 “We must draw lots,” the mayor said firmly. “只有这样才公正。”他坐在那里,双手依然紧贴在肚子上,遮挡着他的怀表,但是整个牢房里都能听见怀表清脆的滴答声。 “It is the only fair thing.” He sat with his hands still pressed over his stomach, hiding his watch, but all through the cell you could hear its blunt tick lock tick. 他接着又说道:“由未婚者抽签,已婚者除外,他们有责任。” He added, “On the unmarried. The married should not be included. They have responsibilities… “哈,哈!”皮埃尔说道,“我们明白了。为什么已婚者就应逃脱?他们的事儿已经做完了。当然,你结婚了吧?” “Ha, ha,” Pierre said, “we see through that. Why should the married get off? Their work's finished. You, of course, are married?” “我的妻子不在了。”市长说,“我现在是未婚,你呢?” “I have lost my wife,” the mayor said, “I am not married now. And you…” “结了。”皮埃尔答道。 “Married,” Pierre said. 市长开始解下怀表。发现皮埃尔处境安全,他似乎更坚信作为怀表的主人自己必定是下一个牺牲者。 The mayor began to undo his watch; the discovery that his rival was safe seemed to confirm his belief that as the owner of time he was bound to be the next victim. 他环顾了每一个人,然后选择了查维尔。也许是因为只有他穿着西服背心适合戴表链。他说道:“查维尔先生,我想让你替我拿着怀表,万一……” He looked from face to face and chose Chavel, perhaps because he was the only man with a waistcoat fit to take the chain. He said, “Monsieur Chavel, I want you to hold this watch for me in case…” “你找别人吧!”查维尔说,“我还没结婚呢。” “you'd better choose someone else,” Chavel said. “I am not married.” 那个老职员又开口了,“我结婚了,我有权说话。 The elderly clerk spoke again. He said, “I'm married. I've got the right to speak. 我们正把一切引向歧途。这不是我们最后一次抽签。如果这儿有一个特权阶层——那些最终将活着的人,大家想想,牢房里会是什么样子。你们其他人很快就会痛恨我们。你们害怕,而我们将不再担心。“ We are going the wrong way about all this. Everyone must draw lots. This isn't the last draw we shall have, and picture to yourselves what it will be like in this cell if we have a privileged class —the ones who are left to the end. The rest of you will soon begin to hate us. We shall be left out of your fear. . . “ “他说得对。”皮埃尔说。 “He's right,” Pierre said. 市长重新握紧了怀表,说道:“就照你们的主意办。要是能够这样征税的话……”他做了个绝望的手势。 The mayor refastened his watch. “Have it your own way,” he said. “But if the taxes were levied like this…” He gave a gesture of despair. “我们如何抽签?”克拉夫问道。 “How do we draw?” Krogh asked. 查维尔答道:“最快的办法就是从一只鞋里抽出画有记号的纸条。” Chavel said, “The quickest way would be to draw marked papers out of a shoe. . .” 克拉夫轻蔑地说:“那么快干吗?对于我们当中几个人来说这可是最后一次赌博了。我们蛮可以享受一番。我提议赌抛硬币。” Krogh said contemptuously, “Why the quickest way? This is the last gamble some of us will have. We may as well enjoy it. I say a coin.” “这不好。”那个职员说,“抛硬币不是一个公平、合理的办法。” “It won't work,” the clerk said. “You can't get a even chance with a coin.” “惟一的办法就是抽签。”市长说道。 “The only way is to draw,” the mayor said. 职员开始为抽签做准备,为此他牺牲了一封家信。 The clerk prepared the draw, sacrificing for it one of his letters from home. 他很快地看了一遍信,然后把它撕成30张小纸条。 He read it rapidly for the last time, and then tore it into thirty pieces. 他用铅笔在其中三张上画上十字,然后把每张纸条都叠上。 On three pieces he made a cross in pencil, and then folded each piece. 他接着说:“克拉夫的鞋。”大家把纸条放在地下搅乱,然后装进了鞋子里。 “Krogh's got the biggest shoe,” he said. They shuffled the pieces on the floor and then dropped them into the shoe. “我们按姓氏的字母顺序抽签。”市长说。 “We'll draw in alphabetical order,” the mayor said. “从Z开始抽。”