经济学人106:口吃科学 演讲疗法

 　　Science and Technology The science of stuttering Speech therapy

　　科技 口吃科学 演讲疗法

　　Unravelling¹ the mystery of faltering² speech

　　解秘演讲时的口吃

　　DOWN the ages stuttering has been blamed on many things.

　　多年来，口吃可以归咎于许多事。

　　In the second century Galen pinned it on a dryness of the tongue.

　　二世纪时，盖伦（古罗马时期最著名最有影响的医学大师）将口吃归咎于舌头干燥。

　　In the 17th, Francis Bacon reckoned a stiff tongue was responsible.

　　17世纪，弗朗西斯.培根认为僵硬的舌头应对口吃负责。

　　In the 19th, surgeons suggested too large a tongue.

　　19世纪，外科医生指出是长舌头造成了口吃。

　　In the 20th, parental³ neglect and even an unfulfilled urge for oral sex had their moments of fame ("The King's Speech", a film competing for Oscars this week, stresses psychology).

　　到了20世纪时，父母的忽略，甚至是未实现的口交被认为是造成口吃的原因（"国王的演讲"，本周一部角逐奥斯卡的影片，则强调心理原因）。

　　The suggested remedies were just as diverse.

　　矫正口吃的建议方法也多种多样。

　　Galen thought wrapping the patient's tongue in a cloth soaked in lettuce⁴ juice might help.

　　盖伦认为将病人的舌头用浸过莴苣汁的布包起来可能有帮助。

　　Bacon recommended wine. The Victorians wielded⁵ scalpels.

　　培根的推荐是酒。维多利亚时代的外科医生们挥舞手术刀。

　　The psychiatrists⁶, the couch.

　　精神科医生的建议是沙发。

　　None of it worked (except in the movies).

　　这些方法都不奏效（电影中除外）。

　　These days, as delegates to the AAAS meeting in Washington, DC, heard, the talk is of brain anatomy⁷ and genes⁹.

　　几天来，在华盛顿出席美国科学促进会的代表们都听说了大脑解剖和基因与讲话有关。

　　Luc De Nil¹⁰, of the University of Toronto, has been poring over stutterers' brains using positron emission¹¹ tomography and functional¹² magnetic resonance¹³ imaging.

　　多伦多大学的卢克.德.尼尔已经用正电子发射断层扫描和功能性磁共振成像仔细研究了口吃者的大脑。

　　He has found that parts of the brain linked to the production of speech are more active in stutterers than non-stutterers, while those involved in perceiving sounds are less so.

　　他发现大脑的一部分与生成话语的区域相连，口吃者的这个区域要比非口吃者活跃，而感知声音的那些区域则是非口吃者更活跃。

　　The two sorts of brain look different, too. Stutterers tend, for instance, to have more densely¹⁴ packed grey matter in the areas associated with processing and producing sounds.

　　两者的大脑看起来也不同。比如，有关处理和产生声音的区域上覆盖的灰质，口吃者要更密集。

　　Such differences in activity and anatomy, though, must have deeper causes.

　　活动性和解剖上的不同一定存在着更深层的原因。

　　And, in time-honoured fashion, there is a debate about whether those causes are genetic¹⁵ or environmental.

　　而这些原因是基因上的还是环境上的，其争论的历史也相当悠久。

　　Dennis Drayna of America's National Institutes of Health argued to the meeting that persistent¹⁶ stuttering is at least partly a matter of genes.

　　美国国家卫生研究院的丹尼斯.德雷纳在会上说道，持续的口吃至少一部分原因是基因问题。

　　It runs in families. Studies of twins suggest a genetic component¹⁷ larger than those known to be involved in high cholesterol¹⁸ and osteoporosis.

　　在家族中遗传。对双胞胎的研究表明这个遗传因素要比胆固醇和骨质疏松症的遗传因素高。

　　At least two studies of adopted children suggest that those whose adoptive parents stutter are no more likely to develop the impediment than those taken on by non-stutterers.

　　至少，有两个关于被收养孩子的研究表明，孩子是否会发展成为口吃者，其可能性，收养者是口吃者并不比非口吃者大。

　　To discover which genes might be responsible, Dr Drayna looked at 44 Pakistani families.

