英汉翻译与评论

英汉翻译与评论：Learning a Language

穆淼淼

（阜阳职业技术学院外语系09级英语教育4班）

Original：

When we talk about learning a language like English, Japanese or Spanish, we speak and think as though the language in question were a fixed unchanging thing. W e expect to learn it as we learned geometry or how to ride a bicycle－systematically, and with clear ultimate success. Many people subsequently give up when they discover just what a misconception this is. They have in fact embarked on an activity that could last the rest of their lives. The experience makes them realize that they are not only going to have to work very hard indeed if they want to succeed, but also that they are －in many cases－barely masters of the language they call their own “mother tongue”.

Studying any language is, in fact, an endless voyage. Each of the thousands of language currently used in the world is a complex affair. Many language do have a standard form－particularly on paper －and this is what we learn, but they probably also have a variety of regional dialects and social styles, and many are the products of the historical mingling of other language. The English language is just such a hybrid. It began its career just under two thousand years ago as a form of ancient German, collided with a special kind of old French, was subjected to several waves of Latin and a flood of Greek, and since then has acquired bits and a flood of Greek, and since then has acquired bits and pieces of every other language that its users have ever been in contact with.

A second common misconception about language is that words have fixed and clear meanings. This is－f ortunately or unfortunately－far from true. Take even the apparently simple and specific English word man .It seems clear enough; it refers to “an adult male human being”. Of course it does, but just consider for a moment the following sentences：1)There are several men missing in that chess set. 2) The boat was manned entirely by women and children.

Y ou might argue that these sentences are somewhat unnatural; certainly, they do not represent the everyday core meaning of the word man. They are, however, legitimate extensions of that core meaning, the second being especially interesting because it is a verb and not a noun, and suggests that we expect adult male human being to serve as the crew of ships, not women and certainly not children Part of the pleasure and genius of language may well arise out of this slight “misuse”of words. After all, if you call a person a cat or a cabbage, no literal identification is intended, but a great deal of meaning is nevertheless conveyed.

A third misconception about language claims that every language is－or should be－eq ually used and understood by all its practitioners everywhere.Certanly, users of the standard forms of English in the United Kingdom generally understand their equivalents in the United States; the degree of similarity between these two major forms of English is great . Dialect-users in these countries, however, have serious problems understanding each other, to the extent that they may wonder if they are actually using the same languages. Someone from Brooklyn, New Y ork, will have trouble with a Cockney from London; an old-style British Army colonel won’t do well in discussions with a Californian flower-boy. Y et they all belong within the vast community of 20th century W ord English.

(选自高等教育出版社《综合英语教程3》Unit 5)