查维尔说道。他的安全感开始动摇了。他急切想喝点什么,用手指从嘴唇上撕下一小块干皮。 “Z first,” Chavel said. His feeling of security was shaken. He wanted a drink badly. He picked at a dry piece of skin on his lip. “就按你说的办。”卡车司机说道,“有人排在维尔森前面吗?我先抽。” “As you wish,” the lorry driver said. “Anybody beat Voisin? Here goes. 他用手在鞋子里小心地掏,就像是要掏到他心里想要的那张。 “He thrust his hand into the shoe and made careful excavations as though he had one particular scrap of paper in mind. 他抽出一张,打开,怔怔地看着,然后说了声:“完了。”他坐下来,摸出一支香烟放到嘴里,却忘了点火。 He drew one out, opened it, and gazed at it with astonishment. He said, “This is it.” He sat down and felt for a cigarette, but when he got it between his lips he forgot to light it. 查维尔心中充满了巨大而又令他感到羞耻的快乐。 Chavel was filled with a huge and shameful joy. 看来自己得救了。剩下二十九个人抽签,而只有两张带有记号的纸条。 It seemed to him that already he was saved —twenty - nine men to draw and only two marked papers left. 抽中死签的可能性突然变得对他有利,从10比1变成了14比1.经营蔬菜水果的商人也抽了一张,然后漫不经心、毫无表情地示意自己平安无事。 The chances had suddenly grown in his favor from ten to one to—fourteen to one: the greengrocer had drawn a slip and indicated carelessly and without pleasure that he was safe. 的确,从抽第一张签时人们就忌讳任何喜形于色的表现,一个人不能以任何宽慰的举动去嘲弄注定要死的人。 Indeed from the first draw any mark of pleasure was taboo: one couldn't mock the condemned man by any sign of relief. 查维尔胸中有一种隐隐约约的不安——还不是恐惧,像是一种压抑感。 Again a dull disquiet —ii couldn't yet be described as a fear—exended its empire over Chavel's chest. 当第六个人抽到空白纸条时,他发现自己在打哈欠;当第十个人——就是大家称作雅维耶的那个人抽完签后,他的心中又充满了某中怨愤的情绪。现在抽中死签的机会同开始时一样了。 It was like a constriction: he found himself yawning as the sixth man drew a blank slip, and a sense of grievance nagged at his mind when the tenth man bad drawn—it was the one they called Janvier—and the chances were once again the same as when the draw started. 有的人抽出他们手指碰到的第一张纸条;有的人似乎怀疑命运企图将某一张纸条强加于他们,所以他们刚刚从鞋里抽出一张,就又扔回去,再另换一张。 Some men drew the first slip which touched their fingers; others seemed to suspect tha t fate was trying to force on them a particular slip and when they bad drawn one a little way from the shoe would let it drop again and choose another. 时间过得很慢,令人难以置信。那个叫做维尔森的人靠墙坐着,嘴里叼着仍未点燃的香烟,对一切都不再在意。 Time passed with incredible slowness, and the man called Voisin sat against the wall with the unlighted cigarette in his mouth paying them no attention at all. 就在生存的机会逐渐变小,抽中死签的可能性达到八分之一时,一个叫做勒诺特的上年纪的职员抽中了第二张死签。 The chances had narrowed to one in eight when the elderly clerk —his name was Lenotre—drew the second slip. 他清了清喉咙,戴上夹鼻眼镜,好像要确认自己没有看错。“喂,维尔森先生,我能加入吗?”他带着淡淡的微笑说道。 He cleared his throat and put on his pince-nez as though he had to make sure he was not mistaken. “Ah, Monsieur Voisin,” he said with a thin undecided smile, “May I join you?” 令人难以琢磨的机会再次以绝对对查维尔有利的优势朝他走来,抽中死签的可能性只有十五分之一,可他这次却没有丝毫欣慰,他被普通百姓所具有的勇气所震撼,他想让这一切尽快结束,就像一副扑克玩得太久了,他只希望有人离开牌桌,结束牌局。 This time Chavel felt no joy even though the elusive odds were back again overwhelmingly in his favor at fifteen to one; he was daunted by the courage of common men. He wanted the whole thing to be over as quickly as possible: like a game of cards which has gone on too long, he only wanted someone to make a move and break up the table. 