2005年 Text 4
①Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. ②Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. ③In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of language and Music and Why We Should Like, Care, John McWhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees the triumph of 1960s counter-culture as responsible for the decline of formal English.
①美国人不再期待公众人物在演讲或写作中能运用技巧和文采来驾驭英语，②而公众人物自己也不渴望这样。③语言学家麦荷特喜好争论，他的观点混杂着自由派与保守派的看法。在他最近的书《做我们自己的事：语言和音乐的退化，以及为什么我们应该喜欢或在意？》中，这位学者认为60年代反文化运动的胜利要对正式英语的退化负责。
①Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another criticism against the decline in education. ②Mr. McWhorter’s academic speciality is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of “whom”, for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss of the case-endings of Old English.
①责备放纵的六十年代不是什么新鲜事，但这次算不上是对教育衰落的又一场批判。②麦荷特先生的学术专长在于语言史和语言演变。举例来说，他认为“whom”一词的逐渐消失是自然的，并不比古英语中词格的消失更让人惋惜。
①But the cult of the authentic and the personal, “doing our own thing”, has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. ②While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. ③Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. ④In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft.
①然而，“做自己的事”这一对事物真实性和个人性的崇尚信条，已经导致了正式演讲、写作、诗歌及音乐的消亡。②在20世纪60年代以前，仅受过一般教育的人在下笔时都会寻求一种更高雅的腔调；而那之后，即使是最受关注的文章也想带上口语风格。③同样的，对于诗歌来说，非常个性化的和富有表现力的创作风格成为了能够表达真实生动含义的唯一形式。④无论作为口语还是书面语言的英语，随意言谈胜过了雅致的言辞，自我发挥也压过了精心准备。
①Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. ②But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like, care. ③As a linguist, he
acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive—there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. ④He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper.
①麦荷特先生从上层和下层中列举了一系列有趣的例子，从而说明他所记录的这种趋势是确凿无误的。②但就书中副标题中的疑问：为什么我们应该喜欢或在意，答案却不够明确。③作为语言学家，麦荷特认为各种各样的人类语言，包括像黑人英语这样的非标准语言，都具有强大的表达力——世上没有传达不了复杂思想的语言或方言。③不像其他大多数人，麦荷特先生并不认为我们说话方式不再规范就会使我们不能够准确地思考。
①Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old-fashioned to most English-speakers. ②Mr. McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms—he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful more than useful. ③We now take our English “on paper plates instead of china”. A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.
①俄罗斯人深爱自己的语言，并在脑海中存储了大量诗歌；而意大利的政客们则往往精心准备演讲，即使这在大多数讲英语的人们眼里已经过时。②麦荷特先生认为正式语言并非不可或缺，也没有提出要进行彻底的教育改革——他其实只是为那些美好事物而不是实用的东西的消逝而哀叹。③我们现在用“纸盘子”而非“瓷盘子”盛着我们的英语大餐。真是惭愧啊，但很可能已无法避免。
Q121-考研英语阅读-2005 text4 全文翻译
