剑桥雅思阅读4原文参考译文(test3)

2022-06-04 14:08:57

        剑桥雅思系列真题是剑桥大学考试委员会外语考试部出版各类考试真题的唯一官方出版社出版的权威教材,书中包含最新的雅思全真试题资料,是各类雅思考生备考过程中必不可少的参考书。非常适合学生自学的习题解答和听力录音文本。

  Passage1

  参考译文

  Micro-Enterprise Credit for Street Youth

  流浪儿童的小型企业贷款

  ‘I am from a large, poor family and for many years we have done without breakfast. Ever since I joined the Street Kids International program I have been able to buy my family sugar and buns for breakfast. I have also bought myself decent second-hand clothes and shoes.’

  Doreen Soko

  “我来自一个贫困的大家庭。我们已经很多年没吃过早餐了。自从加人了国际流浪儿童组织,早饭我们就吃得起糖和面包了。我还给自己买了体面的二手服装和二手鞋子。”

  DOREEN SOKO

  ‘We’ve had business experience. Now I’m confident to expand what we’ve been doing. I’ve learnt cash management, and the way of keeping money so we save for re-investment. Now business is a part of our lives. As well, we didn’t know each other before — now we’ve made new friends.’

  Fan Kaoma

  “我们有经商的经验。现在我非常有信心扩大我的生意。我学过现金管理以及节省开支的方法,所以现在存了些钱进行再投资。生意已经成了我生活的一部分。还有,以前我们素不相识——现在,我们已经交到了很多新朋友。”

  FAN KAOMA

  Participants in the Youth Skills Enterprise Initiative Program, Zambia

  赞比亚青年创业计划的参与人

  Introduction

  Although small-scale business training and credit programs have become more common throughout the world, relatively little attention has been paid to the need to direct such opportunities to young people. Even less attention has been paid to children living on the street or in difficult circumstances.

  简介

  尽管在世界范围内,小型企业培训及贷款计划已经越来越普遍,然而相对而言,很少有人注意到年轻人也需要获得这样的机会。更少的人会去留意那些无家可归或家境贫困的孩子。

  Over the past nine years, Street Kids International (S.K.I.) has been working with partner organisations in Africa, Latin America and India to support the economic lives of street children. The purpose of this paper is to share some of the lessons S.K.I. and our partners have learned.

  在过去的九年里,国际流浪儿童组织已经与非洲、拉丁美洲以及印度的伙伴组织进行合作,来改善流浪儿童的经济状况。此文的目的主要是为了和大家分享一下他们所总结的经验教训。

  Background

  Typically, children do not end up on the streets due to a single cause, but to a combination of factors: a dearth of adequately funded schools, the demand for income at home, family breakdown and violence. The street may be attractive to children as a place to find adventurous play and money. However, it is also a place where some children are exposed, with little or no protection, to exploitative employment, urban crime, and abuse.

  背景

  通常来讲,儿童流离失所并非由某个原因造成,而是若干因素综合所致:比如缺乏拥有足够资金的学校,家里等着用钱,父母离异以及家庭暴力等。对于孩子来讲,街道可能是个令人着迷的地方,充满了冒险游戏和赚钱机会。然而,由于缺乏或根本没有保护,有些孩子在那里遭到剥削,遭遇暴力事件甚至虐待。

  Children who work on the streets are generally involved in unskilled, labour-intensive tasks which require long hours, such as shining shoes, carrying goods, guarding or washing cars, and informal trading. Some may also earn income through begging, or through theft and other illegal activities. At the same time, there are street children who take pride in supporting themselves and their families and who often enjoy their work. Many children may choose entrepreneurship because it allows them a degree of independence, is less exploitative than many forms of paid employment, and is flexible enough to allow them to participate in other activities such as education and domestic tasks.