勒诺特在维尔森身边靠墙坐下,他翻过纸条,背面是信中的一点内容,“是你妻子的?”维尔森问道。“是我女儿的。”勒诺特答道,“请原谅。”他起身走到自己的铺盖处,抽出一本便笺,回到维尔森身边开始写起来。他不慌不忙,认认真真地写下一串纤细而清晰的字迹。 。 Lenotre, sitting down against the wall next to Voisin, turned the slip over: on the back was a scrap of writing. Your-wife?“ Voisin said. “My daughter,” Lenotre said. “Excuse me.” He went over to his roll of bedding and drew out a writing pad. Then he sat down next to Voisin and began to write, carefully, without hurry, a thin legible hand. 这时中死签的概率又回到了10比1. The odds were back to ten to one. 从那时起,对查维尔来说,抽中死签的可能性似乎以一种不可避免的可怕趋势发生着变化。 From that point the odds seemed to move toward Chavel with a dreadful inevitability: 9比1,8比1,抽中死签的可能性好像指向了他。 nine to one, eight to one; they were like a pointing finger. 剩下的人抽得越来越快,越来越随便。 The men who were left drew more quickly and more carelessly: 在查维尔看来,他们似乎都知道了某种秘密,知道他会抽到死签。 they seemed to Chavel to have some inner information —to know that he was the one. 轮到他抽签时,只剩下了3张纸,留给他的机会这么少,在他看来真是不公平。 When his time came to draw there were only three slips left , and it appeared to Chavel a monstrous injustice that there were so few choices left for him. 他从鞋中抽出一张,接着又认定这是同伴的意志强加给他的,一定有十字。于是他把它放回去,另抽了一张。 He drew one out of the shoe and then feeling certain that this one had been willed on him by his companions and contained the penciled cross he threw it back and snatched another. “律师,你偷看了。”剩下的两个人中有一个大声说道,但另一个让他安静下来。 “You looked, lawyer,” one of the two men exclaimed, but the other quieted him. “他没有偷看,他抽到的是有记号的。” “He didn't look. He's got the marked one now.” “不,不。”查维尔把纸条扔到地上,开始大叫:“我从来就没有同意,你们不能让我替别人去死。” “No,” Chavel said, “no.” He threw the slip upon the ground and cried, “I never consented to the draw. You can't make me die for the rest of you. . . ” 大家惊讶地看着他,但并没有敌意。 They watched him with astonishment but without enmity. 他是一个出身高贵的人。人们没有用自己的标准去衡量他,因为他属于一个别人难以理解的阶层。人们甚至没有把他的行为与胆怯联系起来。 He was a gentleman. They didn't judge him by their own standards: he belonged to an unaccountable class and they didn't at first even attach the idea of cowardice to his actions. “听我说,”查维尔一边哀求,一边举起那张纸条。大家既惊奇又好奇地看着他。“谁接受这张纸条,我就给他10万法郎。” “Listen,” Chavel implored them. He held out the slip of paper and they all watched him with compassionate curiosity. “I'll give a hundred thousand francs to anyone who'll take this.” 他快速移动着小步地从一个人面前走到另一个人面前,朝每一个人展示那张小纸条,好像是拍卖会上的服务员。 He took little rapid steps from one man to another, showing each man the bit of paper as if he were an attendant at an auction. “10万法郎。”他恳求道。人们感到震惊,同样又感到一丝怜悯:他是他们之中惟一的有钱人,这是与众不同之处。 “A hundred thousand francs,” he implored, and they watched him with a kind of shocked pity: he was the only rich man among them and this was a unique situation. 人们无法去比较,只能认定这就是他那个阶层的特点,这犹如一个在异国港口下船就餐的旅游者能从一个碰巧与他同桌的狡猾商人身上总结出该国的国民性格。 They had no means of comparison and assumed that this was a characteristic of his class, just as a traveler stepping off the liner at a foreign port for luncheon sums up a nation's character forever in the wily businessman who happens to share the table with him.

