GRE阅读短文系列翻译（请大家品评指点）

Seaguest wrote:

就在美洲殖民者为了维护他们的自由而拿起武器反抗大不列颠时，黑奴制度已经深深地扎下了根。 但对许多人来说，这种自相矛盾的局面令人羞愧不已。 Abigail Adams在1774年写信给她丈夫：“这对我来说总象是一桩极其邪恶的阴谋，我们为之而战的东西恰恰是我们天天都从别人那里劫掠的东西，而他们与我们一样有权获得自由。”

除了Abigail Adams，还有许多美国人为他们在独立战争中的立场不一而震惊，他们也愿意采取行动来解放奴隶。 贵格会信徒及其他宗教团体组成了废奴社团，与此同时，不计其数的个人释放了他们的奴隶。 事实上，在独立战争结束后的几年时间里，东部多数州已经做好了逐步解放奴隶的准备。

Wenjer Leuschel wrote:

Seaguest,

你這些翻譯都蠻不錯的。我有個小小建議：也許你可以找一些值得翻譯的英文典籍，和出版社商量，由你翻譯，縱使價錢不會很好，至少譯了可以賺些錢。以你的譯筆，如果找到一位好編輯幫你審修潤色，你喜歡的這些文本都對中國的思想啟發會有一定的貢獻。

祝你平安順利！

Wenjer

Seaguest wrote:

Wenjer前辈，您的这个建议恰恰是我一直梦寐以求的愿望。我很希望有一天能做专业的学术翻译，比如象严复先生或贺遴先生那样的学者型翻译家。但我总以为自己在学术方面造诣未深，不敢轻易着手。当然，如果有位学养深厚的编辑帮我审校译稿，那正是我求之不得的学习机会。

除了我对自身能力尚不自信外，还有其他一些问题：首先是内地的出版制度使得私人很难方便地购到海外新出的学术著作；另外人民币与外币的差价也使得国外的学术出版物对于一般中国消费者而言价格过于昂贵。由于社会上的人难得见到或购进中意的新版图书，也就无法与作者和出版社取得有效的联系，使得学术翻译在大陆往往只有大学或科研机构里的人才有机会问津。其次是国内的出版业者对于学术翻译不很热衷，也不愿意冒然引进年轻的翻译；宁可炒冷饭或启用学术名流来做翻译。第三是出版社的稿费极不合理，据我从内地网站上看到的，学术翻译的稿费最高也就是每千字60元人民币。如此轻贱译者，出版社和读者所能得到的译著质量就可想而知了。毕竟学术翻译类似于科学研究，译者除了要有对真理的热忱和历史责任感外，还需要摆脱生活上的困扰才能够倾注心力于翻译事业。目前大陆的学风轻薄、翻译作品质量低下其实都与各人面临着巨大的生存压力有很大关系。第四就是我个人没有与出版社打交道的经验，不知道如何才能使他们相信我的能力并愿意向我推荐作品。这里我很希望您能指点一二，您认为我应该如何向出版社推介自己并且使他们愿意尝试接受一位新人的翻译作品呢？谢谢您！

Seaguest wrote:

jyuan_us wrote:
经常收到大陆译书的邀请， 每千字30元人民币

Seaguest wrote:

In this respect, Wuthering Heights shares a feature of Hamlet.
在这方面，《呼啸山庄》与莎士比亚的《哈姆雷特》有着异曲同工之妙。

Seaguest wrote:

就在美洲殖民者为了维护他们的自由而拿起武器反抗大不列颠时，黑奴制度已经深深地扎下了根。 但对许多人来说，这种自相矛盾的局面令人羞愧不已。 Abigail Adams在1774年写信给她丈夫：“这对我来说总象是一桩极其邪恶的阴谋，我们为之而战的东西恰恰是我们天天都从别人那里劫掠的东西，而他们与我们一样有权获得自由。”

除了Abigail Adams，还有许多美国人为他们在独立战争中的立场不一而震惊，他们也愿意采取行动来解放奴隶。 贵格会信徒及其他宗教团体组成了废奴社团，与此同时，不计其数的个人释放了他们的奴隶。 事实上，在独立战争结束后的几年时间里，东部多数州已经做好了逐步解放奴隶的准备。



By the time the American colonists took up arms against Great Britain in order to secure their independence, the institution of Black slavery was deeply entrenched. But the contradiction inherent in this situation was, for many, a source of constant embarrassment. “It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me,” Abigail Adams wrote her husband in 1774, “to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”

Many Americans besides Abigail Adams were struck by the inconsistency of their stand during the War of Independence, and they were not averse to making moves to emancipate the slaves. Quakers and other religious groups organized antislavery societies, while numerous individuals manumitted their slaves. In fact, within several years of the end of the War of Independence, most of the Eastern states had made provisions for the gradual emancipation of slaves.