  在街头工作的孩子们通常都是从事一些无需技术但工作时间超长的劳动力密集型工作,比如擦鞋,搬运货物、门童或冼车,以及不正规交易。有些孩子甚至通过乞讨或干盗窃等非法勾当来赚钱。同时,也有些流浪儿童以能够养活自己和家人而自豪,而且他们很喜欢所做的工作。许多孩子会选择做生意是因为那可以使他们相对独立一些,而且做生意也比做其他许多有偿工作要少受一些压榨;生意的灵活性还使他们有时间去参与其他活动,比如上学或是做家务。

  Street Business Partnerships

  流浪儿童就业互助计划

  S.K.I. has worked with partner organisations in Latin America, Africa and India to develop innovative opportunities for street children to earn income.

  国际流浪儿童组织与拉丁美洲、非洲及印度的伙伴组织合作,开发了让流浪儿童赚钱的新机会。

  ? The S.K.I. Bicycle Courier Service first started in the Sudan. Participants in this enterprise were supplied with bicycles, which they used to deliver parcels and messages, and which they were required to pay for gradually from their wages. A similar program was taken up in Bangalore, India.

  ?国际流浪儿童组织速递服务首先在苏丹展开。这项计划为参与者提供自行车用以递送包裹或信件,买自行车的钱会从参与者的工资中一点一点扣除。在印度的班加罗尔,一项类似的计划也已经展开。

  ? Another successful project, The Shoe Shine Collective, was a partnership program with the Y.W.C.A. in the Dominican Republic. In this project, participants were lent money to purchase shoe shine boxes. They were also given a safe place to store their equipment, and facilities for individual savings plans.

  ?在多米尼加共和国,一项与基督教女青年会合作,名为擦鞋合作社的计划也已经成功展开。这项计划借钱给参与者购买擦鞋箱,还给他们提供一个安全的地方来放置擦鞋工具,同时还提供了供他们存钱的设备。

  ? The Youth Skills Enterprise Initiative in Zambia is a joint program with the Red Cross Society and the Y.W.C.A. Street youths are supported to start their own small business through business training, life skills training and access to credit.

  ?赞比亚的青年创业计划是与红十字协会以及基督教女青年会合办的项自。通过商务培训、生存技能训练以及提供贷款机会等方式,该项目的参与者得以开办自己的小生意。

  Lessons learned

  The following lessons have emerged from the programs that S.K.I. and partner organisations have created.

  经验教训

  在国际流浪儿童组织的计划实施过程中,出现了下列教训:

  ? Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, nor for every street child. Ideally, potential participants will have been involved in the organisation’s programs for at least six months, and trust and relationship-building will have already been established.

  ?不是每个人都是做生意的料,流浪儿童也一样。理想状态下,孩子们至少应该参与计划六个月以上,这样双方之间可以建立起信任关系。

  ? The involvement of the participants has been essential to the development of relevant programs. When children have had a major role in determining procedures, they are more likely to abide by and enforce them.

  ?参与者的投入对于建立相关计划十分重要。如果孩子们在制定规程过程中起到关键作用,他们就更可能去遵守并执行这些规定。

  ? It is critical for all loans to be linked to training programs that include the development of basic business and life skills.

  ?关键是所有的贷款都要与培训计划眹系起来,培训计划应该包括基本商业技能及生存技能的开发。

  ? There are tremendous advantages to involving parents or guardians in the program, where such relationships exist. Home visits allow staff the opportunity to know where the participants live, and to understand more about each individual’s situation.

  ?如果条件允许的话,容许家长或监护人参与计划是十分有好处的。家访使工作人员有机会知晓孩子们的住址,并且可以更好地了解每个人所处的环境。

  ? Small loans are provided initially for purchasing fixed assets such as bicycles, shoe shine kits and basic building materials for a market stall. As the entrepreneurs gain experience, the enterprises can be gradually expanded and consideration can be given to increasing loan amounts. The loan amounts in S.K.I. programs have generally ranged from US$30-$100.

