TED演讲：谈语言和思想(7)（打印版）

　　Just to give you a few examples: "ending a pregnancy" versus "killing a fetus;" 这里是一些例子：是“终止怀孕”还是“杀死胚胎”

　　"a ball of cells" versus "an unborn child;" “一个细胞聚合的小球”还是“一个尚未出生的孩子”

　　"invading Iraq" versus "liberating Iraq;" “侵略伊拉克”或是“解放伊拉克”

　　"redistributing wealth" versus "confiscating earnings." “收入重新分配”抑或“没收财产”

　　And I think the biggest picture of all would take seriously the fact 而整个图景中最显著的一部分是要看到一点：

　　that so much of our verbiage about abstract events is based on a concrete metaphor 就是我们对抽象事件的描述，大多都是基于实体的隐喻

　　and see human intelligence itself as consisting of a repertoire of concepts 这反映出人类智能本身是由一整套概念组成

　　such as objects, space, time, causation and intention 比如物体、空间、时间，因果关系与意图

　　which are useful in a social, knowledge-intensive species, 对我们这种群居的、知识密集型的种群非常有用

　　whose evolution you can well imagine, and a process of metaphorical abstraction 我们能想象人类的进化和语言的隐喻抽象化过程齐轨并行

　　that allows us to bleach these concepts of their original conceptual content 慢慢地这些概念里原先的实际内容就淡化了

　　space, time and force -- and apply them to new abstract domains, 空间、时间和力--而它们却被用在全新的抽象领域里

　　therefore allowing a species that evolved to deal with rocks and tools and animals, 如此就使得我们这个原本是进化出来，和石头、工具与动物打交道的种群

　　to conceptualize mathematics, physics, law and other abstract domains. 能够形成数学、物理、法律等等概念，涉足其他抽象的领域

　　Well, I said I'd talk about two windows on human nature 我曾说过我要谈谈人性的两扇窗户

　　the cognitive machinery with which we conceptualize the world, 我们用来概念化世界的知性机能

　　and now I'm going to say a few words about the relationship types 现在我要说说几种人际关系

　　that govern human social interaction, again, as reflected in language. 它们支配着人类的社交活动，同样，这些都体现在语言里

　　And I'll start out with a puzzle, the puzzle of indirect speech acts. 我要从间接话语行为这个谜题开始。