[Edited at 2005-10-25 07:25]

Seaguest wrote:

托克维尔明显错了。杰克逊时代的美国并非一个贵贱流变不居、贫富瞬间转换的平均主义社会。通过对1825年到1850年间美国极富阶层所作的另辟蹊径的研究，至少E.Pessen是如此认为的。

Pessen的确展示了大量的事例，并配上一些耳目一新、清楚明白的统计数据，来确证一个非常富有阶层的存在。这些人虽然在商业或事业上十分活跃，但其中的绝大多数并非白手起家，而是继承了家族的财产。这些巨额财富挺过了令财力不支者倾家荡产的金融危机而安然无恙。事实上，在几个城市里，那百分之一最富有人口的财产份额持续增长。以至于到1850年之前，社会一半的财富都归他们了。虽然这些事实无可质疑，但Pessen高估了它们的重要性，从而认定18世纪末期那股无疑会趋向不平等的发展势头在杰克逊时代依然延续，而美国即使是在工业化之前，也照样是一个阶级分化、被富豪统治的社会。



Tocqueville, apparently, was wrong. Jacksonian America was not a fluid, egalitarian society where individual wealth and poverty were ephemeral conditions. At least so argues E. Pessen in his iconoclastic study of the very rich in the United States between 1825 and 1850.

Pessen does present a quantity of examples, together with some refreshingly intelligible statistics, to establish the existence of an inordinately wealthy class. Though active in commerce or the professions, most of the wealthy were not self-made, but had inherited family fortunes. In no sense mercurial, these great fortunes survived the financial panics that destroyed lesser ones. Indeed, in several cities the wealthiest one percent constantly increased its share until by 1850 it owned half of the community’s wealth. Although these observations are true, Pessen overestimates their importance by concluding from them that the undoubted progress toward inequality in the late eighteenth century continued in the Jacksonian period and that the United States was a class-ridden, plutocratic society even before industrialization.

Seaguest wrote:

译文：
社会科学不太可能象其他学科那样，以其成就而获得肯定。比较有道理的解释是，因为社会科学的理论和概念框架特别容易被人理解吸收：人类智力在领会那些关于自身事务的真相方面尤为敏锐快捷。因此一旦社会科学的研究成果得到确认并被分门别类，就会很迅速地变成老生常谈，随之也就无法作为科学进展的标志而引人注目了。

与这种低估社会科学的现象形成奇异对比的是另外一种在许多人看来是对社会科学过分滥用的情形。人们征用博弈论来研究分合无常的国际同盟、呼召评估研究来揭示社会计划的成败，把各种经济学和人口统计学模型变成用以检查社会保障制度财务基础的权威性工具。但是，这种迫不及待地应用社会科学理论的做法本身却是有情可原的：公共政策必须接二连三地制定出来，而决策者们不无道理地认为，即使是用不确定的结论和未经证实的理论来作决策依据也比无凭无据要好。

原文：
The social sciences are less likely than other intellectual enterprises to get credit for their accomplishments. Arguably, this is so because the theories and conceptual constructs of the social sciences are especially accessible: human intelligence apprehends truths about human affairs with particular facility. And the discoveries of the social sciences, once isolated and labeled, are quickly absorbed into conventional wisdom, whereupon they lose their distinctiveness as scientific advances.

This underappreciation of the social sciences contrasts oddly with what many see as their overutilization. Game theory is pressed into service in studies of shifting international alliances. Evaluation research is called upon to demonstrate successes or failures of social programs. Models from economics and demography become the definitive tools for examining the financial base of social security. Yet this rush into practical applications is itself quite understandable: public policy must continually be made, and policymakers rightly feel that even tentative findings and untested theories are better guides to decision-making than no findings and no theories at all.