  ?开始的时候应该给孩子们提供一些小额贷款,以便他们购买如自行车、擦鞋设备以及市场摊位的原材料等固定资产。当从业者有了经验之后,就可以考虑扩大生意规模,并且考虑提髙贷款金额。国际流浪儿童组织计划中的贷款额度通常在30到100美元不等。

  ? All S.K.I. programs have charged interest on the loans, primarily to get the entrepreneurs used to the concept of paying interest on borrowed money. Generally the rates have been modest (lower than bank rates).

  ?国际流浪儿童组织所有的计划都会对贷款收取利息。这样做的主要目的是使贷款人习惯为借来的钱支付利息。通常来讲,这种利息都很低(一般低于银行利率)。

  Conclusion

  There is a need to recognise the importance of access to credit for impoverished young people seeking to fulfil economic needs. The provision of small loans to support the entrepreneurial dreams and ambitions of youth can be an effective means to help them change their lives. However, we believe that credit must be extended in association with other types of support that help participants develop critical life skills as well as productive businesses.

  结论

  我们需要认识到,为贫困的年轻人提供贷款以满足他们的经济需求是十分重要的。通过提供小额贷款,实现年轻人的经商梦,是帮助他们改变人生的有效途径。然而,我们认为贷款必须与其他形式的援助一起开展,才能帮助年轻人在生意兴隆的同时,发展出其他关键的生存技巧。

  Passage2

  参考译文

  Volcanoes-earth-shattering news

  When Mount Pinatubo suddenly erupted on 9 June 1991, the power of volcanoes past and present again hit the headlines.

  火山——惊天动地大消息

  1991年6月9日,Pinatubo火山突然爆发,结果,有关过去和现在火山爆发威力的文: 章再度登上了报纸的头版。

  A Volcanoes are the ultimate earth-moving machinery. A violent eruption can blow the top few kilometres off a mountain, scatter fine ash practically all over the globe and hurl rock fragments into the stratosphere to darken the skies a continent away.

  A火山就是终极“移山倒海”的机器。一次猛烈的喷发可以把一座山的山头轰掉几千米,将细灰几乎洒遍全世界,把岩石碎片抛进平流层,遮蔽整个大洲的天空。

  But the classic eruption — cone-shaped mountain, big bang, mushroom cloud and surges of molten lava — is only a tiny part of a global story. Volcanism, the name given to volcanic processes, really has shaped the world. Eruptions have rifted continents, raised mountain chains, constructed islands and shaped the topography of the earth. The entire ocean floor has a basement of volcanic basalt.

  然而,这种典型的喷发——锥形山体,轰隆巨响,蘑菇云升起,熔岩喷涌——只是长篇故事中的一小章。火山作用,这个由火山活动而来的名词,的确塑造了我们的世界。火山喷发撕裂大陆,举起山脉,构筑岛屿,最终造就了整个世界地形。五大洋的海底基岩就是火山喷发形成的玄武岩。

  Volcanoes have not only made the continents, they are also thought to have made the world’s first stable atmosphere and provided all the water for the oceans, rivers and ice-caps. There are now about 600 active volcanoes. Every year they add two or three cubic kilometres of rock to the continents. Imagine a similar number of volcanoes smoking away for the last 3,500 million years. That is enough rock to explain the continental crust.

  火山不仅造就了大陆,也许还造就了地球上第一个稳定的大气层,并且为大洋、河流以及冰川提供了水资源。现在全球有600多座活火山。这些火山每年都要为地球增加两、三立方公里的岩石。想像一下,过去3,500年中这600多座火山一直在喷发,这些岩石就足够解释地壳是如何形成的了。

  What comes out of volcanic craters is mostly gas. More than 90% of this gas is water vapour from the deep earth: enough to explain, over 3,500 million years, the water in the oceans. The rest of the gas is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane, ammonia and hydrogen. The quantity of these gases, again multiplied over 3,500 million years, is enough to explain the mass of the world’s atmosphere. We are alive because volcanoes provided the soil, air and water we need.

