TED演讲:短信是语言杀手(2)

 So first there's speech, and then writing comes along as a kind of artifice¹.  所以首先是语音，然后文字作为一种技巧出现了。

Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages.  大家不要误会，文字写作确实有它自己的优势。

When you write, because it's a conscious process,  当你写字的时候，因为这是一个有意识的过程，

because you can look backwards,  因为你可以回顾过去，

you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking.  你可以用书面语言来完成一些说话时不会表达的事情。

For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:  比如，让我们看看爱德华?吉本（英国历史学家）在罗马帝国衰亡史一书中的一段（取自第二十四章），

The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours,  整个战争持续了至少12小时，

till the graduate retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful² example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself. 直到波斯人纷纷仓皇溃退，其中表现最可耻的是他们的指挥官们以及苏雷纳斯(最高统帅）本人。

That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way.  写的真的很美，但是，说实话，没人这么说话。

Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested  或者至少，如果真感兴趣的话也不该这样重复。

in reproducing. That—is not the way any human being speaks casually³.  这－不是人们平常说话时候的样子。

Casual speech is something quite different.  日常对话是非常不同的。

Linguists⁴ have actually shown that when we're speaking casually in an unmonitored way, 语言学家实际上已经指出当我们在轻松的对话时，

we tend to speak in word packets of maybe seven to 10 words. 我们每句话会用大概7到10个字。

You'll notice this if you ever have occasion to record yourself or a group of people talking. 你会注意到这点，如果你有机会录下来自己或者一组人说话。

That's what speech is like.  这就是语言对话的形式。

Speech is much looser. It's much more telegraphic.  语言对话更松散。也更简洁得多。

It's much less reflective—very different from writing.  和书面文字表达非常不同，它少了思考性。

So we naturally tend to think, because we see language written so often, that that's what language is, 所以因为我们经常看到写出来的语言，我们就很自然地认为，那就是语言，

but actually what language is, is speech. They are two things.  但实际上语言是言语对话。这是两个不同的事物。

Now of course, as history has gone by,  当然，随着历史的演进，

it's been natural for there to be a certain amount of bleed between speech and writing.  在言语对话和书面文字表达之间有些交集也是很自然的事情。

1 artifice   

n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计

参考例句：

• The use of mirrors in a room is an artifice to make the room look larger.利用镜子装饰房间是使房间显得大一点的巧妙办法。
• He displayed a great deal of artifice in decorating his new house.他在布置新房子中表现出富有的技巧。

2 shameful   

adj.可耻的，不道德的

参考例句：

• It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己，真不害臊。
• We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。

3 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

4 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句