[Edited at 2005-10-03 16:28]

[Edited at 2005-10-05 18:02]

Seaguest wrote:

在整个人类历史上，看人吃饭或当着别人的面吃饭都是很犯忌的行为。人们一直想将这些忌讳与各种不恰当的社会关系联系起来加以解释，比如一方已经饥肠辘辘，而另一方还没到满足身体需要的时候；或者一方已经酒足饭饱，而另一方却似乎还在不顾体面的大吃大喝。无疑各种禁忌当中确实有这些因素，但存在着的另外一个因素却更具根本的重要性。在史前时代，当食物极其宝贵而旁边的人又是饥饿难耐时，不把仅有的那点食物分出一半来给人是无法想象的，因为每一个眼神都是在哀求救命。而且在那个时代，人们生活在核心家庭或大家族中，分享食物等于支持自己的家庭，广义地说，其实就是在保全自我。


Throughout human history there have been many stringent taboos concerning watching other people eat or eating in the presence of others. There have been attempts to explain these taboos in terms of inappropriate social relationships either between those who are involved and those who are not simultaneously involved in the satisfaction of a bodily need, or between those already satiated and those who appear to be shamelessly gorging. Undoubtedly such elements exist in the taboos, but there is an additional element with a much more fundamental importance. In prehistoric times, when food was so precious and the on-lookers so hungry, not to offer half of the little food one had was unthinkable, since every glance was a plea for life. Further, during those times, people existed in nuclear or extended family groups, and the sharing of food was quite literally supporting one’s family or, by extension, preserving one’s self.

Seaguest wrote:

传统研究面对的只是墨西哥人和美国对墨美文化的诠释。现在我们也必须从我们墨西哥裔美国人的角度对所经历过的文化进行一番审视：先是主权民族，接着变成了新来殖民者的同胞，最终沦为被征服了的民族——成了在自己的土地上被特许存在的少数民族。

当西班牙人率先来到墨西哥时，他们与土著印第安人通婚，并吸收他们的文化。当1800年代早期墨西哥获得德克萨斯时，这一以同化为手段的殖民化政策被保留了下来，使得土著印第安人得以融入墨西哥人的生活并担任公职。到了1820年代，适宜种植棉花的土地将美国人吸引到德克萨斯。随着人数的不断增加，通过征服当地人来获得土地就成为压倒一切的政策。两种意识形态反复碰撞，并在一次导致美国人获胜的军事冲突中达到顶点。于是，我们被突然剥夺了父辈的文化，为了生存，我们不得不逐渐发展出墨西哥裔美国人所独有的思维模式和行为模式。



Traditional research has confronted only Mexican and United States interpretations of Mexican-American culture. Now we must also examine the culture as we Mexican Americans have experienced it, passing from a sovereign people to compatriots with newly arriving settlers to, finally, a conquered people—a charter minority on our own land.

When the Spanish first came to Mexico, they intermarried with and absorbed the culture of the indigenous Indians. This policy of colonization through acculturation was continued when Mexico acquired Texas in the early 1800’s and brought the indigenous Indians into Mexican life and government. In the 1820’s, United States citizens migrated to Texas, attracted by land suitable for cotton. As their numbers became more substantial, their policy of acquiring land by subduing native populations began to dominate. The two ideologies clashed repeatedly, culminating in a military conflict that led to victory for the United States. Thus, suddenly deprived of our parent culture, we had to evolve uniquely Mexican-American modes of thought and action in order to survive.


[Edited at 2005-10-05 05:49]

Last Hermit wrote:

The social sciences are less likely than other intellectual enterprises to get credit for their accomplishments. Arguably, this is so because the theories and conceptual constructs of the social sciences are especially accessible: human intelligence apprehends truths about human affairs with particular facility. And the discoveries of the social sciences, once isolated and labeled, are quickly absorbed into conventional wisdom, whereupon they lose their distinctiveness as scientific advances.

　　与其它智能工程不一样，社会科学的成就较难获得公众的认同。其道理也许在于，社会科学的理论与概念构筑尤其易于吸收－－毕竟人类对关乎其自身的事情拥有特好的理解能力。而社会科学的发现，一旦将其分离出来并贴上标签，又很快会消化吸收掉，最终回笼为传统智慧，科学进步的鲜明特点亦随之而丧失殆尽。