  从火山口喷发出来的主要是气体。其中有90%是来自地心深处的水蒸气:火山一连喷发了3,500年,这就足够解释大洋中的水是从哪里来的了。其余气体有氮气、二氧化碳、二氧化硫、甲烷、氨气以及氢气。同样经过了3,500年的积累,这些气体的量就足以解释大气层之“大”了。我们能活着,正是因为火山提供了我们需要的土壤、空气和水。

  B Geologists consider the earth as having a molten core, surrounded by a semi-molten mantle and a brittle, outer skin. It helps to think of a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk, a firm but squishy white and a hard shell. If the shell is even slightly cracked during boiling, the white material bubbles out and sets like a tiny mountain chain over the crack — like an archipelago of volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian Islands. But the earth is so much bigger and the mantle below is so much hotter.

  B地质学家认为地球有一个熔化的核心,周围是半熔化的地幔,外边是一层脆脆的外皮。想像一个半熟的鸡蛋会有些帮助——流淌的蛋黄,坚实但又黏稠的蛋清,还有一层坚硬的蛋壳。在煮的时候,蛋壳只要有一点点开裂,蛋淸就会噗噗地冒出来,在裂缝周围形成一座小小的山脉——就像夏威夷群岛那样的火山群岛。只是地球大得多,里面的地幔也烫得多。

  Even though the mantle rocks are kept solid by overlying pressure, they can still slowly ‘flow’ like thick treacle. The flow, thought to be in the form of convection currents, is powerful enough to fracture the ‘eggshell’ of the crust into plates, and keep them bumping and grinding against each other, or even overlapping, at the rate of a few centimetres a year. These fracture zones, where the collisions occur, are where earthquakes happen. And, very often, volcanoes.

  尽管在上层压力下地幔是固态的,但是它们仍然可以像蜜糖一样“流淌”。这种流动据信是以对流形式进行的,力量足以使地壳这“蛋壳”破裂成板块,并且使这些板块互相碰撞摩擦,甚至使它们以一年数厘米的速度互相重叠。这些破碎的地方正是碰撞发生的地方,也是地震发生之处,通常也是火山出现的地方。

  C These zones are lines of weakness, or hot spots. Every eruption is different, but put at its simplest, where there are weaknesses, rocks deep in the mantle, heated to 1,350℃, will start to expand and rise. As they do so, the pressure drops, and they expand and become liquid and rise more swiftly.

  C这些区域正是脆质带,也就是地震多发区。每次喷发都不尽相同,但是简而言之,在脆弱的地方,地幔深处的岩石被加热到1,350摄氏度,并开始膨胀上升。当地幔变化的时候,压力就会减小,因此地幔就开始膨胀并变成液体,然后迅速上涨。

  Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma — molten rock from the mantle — inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England). Sometimes — as in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Karoo in South Africa — the magma rose faster, and then flowed out horizontally on to the surface in vast thick sheets. In the Deccan plateau in western India, there are more than two million cubic kilometres of lava, some of it 2,400 metres thick, formed over 500,000 years of slurping eruption.

  有时候喷发很慢:岩浆——地幔中熔化的岩石——的巨大气泡慢慢接近地表,慢慢变冷,最后作为花岗岩突起显露出来。(在斯凯岛和大玄武岩山,熔岩堤坝像牙膏一样挤出来,延伸成为英格兰北部哈德良长城的一部分。)有时候——比如在北爱尔兰,威尔士以及南非的干旱台地卡鲁——岩浆上升得很快,然后以大厚块的形式水平地涌上地面。在印度西部的德千髙原,经过超过50万年咕嘟咕嘟的火山喷发,积累了超过200万立方公里的熔岩,其中有些厚达2,400米。

  Sometimes the magma moves very swiftly indeed. It does not have time to cool as it surges upwards. The gases trapped inside the boiling rock expand suddenly, the lava glows with heat, it begins to froth, and it explodes with tremendous force. Then the slightly cooler lava following it begins to flow over the lip of the crater. It happens on Mars, it happened on the moon, it even happens on some of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus. By studying the evidence, vulcanologists can read the force of the great blasts of the past. Is the pumice light and full of holes? The explosion was tremendous. Are the rocks heavy, with huge crystalline basalt shapes, like the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland? It was a slow, gentle eruption.

