2012年考研翻譯題及參考答案

Part C

Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)

Since the days of Aristotle, a search for universal principles has characterized the scientific enterprise. In some ways, this quest for commonalities defines science. Newton’s laws of motion and Darwinian evolution each bind a host of different phenomena into a single explicatory frame work.

(46) In physics, one approach takes this impulse for unification to its extreme, and seeks a theory of everything—a single generative equation for all we see. It is becoming less clear, however, that such a theory would be a simplification, given the dimensions and universes that it might entail, nonetheless, unification of sorts remains a major goal.

This tendency in the natural sciences has long been evident in the social sciences too. (47) Here, Darwinism seems to offer justification for it all humans share common origins it seems reasonable to suppose that cultural diversity could also be traced to more constrained beginnings. Just as the bewildering variety of human courtship rituals might all be considered forms of sexual selection, perhaps the world’s languages, music, social and religious customs and even history are governed by universal features. (48) To filter out what is unique from what is shared might enable us to understand how complex cultural behavior arose and what guides it in evolutionary or cognitive terms.

That, at least, is the hope. But a comparative study of linguistic traits published online today supplies a reality check. Russell Gray at the University of Auckland and his colleagues consider the evolution of grammars in the light of two previous attempts to find universality in language.

The most famous of these efforts was initiated by Noam Chomsky, who suggested that humans are born with an innate language—acquisition capacity that dictates a universal grammar. A few generative rules are then sufficient to unfold the entire fundamental structure of a language, which is why children can learn it so quickly.

(49) The second, by Joshua Greenberg, takes a more empirical approach to universality identifying traits (particularly in word order) shared by many language which are considered to represent biases that result from cognitive constraints.

Gray and his colleagues have put them to the test by examining four family trees that between them represent more than 2,000 languages. (50) Chomsky’s grammar should show patterns of language change that are independent of the family tree or the pathway tracked through it. Whereas Greenbergian universality predicts strong co-dependencies between particular types of word-order relations. Neither of these patterns is borne out by the analysis, suggesting that the structures of the languages are lire age-specific and not governed by universals

【參考答案】

46. In physics, one approach takes this impulse for unification to its extreme, and seeks a theory of everything—a single generative equation for all we see

【參考譯文】物理學中的一個理論把這種歸一的沖動發(fā)揮到了極致，它探尋一種萬有理論——一個關于我們能看到的一切的生成方程式。

47. Here, Darwinism seems to offer justification for it all humans share common origins it seems reasonable to suppose that cultural diversity could also be traced to more constrained beginnings.

【參考譯文】在這里，達爾文主義似乎提供了有力的理由，因為如果全人類有共同的起源，那么假設文化差異也能夠追溯到更有限的源頭好像就是合理的了。

48. To filter out what is unique from what is shared might enable us to understand how complex cultural behavior arose and what guides it in evolutionary or cognitive terms.

【參考譯文】把差異性和獨特性從共性中過濾出來也許能讓我們理解復雜的文化行為是如何產(chǎn)生的，是什么從進化或認知領域指導著它。

49. The second, by Joshua Greenberg, takes a more empirical approach to universality identifying traits (particularly in word order) shared by many language which are considered to represent biases that result from cognitive constraints.

【參考譯文】約書亞格林伯格為尋找語言的共性而付出努力提出了第二種理論。他采用了一個更實用的共性理論，做法是辨認出眾多語言的共有特征(尤其是按照詞序排列)，這些特征被認為代表了由認知局限導致的偏差。

50. Chomsky’s grammar should show patterns of language change that are independent of the family tree or the pathway tracked through it. Whereas Greenbergian universality predicts strong co-dependencies between particular types of word-order relations.(www.hz123456.com)

【參考譯文】喬姆斯基生成語法應該表明語言變化的模式，這些模式獨立于族譜或貫穿其中的路徑，然而格林伯格的共性理論預測詞序關系的特殊類別之間(而不是其他)有著強烈的共存性。