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飞扬嗒兜兜

Lesson Nine The Trouble with Television 电视的毛病 The Trouble with Television 要摆脱电视的影响是困难的。 It is difficult to escape the influence of television. 假如统计的平均数字适用于你的话,那么你到20岁的时候就至少看过2万个小时的电视了,从那以后每生活10年就会增加1万小时。 If you fit the statistical averages, by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20,000 hours of television. You can add 10,000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20. 笔起看电视,美国人只有在工作和睡眠上花时间更多。 The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep. 稍微计算一下,使用这些时间的一部分能够做些什么。 Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours. 听说一个大学生仅用5000小时就可以获得学士学位。 Five thousand hours, I am told, are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelor's degree. 在1万个小时内你能学成一个天文学家或工程师,流利掌握几门外语。 In 10,000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently. 如果你感兴趣的话,你可能读希腊原文的荷马史诗或俄文版的陀思妥耶夫斯基的作品;如果对此不感兴趣,那你可以徒步周游世界,撰写一本游记。 If it appealed to you, you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn't, you could have walked around the world and written a book about it. 电视的毛病在于它分散了人们的注意力。 The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration. 生活中几乎一切有趣的、能给人以满足的事都需要一定的建设性的、持之以恒的努力。 Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive, consistently applied effort. 即使是我们中间那些最迟钝、最没有天才的人也能做出一些事来,而这些事使那些从来不在任何事情上专心致志的人感到像是奇迹一般。 The dullest, the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything. 但电视鼓励我们不做出任何努力,它向我们兜售即时的满足,它给我们提供娱乐,使我们只想娱乐,让时间在毫无痛苦中消磨掉。 But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without pain. 电视节目的多样化成了一种麻醉剂而不是促进思考的因素。 Television's variety becomes a narcotic , nor a stimulus. 它那系列的、多变的画面引着我们跟着它走。 Its serial, kaleidoscopic exposures force us to follow its lead. 观众无休无止地跟着导游游览:参观博物馆30分钟,看大教堂30分钟,喝饮料30分钟,然后上车去下一个参观点,只是电视的特点是时间分配以分秒计算,而所选择的内容却多为车祸和人们的互相残杀。 The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour: 30 minutes at the museum, 30 at the cathedral, 30 for a drink, then back on the bus to the next attraction —-except on television., typically, the spans allotted arc on the order of minutes or seconds, and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another. 总之许多电视节目取代了人类最可贵的一种才能,即主动集中自己的注意力,而不是被动地奉送注意力。 In short, a lot of television usurps one of the most precious of all human gifts, the ability to focus your attention yourself, rather than just passively surrender it. 吸引并抓住人们的注意力是大多数电视节目安排的主要目的,它加强了电视是有利可图的广告的载体的作用。 Capturing your attention —and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle. 节目安排使人生活在无休止的恐惧之中,唯恐抓不住人们的注意力——不管是什么人的注意力都担心。 Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyone's attention—anyone's. 避免造成这一局面的最有把握的办法就是使一切节目都保持简短,不要使任何人的注意力过于集中而受到损害,而要通过多样化、新奇性、动作和行动不断地提供刺激。 The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action and movement. 很简单,电视的运作原则就是迎合观众的注意力跨度短这一特点。 Quite simply, television operates on the appeal to the short attention span. 这只是最简单的解决办法,但它逐渐被看作是电视这一宣传媒体特定的,内在固有的性质,是必须履行的职责,似乎是司令萨尔诺夫或另一个令人敬畏的电视创始人给我们传下了刻有铭文的石碑,命令电视上出现的一切节目均不得使观众需要片刻以上的注意力。 It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given, as inherent in the medium itself; as an imperative, as though General Sarnoff, or one of the other august pioneers of video, had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments' Concentration. 要是运用得恰当,这倒也无可厚非。 In its place that is fine. 如此出色地把使人忘却现实的娱乐作为大规模推销工具加以包装,谁又能反对这样一种宣传媒介呢? Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool? 但是我看到了它的价值现已充斥于这个国家及其生活之中。 Rut I see its values now pervading this nation and its life. 认为快速思维和快餐食品一样影响着生活节奏很快、性情急躁的公众,这已成了时髦的看法。 It has become fashionable to think that, like fast food, fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving, impatient public. 在新闻方面,我认为这种做法不能进行很好的交流。 