  有时候岩浆移动得十分迅速。在向上喷涌的过程中没有时间冷却。沸腾的岩石中所包含的气体突然膨胀,熔岩因为受热而闪闪发光,岩浆开始冒泡,接着以巨大的力量爆发。然后,下面稍微凉一点的熔岩开始漫出火山口。这种情形曾经发生在火星上,也曾经发生在月球上,甚至在木星和天王星的卫星上也曾经出现过。通过研究这些证据,火山学家们得以了解过去大喷发的威力。轻石是不是很轻并且充满孔洞?其喷发的力量是巨大的。岩石是否很重,是否像北爱尔兰巨人堤一样,有着巨大的结晶玄武岩形状?那就是一场缓慢,温和的喷发。

  The biggest eruptions are deep on the mid-ocean floor, where new lava is forcing the continents apart and widening the Atlantic by perhaps five centimetres a year. Look at maps of volcanoes, earthquakes and island chains like the Philippines and Japan, and you can see the rough outlines of what are called tectonic plates — the plates which make up the earth’s crust and mantle. The most dramatic of these is the Pacific ‘ring of fire’ where there have been the most violent explosions — Mount Pinatubo near Manila, Mount St Helen’s in the Rockies and El Chichón in Mexico about a decade ago, not to mention world-shaking blasts like Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits in 1883.

  最剧烈的喷发发生在大洋中间深深的海底,新的熔岩将大陆撕开,每年将大西洋加宽五厘米。观察一下火山、地震和像菲律宾和日本这样的群岛,你就会看到被称为地壳板块的大致轮廓——地壳板块组成了地球的地壳和地幔。这其中最明显的例子就是太平洋上的“火环”,那里曾经发生过最剧烈的喷发——马尼拉附近的Pinatubo喷发,洛基山脉中的圣海伦山喷发,还有十年前的墨西哥EI Chichón山喷发,更不用提1883年苏丹海峡喀拉喀托山震惊世界的喷发。

  D But volcanoes are not very predictable. That is because geological time is not like human time. During quiet periods, volcanoes cap themselves with their own lava by forming a powerful cone from the molten rocks slopping over the rim of the crater; later the lava cools slowly into a huge, hard, stable plug which blocks any further eruption until the pressure below becomes irresistible. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, this took 600 years.

  D然而火山喷发并不总是能被预测,那是因为地质时间与人类时间不同。在休眠期,火山用熔岩将自己盖起来,用溢出火山口的熔岩形成坚硬的锥型体,随后熔岩慢慢冷却成为又大又哽,稳固的岩颈,岩颈会阻止进一步的喷发,直到压力大到无法抵挡为止。拿Pinatubo山为例,这个过程花了600年。

  Then, sometimes, with only a small warning, the mountain blows its top. It did this at Mont Pelée in Martinique at 7.49 a.m. on 8 May, 1902. Of a town of 28,000, only two people survived. In 1815, a sudden blast removed the top 1,280 metres of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The eruption was so fierce that dust thrown into the stratosphere darkened the skies, cancelling the following summer in Europe and North America. Thousands starved as the harvests failed, after snow in June and frosts in August. Volcanoes are potentially world news, especially the quiet ones.

  然而,有时候,只有一个小小的征兆,火山就喷发了。1902年5月8日早上7点49分,Martinique的Pelée山爆发了。28,000人的城镇,只有两人幸存。在1815年,一次突然喷发炸掉了印度尼西亚的Tambora山1,280米的山顶。那次喷发如此剧烈,以至于喷进平流层的火山灰遮蔽了天空,使得欧洲和美洲直接进人秋季。六月下雪,八月上霜,粮食因此而歉收,上千人忍饥挨饿,火山,尤其是那些安静的火山,是潜在的世界新闻。

  Passage3

  参考译文

  Obtaining Linguistic Data

  获得语言资料

  A Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection about one’s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.