　　为了发现哪种基因与引发口吃有关，德雷纳博士对44个巴基斯坦家庭进行了调查。

　　Marriage between cousins is common in Pakistan, and such inbreeding leads to a high incidence of genetic disorders¹⁹.

　　近亲结婚在巴基斯坦很普遍，而这种近亲交配引发遗传性疾病的发病率很高。

　　Dr Drayna's analysis suggests that stuttering is linked to mutation²⁰ of a gene⁸ called GNPTAB—a finding confirmed when the same mutation was subsequently discovered in a number of stutterers from Pakistan and India who were unrelated to the original group of families.

　　德雷纳博士的分析表明口吃与一种叫做GNPTAB的基因突变有关——随后，在巴基斯坦和印度非近亲结婚的家庭中发现了许多口吃者也有类似的突变时，这个发现得到了证实。

　　In January Dr Drayna and his colleagues published a paper in the Journal of Human Genetics tracing the responsible mutation back almost 600 generations, to a common ancestor who would have lived around 14,000 years ago.

　　1月，德雷纳博士和他的同事在《人类遗传学杂志》上发表了一篇论文，追踪了约600代人中发生过此种突变的人，他们的祖先是同一个人，生活在约14,000年前。

　　Further study of South Asians has shown that mutations in two other genes, GNPTG and NAGPA, are found in individuals who stutter, but not in non-stutterers.

　　对南亚人的进一步研究表明，另两大基因也存在突变——GNPTG 和 NAGPA,在口吃者中发现了这两种基因，而非口吃者中没有。

　　All three affected²¹ genes encode enzymes²² that regulate lysosomes, the cell's waste-disposal units.

　　所有这三种受影响的基因通过编码酶调节溶解体，溶解体是细胞废物处理单元。

　　Two of the encode mutations involved are also known to cause a rare disease called mucolipidosis.

　　其中有两种编码突变也会引发粘脂沉积症——一种罕见的疾病。

　　Severe mucolipidosis is fatal within ten years of birth.

　　在出生的十年内，严重的粘脂沉积症是致命的。

　　Even the mild variety has symptoms that include abnormal skeletal development and, sometimes, slight mental retardation²³.

　　即使是温和一点的，也会引发许多症状，包括骨骼发育异常，有时还会有轻度精神发育迟滞。

　　Fortunately for stutterers, close examination of those with the relevant mutations reveals no symptoms of mucolipidosis.

　　在对相关突变进行仔细检查后，并没有发现任何粘脂沉积症的症状，这对口吃者来说是幸运的。

　　Dr Drayna suspects that both conditions are caused by misfolding of the enzymes in question, but that the details are different.

　　德雷纳博士怀疑这两种病状都是由错误折叠酶引起，但细节有所不同。

　　With stutterers, he thinks, a specific group of brain cells involved in speech production is, for an unknown reason, uniquely sensitive to the enzymatic²⁴ glitch—perhaps producing the patterns seen by Dr De Nil in his brain scanners.

　　他认为，对口吃者来说，参与话语生成的一组特定的脑细胞，不明原因的对酶毛刺有一种独特的敏感——也许将德.尼尔博士在脑部扫描中看到的结构生成出来能够解释这个现象。

　　To investigate further, Dr Drayna is now attempting to splice²⁵ human stutter-causing genes into the DNA²⁶ of mice.

　　为了进一步调查，德雷纳博士正尝试将引发人类口吃的基因拼接到老鼠的DNA中。

　　That, of course, raises the question of what a stuttering mouse sounds like.

　　当然，又有了另一个问题，口吃的老鼠听起来像什么呢。

　　To the human ear, it may not sound like anything.

　　人类的耳朵听来，这个声音可能什么都像。

　　Many murine squeakings are too high-pitched to be perceptible.

　　许多小鼠的尖叫声非常高亢，难以感觉它是否口吃。

　　But ultrasonic²⁷ detectors²⁸ should deal with that.

　　也许高声波探测仪可以解决这个问题。

　　With luck, the causes of stuttering should soon be understood better.

　　幸运的话，引发口吃的原因很快就会被更好的理解了。

　　Whether that results in treatments more effective than lettuce juice and wine is another matter.