In the case of news, this practice, in my view, results in inefficient communication. 我怀疑电视每晚的新闻节目真正能够被人吸收和理解的有多少。 I question how much of television's nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable. 其中许多被形象地描述为“机关枪不连贯地点射”。 Much of it is what has been aptly described as “machine-gunning with scraps.” 我认为这种技术是与连贯性作对的。 I think the technique fights coherence. 我认为它最终会使事情变得枯燥乏味、无足轻重(除非伴以恐怖的画面),因为任何一件事,如果你对它几乎一无所知,那么它差不多总会是枯燥乏味、使人觉得无足轻重的。 I think it tends to make things ultimately boring and dismissible (unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures) because almost anything is boring and dismissible if you know almost nothing about it. 我认为,电视迎合观众注意力跨度短的做法不仅会造成交流不畅,而且还会降低文化水平。 I believe that TV's appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well. 想一想电视要达到的那些极不慎重的原则吧:必须避免复杂性,用视觉刺激来代替思考,语言的精确早已是不合时宜的要求。 Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate: that complexity must be avoided, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that verbal precision is an anachronism. 它可能已过时,但我所受的教育告诉我思想就是语言,是按准确的语法规则组织起来的。 It may be old-fashioned, but I was taught that thought is words, arranged in grammatically precise 在美国存在着读写能力的危机。 There is a crisis of literacy in this country. 据一项研究估计,约有3000万美国成年人是“功能性文盲”。他们的读写能力无法回答招聘广告,或读懂药瓶上的说明。 One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are “functionally illiterate” and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle. 能读写可能算不上是一项不可剥夺的人权,但是我们学识渊博的开国元勋们并不感到它是不合理的或者甚至是达不到的。 Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have found unreasonable or even unattainable. 从统计数字上看,我们的国家不仅未达到人人能读写的程度,而且离这一目标越来越远。 We are not only not attaining it as a nation, statistically speaking, but we are falling further and further short of attaining it. 尽管我不会天真到认为电视是造成这一情况的原因,但我却相信它起了一定的作用,是有影响的。 And, white I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that television is the cause, 1 believe it contributes and is an influence. 美国的一切:社会结构、家庭组织形式、经济、在世界上的地位,都变得更为复杂,而不是相反。 Everything about this nation —the structure of the society, its forms of family organization, its economy, its place in the world— has become more complex, not less. 然而其占主导地位的传播媒介,全国联系的主要方式,却在人类存在的问题上推销简单的解决方式,而这些问题通常是没有简单的解决方式的。 Yet its dominating communications instrument, its principal form of national linkage, is one that sells neat resolutions to human problems that usually have no neat resolutions. 在我的心目中,那30秒钟一个的商业广告:一位家庭主妇因选对了牙膏而感到幸福的那小小的戏剧性场面就是这一切的象征。电视已使这极其成功的艺术形式成为我们文化不可缺少的一个部分了。 It is all symbolized in my mind by the hugely successful art form that television has made central to the culture,the 30-second commercial: the tiny drama of the earnest housewife who finds happiness in choosing the right toothpaste. 在人类历,几时曾有这样多的人共同把自己这样多的业余时间奉送给一件玩具,一项大众娱乐? When before in human history has so much humanity collectively surrendered so much of its leisure to one toy, one mass diversion? 几时曾有一个国家使自己整个地置于商品推销媒介的摆布之下? When before has virtually an entire nation surrendered itself whole-sale to a medium for selling? 几年前,耶鲁大学的法学教授小查尔斯?L?布莱克写道:“……被喂食本身并不是件琐碎小事。” Some years ago Yale University law professor Charles L. Black. Jr.,wrote:“…… forced feeding on trivial fare is not itself a trivial matter-” 我认为我们这个社会正在强行被喂食。 I think this society is being forced-fed with trivial fare, 我担心这一做法对我们的思维习惯,对我们的语言、我们努力的极限度及对复杂情况的兴趣等方面所造成的影响,这一点我们还只是极模糊地意识到。 and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind, our language, our tolerance for effort, and our appetite for complexity are only dimly perceived. 就算我的看法不对,用怀疑和批判的眼光来分析这个问题,来考虑如何抵制它,也不会有任何害处。 If I am wrong, we will have done no harm to look at the issue skeptically and critically,to consider how we should be resisting it. I hope you will join with me in doing so.

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