  A我们有很多种可以用来获得语言资料的方式。这些方法既可以是精心准备,深入细致的国外实地调査,也可以是在自家摇椅上进行的,对母语的一次不经意的反思。

  B In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data — an informant. Informants are (ideally) native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other kinds of information about the language (e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or judgements on usage). Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own informants, judging the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against their own intuitions. The convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is considered the norm in the generative approach to linguistics. But a linguist’s personal judgements are often uncertain, or disagree with the judgements of other linguists, at which point recourse is needed to more objective methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as informants. The latter procedure is unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.

  B无论用何种方式,总有人要充当语言资料的来源——这个人就叫做资料提供者。资料提供者(理想状态下)应该是以该语言为母语的人,他可以提供做分析之用的语句,还可以给出有关该语言的其他信息(如翻译,正误评判,用法判断等)。在研究本国语言时,语言学家本人往往充当资料提供者一角,比照他们的直觉,来对语句的歧义现象、可接受度及其他特性加以评判。这种方法因其便利性而被广泛使用,而且还被看作是生成式语言研究方式的规范。然而,一名语言学家的个人判断通常要么是不确定的,要么就与其他语言学家的意见相左,此时就需要求助于更为客观的提问方式,让语言学家本人以外的人来充当资料提供者。

  C Many factors must be considered when selecting informants — whether one is working with single speakers (a common situation when languages have not been described before), two people interacting, small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind of language used. The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting (e.g. the level of formality) are also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the informants (e.g. their fluency and consistency). For larger studies, scrupulous attention has been paid to the sampling theory employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made about the best investigative techniques to use.

  C在研究外语及儿童语言的时候,第二种方式是不可避免的在选择资料提供人的时候要考虑多种因素——你面对的是单个说话人(当语言从未被描述过的时候出现的通常状况),还是两个人互动;是小组还是大规模的样本。年龄、性别、社会背景以及身份的其他方面都很重要,因为据信这些因素会影响使用语言的类别。对话的话题和社交场合的特征(比如正式程度)也极其相关;同样,资料提供者的个人资质(比如语言流畅度和连贯性)也十分重要。对于较大规模的研究来说,要对所采用的抽样方式一丝不苟,而且无论在什么情况下,都要决定采用最好的调查技术。

  D Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist’s claims about the language to be checked, and provides a way of making those claims more accurate (‘difficult’ pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly). But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being recorded, and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimise the ‘observer’s paradox’ (how to observe the way people behave when they are not being observed). Some recordings are made without the speakers being aware of the fact — a procedure that obtains very natural data, though ethical objections must be anticipated. Alternatively, attempts can be made to make the speaker forget about the recording, such as keeping the tape recorder out of sight, or using radio microphones. A useful technique is to introduce a topic that quickly involves the speaker, and stimulates a natural language style (e.g. asking older informants about how times have changed in their locality).

  D如今,语言研究者通常都会为资料提供人录音。这就使语言学家针对这些语言的某些论断变得可以接受检查,并且还能提供一种使这些观点更为精确的方式(反复听“难”懂的语言)。但是想要获得自然的,高质量的资料可没那么容易。当得知被录音的时候,人们说话的方式就不同了,而且音质可以很差。因此,一系列的录音方式就被设计出来以便尽可能地解除研究者的矛盾(如何能够观察人们的行为方式又不让他们知道正在被观察)。有时候,说话人是在毫不知情的情况下被录音的——这一方式可以获得极自然的材料,但是道德方面的反对意见也是预料之中的事。另外,也可以尝试让说话人忘记录音这回事,比如把录音机藏起来,或是使用无线麦克风。还有一种管用的方式,就是提出一个说话人能够迅速融入的话题,从而激发一种自然的语言风格(比如询问年长的资料提供者:在他们的家乡,时代是如何变迁的)。

  E An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist’s problems, however. Speech is often unclear and ambiguous. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be supplemented by the observer’s written comments on the non-verbal behaviour of the participants, and about the context in general. A facial expression, for example, can dramatically alter the meaning of what is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a large extent, but even they have limitations (the camera cannot be everywhere), and transcriptions always benefit from any additional commentary provided by an observer.

