第二学期翻译材料 (1)

1. 手机刷新了人与人的关系。会议室门口通常贴着一条通告：请与会者关闭手机。可是会议室里的手机铃声仍然响成一片。我们都是普通人，并没有多少重要的事情。尽管如此，我们也不会轻易关掉手机。打开手机象征我们与这个世界的联系。手机反映出我们的"社交饥渴症"。最为常见的是，一个人走着走着突然停下来，眼睛盯着手机屏幕发短信。他不在乎停在马路中央还是厕所旁边。

Few things have changed human relations as much as the cell phone has. It so happens that we often see a notice on a door to a conference room, "Please keep your cell phone off when a meeting is in session." We still, however, always hear the beeps resounding throughout the chamber. The prevalence of using the cell phone today reflects our "thirst for socialization" and symbolizes a connection between us and the outside world. We are therefore reluctant to turn it off, although few of us are VIPs, or those who have many urgencies to take immediate care of. So we often notice such a picture: a pedestrian, all of sudden, stops, his eyes fixed on the phone screen, to edit his messages, oblivious of all other things. Whether being on the road center or beside a toilet does not seem to bother him.

2. We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words of Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decide d only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all powerful to be impotent.”

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun

我们人类，正面临全球性的危机，我们的生存和文明受到威胁。尽管我们聚在一起共商对策，而灾难却在扩大，形式不容乐观。但也有令人欣喜的消息：如果行动大胆果断，反应迅速，我们有能力解决这场危机，避免其向最坏的方向发展。

但是，时下世界上的许多国家领导人可以用当年温斯顿·丘吉尔批评欧洲诸政要忽视阿道夫·希特勒的名言来形容，"它们在奇怪的悖论中前行，仅仅为一个决定而犹豫不决，有了决心却拖泥带水，信心犹疑不定，见解随波逐流，掌权者虚弱无力。"

而如今我们向这个星球脆弱的大气层倾倒超过七千万吨温室气体，把其当作天然排污口。明天我们还会变本加厉，堆积的温室气体吸纳了越来越多的太阳热度。

3. Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need training, however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird’s wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. From most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts. This predilection brings with it a clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, and avoid predators.

凡眼见于俏脸、鲜花，无人不觉赏心悦目。然而，要参透数学、物理或棋弈之美，欣赏树之有形、鸟之翼趣，乃至对长笛奏出的悠悠颤音心领神会，则必经专门训练方可体味。在人类大部历史上，这种训练就是学会如何观察，历来由长者教之于幼者。通过观察，人类学会去鉴赏天地万化之模式，从量子力学到百纳被无所不包。此痴情所至，亦使人类在进化过程中占尽先机，能辨万化之象，有助于先人们择偶、觅食，逃避猛兽。

4. 中华民族文化历史悠久，起源很早，内容极为丰富，是东方文明的主要组成部分，早在上古时期就已是人类文化的一个独立典型。在物质文化方面，中国的“四大发明”曾经改变世界历史的进程。在精神文明方面，“以人为本”的人格价值思想和“和为贵”的和平与发展的思想，对世界文化解决个人与社会、人与自然、道德与生命的根本关系做出了杰出的贡献。

As an important component of Oriental civilization, the Chinese culture is rich and well-established with a long history, distinguished from ancient times by its characteristics in human culture. With respect to its material culture, China’s “four inventions”, namely, gunpowder, printing, the compass and papermaking, have influenced the process of world history. With respect to ethical culture, t he ideas of “people come first” (for human dignity) and “harmony prevails over all”// “conciliation is invaluable” (for the peace and development) have made great contributions to the world’s culture, dealing well with the fundamental relationships between individuals and society, man and nature, and morality and life.

5. Women have often more of what is called good sense than men. They have fewer pretensions are less implicated in theories, and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally. They cannot reason wrong, for they do not reason at all. They do not think or speak by rule, and they have in general more eloquence and wit as well as sense, on that account. By their wit, sense, and eloquence together, they generally contrive to govern their husbands.

和男人相比，女人通常有更好的所谓直觉。她们很少自命不凡；她们也不大深究理论，她们判断事物更多地是从头脑中下意识的第一印象出发，因此她们的判断也就更真实和自然。她们不可能有推理错误，因为她们根本就不推理。她们思考或讲话时也不遵循什么规则；正因为如此，她们一般