04 The Degradation of English英語的退化

導讀

文章的主旨是美國人使用的英語逐漸變得相當隨意。這篇文章屬于一個對比性的文章，關鍵詞圍繞正式用語以及非正式用語里面的變化。開篇說的是什么導致英語的衰敗，使英語變得不是那么正式了。中間的部分說的是語言的變化是不可阻擋的。結尾講俄羅斯人對本國語言的維護是值得我們贊賞的。

Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. In 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.

Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another criticism against the decline in education. Mr. McWhorter's academic specialty is language history and change, and he sees gradual disappearance of“whom”, for example, to be natural and no more regrant table than the loss of the case-endings of Old English.

But the cult of the authentic and the personal, “doing our own thing”, has slept the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While 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. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft.

Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle,Why We Should Like, Care.As 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. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper.

Russians 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.Mr. 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. We now take our English“on paper plates instead of china”. A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.

Cloze

完形填空

Russians have a 1 love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized poetry in their heads; 2 Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old-fashioned 3 most English-speakers. Mr. McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms—he is really grieving 4 the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English “on paper plates 5 of china”. A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.

Key

1. deep 2. while 3. to 4. over 5. instead

Translation Practice

翻譯練習

Textual Translation（篇章翻譯）

麥荷特先生從上層和下層文化中列舉了一系列有趣的例子，從而說明他記錄的這種趨勢是確鑿無誤的。但就書中副標題中的疑問：為什么我們應該喜歡或在意，答案卻不夠明確。作為語言學家，麥荷特認為各種各樣的人類語言，包括像黑人語言這樣的非標準語言，都具有強大的表達力——世上沒有傳達不了復雜思想的語言或方言。不像其他大多數人，麥荷特先生并不認為我們說話方式不再規范就會使我們不能夠準確地思考。

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參考譯文

Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle,Why We Should Like,Care.As 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. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper.