英语单词大师：Bounce Back

 AA:   I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: metaphors² and the mind.

RS:   Avi, if I say bulls and bears, what comes to mind?

AA:   The zoo?

RS:   Well yes, but I could also be talking about the stock market.   In a bull market, stock prices rise; in a bear market, they fall.  Metaphors are great; a word or two can say a mouthful.  But not all metaphors are alike.

AA:   Some are known as agent metaphors. These are words that describe living things.  Others are called object metaphors. They tend to be used for non-living things. RS:   So what? Well, once upon a time, we had to be able to think pretty fast if something was alive or not.  Researchers believe that our brains are wired to respond to the path on which an object moves.

MICHAEL MORRIS: If it's moving downhill, well, it could be a rock rolling, [or] it could be an animal. But at least in the environment where we evolved, if something was moving uphill, that's a pretty good cue that it's alive.

AA:   Professor Michael Morris is a psychologist in the business school at Columbia University in New York.  He is interested in the metaphors used in the media to describe movements in stock prices.  He says the choice of words can influence investor³ expectations.

RS:   Recently Professor Morris led a study of three groups of college students.  Each group received graphs of stock market activity along with one of three versions of a commentary.  One version described the price trends with agent metaphors -- words like jumped or climbed.

AA:   Another used object metaphors, which made it seem that the movements were the result of external forces.  Prices might have dropped off a cliff or bounced back.

RS:   Professor Morris says the third version was free of metaphors.  Instead, it used plain words like the market increased or the market decreased.

MICHAEL MORRIS: What we found was that participants who had been exposed to the agent metaphors were more likely to forecast, or predict, that the market trend they had observed one day would continue on the following day.

AA: Whether it was prices going up or prices going down.

MICHAEL MORRIS: That's right. So that was one thing that we wanted to establish: basically, that the content of commentary does affect the judgments⁴ that investors⁵ make. But then there was this other point that we were trying to establish that I think makes the first point more dramatic or consequential⁶.

RS:   That is, when do commentators⁷ choose so-called agentic metaphors as opposed to others, or none at all? Professor Morris and his team analyzed⁸ the language on a cable television stock-market program. MICHAEL MORRIS: When there's an uptrend, stock commentators are more likely to explain that uptrend in agentic language, and thereby⁹ may lead investors to think of that trend as a signal about tomorrow, as an uptrend that indicates uptrends will continue tomorrow. Whereas when there is a downtrend, commentators are less likely to describe it in this agentic language that would make investors think that the downtrend is going to continue.

What's interesting about this finding is that journalists are not intentionally¹⁰ -- they're not aware that their choice of metaphor¹ may have this impact. But we know from politics, for example, that there are think tanks that do nothing but try to construct simple frames or metaphors that will persuade people to believe in a certain policy position.

AA: So your advice to the average investor?

MICHAEL MORRIS: Be very careful about (avoiding) the mistake of buying right after the stock market has gone up. It's much better, all things equal, to make your purchases on a day when the market has just gone downward, so that you're buying low instead of making your purchase after a day when the market has just gone upwards¹¹ and you're buying high.

AA: And let me ask you one more question: What advice do you have [for] stock market commentators?

MICHAEL MORRIS: Well, I sympathize with them greatly because they can't do what a classical economist¹² would recommend, which is to simply say 'There was another random¹³ walk on the market today.'

RS:   Columbia University Professor Michael Morris spoke¹⁴ to us from Hawaii, where he just presented his findings at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management. AA:   And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our segments are on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster.  And our e-mail address is [email protected].  With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

2 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

3 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

4 judgments   

判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判

参考例句：

• A peculiar austerity marked his judgments of modern life. 他对现代生活的批评带着一种特殊的苛刻。
• He is swift with his judgments. 他判断迅速。

5 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

6 consequential   

adj.作为结果的，间接的；重要的

参考例句：

• She was injured and suffered a consequential loss of earnings.她受了伤因而收入受损。
• This new transformation is at least as consequential as that one was.这一新的转变至少和那次一样重要。

7 commentators   

n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员

参考例句：

• Sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 体育解说员翻来覆去说着同样的词语，真叫人腻烦。
• Television sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 电视体育解说员说来说去就是那么几句话，令人厌烦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

10 intentionally   

ad.故意地，有意地

参考例句：

• I didn't say it intentionally. 我是无心说的。
• The local authority ruled that he had made himself intentionally homeless and was therefore not entitled to be rehoused. 当地政府裁定他是有意居无定所，因此没有资格再获得提供住房。

11 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

12 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

13 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。