　　而治疗方法是否比莴苣汁和酒更有效，则要另当别论了。

1 unravelling   

解开，拆散，散开( unravel的现在分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚

参考例句：

• Nail head clamp the unravelling of nail exteriorize broken nails and clean. 钉头卡钉，拆开钉头取出碎钉并清洁。
• The ends of ropes are in good condition and secured without unravelling. 缆绳端部状况良好及牢固，并无松散脱线。

2 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

3 parental   

adj.父母的；父的；母的

参考例句：

• He encourages parental involvement in the running of school.他鼓励学生家长参与学校的管理。
• Children always revolt against parental disciplines.孩子们总是反抗父母的管束。

4 lettuce   

n.莴苣；生菜

参考例句：

• Get some lettuce and tomatoes so I can make a salad.买些莴苣和西红柿，我好做色拉。
• The lettuce is crisp and cold.莴苣松脆爽口。

5 wielded   

手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响）

参考例句：

• The bad eggs wielded power, while the good people were oppressed. 坏人当道，好人受气
• He was nominally the leader, but others actually wielded the power. 名义上他是领导者，但实际上是别人掌握实权。

6 psychiatrists   

n.精神病专家，精神病医生( psychiatrist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They are psychiatrists in good standing. 他们是合格的精神病医生。 来自辞典例句
• Some psychiatrists have patients who grow almost alarmed at how congenial they suddenly feel. 有些精神分析学家发现，他们的某些病人在突然感到惬意的时候几乎会兴奋起来。 来自名作英译部分

7 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

8 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

9 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

10 nil   

n.无，全无，零

参考例句：

• My knowledge of the subject is practically nil.我在这方面的知识几乎等于零。
• Their legal rights are virtually nil.他们实际上毫无法律权利。

11 emission   

n.发出物，散发物；发出，散发

参考例句：

• Rigorous measures will be taken to reduce the total pollutant emission.采取严格有力措施，降低污染物排放总量。
• Finally,the way to effectively control particulate emission is pointed out.最后，指出有效降低颗粒排放的方向。

12 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

13 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

14 densely   

ad.密集地；浓厚地

参考例句：

• A grove of trees shadowed the house densely. 树丛把这幢房子遮蔽得很密实。
• We passed through miles of densely wooded country. 我们穿过好几英里茂密的林地。

15 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

16 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

17 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

18 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

19 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 mutation   

n.变化，变异，转变

参考例句：

• People who have this mutation need less sleep than others.有这种突变的人需要的睡眠比其他人少。
• So far the discussion has centered entirely around mutation in the strict sense.到目前为止，严格来讲，讨论完全集中于围绕突变问题上。

21 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

22 enzymes   

n. 酶，酵素

参考例句：

• It was said that washing powders containing enzymes remove stains more efficiently. 据说加酶洗衣粉除污更有效。
• Among the enzymes which are particularly effective are pepsin, papain. 在酶当中特别有效的是胃朊酶、木瓜酶。

23 retardation   

n.智力迟钝，精神发育迟缓

参考例句：

• Asbestos reinforcement confers excellent flame retardation properties on a composite. 石棉增强材料使复合材料具有优异的防火性能。
• The theory confirms the increase in the retardation effect with decrease in particle size. 理论证实，随着颗粒尺寸的减小，这一减速效应将增大。

24 enzymatic   

adj. 酶的

参考例句：

• This chromoprotein has also been endowed with enzymatic properties. 这种色素蛋白也具有酶的特性。
• It is of profound interest to elucidate the enzymatic activities in soil. 阐明土壤中酶的活性是有深远意义的。

25 splice   

v.接合，衔接；n.胶接处，粘接处

参考例句：

• He taught me to edit and splice film.他教我剪辑和粘接胶片。
• The film will be spliced with footage of Cypress Hill to be filmed in America.这部电影要和将在美国拍摄的柏树山乐队的音乐片段粘接在一起。

26 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

27 ultrasonic   

adj.超声的；n.超声波

参考例句：

• It was very necessary for people to take type-B ultrasonic inspection regularly.定期进行B超检查是十分必要的。
• Sounds are classified into two kinds: sonic and ultrasonic.声波分为两类，即普通声波与超声波。

28 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技