  E然而,磁带录音的方式并不能够解决语言学家面临的所有问题。讲话通常又不清楚,又有歧义。因此,如果可能的话,要对参与者的非语言行为以及整体语境做出书面评述,作为对录音的补充。例如,一个面部表情就可以彻底改变一句话的意思。在很大情况下,可以用录像方式避免这样的问题,但是就算是这个方式也存在局限性(摄像机不可能安得到处都是),而且文字誊本总是要得益于观察者另外提供的注解。

  F Linguists also make great use of structured sessions, in which they systematically ask their informants for utterances that describe certain actions, objects or behaviours. With a bilingual informant, or through use of an interpreter, it is possible to use translation techniques (‘How do you say table in your language?’). A large number of points can be covered in a short time, using interview worksheets and questionnaires. Often, the researcher wishes to obtain information about just a single variable, in which case a restricted set of questions may be used: a particular feature of pronunciation, for example, can be elicited by asking the informant to say a restricted set of words. There are also several direct methods of elicitation, such as asking informants to fill in the blanks in a substitution frame (e.g. I___ see a car), or feeding them the wrong stimulus for correction (‘Is it possible to say I no can see?’).

  F语言学家还需要大量使用结构化会议,当中他们系统地要求资料提供者说出有关某种动作、物体及行为的语句。如果资料提供者是说双语的,或者通过翻译的帮助,我们就有可能用到翻译技巧(比如你们怎么说桌子这个词)。通过使用面试表格和调查问卷,我们能够在很短的时间里覆盖大量的知识点。通常,研究者只想获得有关某个语言变项的信息,在这种情况下,就必须使用一套严格设置好的问题:比如说,发音上的某个特殊规则,可以用要求资料提供者读出一组严格设定的单词的方法引出来。我们还有几种直接的诱导方式,比如让资料提供人填写替换表中的空格(比如:我__看到一辆汽车),或者给他们做改错练习(“能不能说我能不看到?”)。

  G A representative sample of language, compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is known as a corpus. A corpus enables the linguist to make unbiased statements about frequency of usage, and it provides accessible data for the use of different researchers. Its range and size are variable. Some corpora attempt to cover the language as a whole, taking extracts from many kinds of text; others are extremely selective, providing a collection of material that deals only with a particular linguistic feature. The size of the corpus depends on practical factors, such as the time available to collect, process and store the data: it can take up to several hours to provide an accurate transcription of a few minutes of speech. Sometimes a small sample of data will be enough to decide a linguistic hypothesis; by contrast, corpora in major research projects can total millions of words. An important principle is that all corpora, whatever their size, are inevitably limited in their coverage, and always need to be supplemented by data derived from the intuitions of native speakers of the language, through either introspection or experimentation.

  G为了语言分析而被编纂起来的语言代表样本被叫做语料库。语料库使得语言学家能够对一种用法的频率加以客观陈述,而且还可以为其他的研究者所用。语料库的范围和规模是各不相同的。有些语料库试图将语言作为一个整体来研究,从不同类型的文章中节选材料;其他的则十分挑剔,只提供针对某个特殊语言现象的一组材料。语料库的大小是由实践因素决定的,比如说可以用来搜集、处理、存储资料的时间:要想为几分钟的演讲做一个精确的原文,可能要花上数小时的时间。有时候,个小资料样本就足以证明一种语言学假说。相反地,重大研究项目的语料库加起来足有上百万字。一个重要的原则是,无论大小,所有的语料库在覆盖面上都不可避免地存在局限性,因此,它们总是需要通过内省或实验的方式,被源自母语者直觉的资料补充。

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