词汇大师(Wordmaster)--'We're Americans, We're Not Refugee

AA:   I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: What to call the homeless of Hurricane Katrina?

RS:   Some have called them "refugees." We asked Oxford¹ English Dictionary consultant² Ben Zimmer for a history of this word. 

BEN ZIMMER: "It comes out of religious persecution³ in the 17th century, when the Catholic government of France persecuted⁴ the French Huguenots, the Protestants of the time. And they were forced to flee to other countries and also to the British colonies in what is now the United States. And so this term 'refugee' was used to describe them. After that point, it became applied⁵ to various other groups who were fleeing persecution or various political problems. And it eventually became used to refer to any displaced persons driven from home, by a war for instance."

AA: "So now over the years, though, has the term refugee been applied more and more broadly -- for example, to natural events like storms?"
BEN ZIMMER: "It has. Perhaps the most well-known example of this was in the 1930s, when the Dust Bowl -- the term that was used for the terrible dust storms that affected⁶ the central part of the United States -- this caused many poor farmers to flee, many of them going to California. And these poor farmers were called 'Dust Bowl refugees.' And there was a well-known song by Woody Guthrie ... "

MUSIC: "Dust Bowl Refugees"

BEN ZIMMER: "But it's interesting to note that even back then, the term was problematic. Woody Guthrie's biographer Joe Klein said that Woody Guthrie hated the term refugee, but he used it in the song as a way of, again, identifying with the plight⁷ of the people who were affected."

RS: "Is that the recent example of the use ... "

BEN ZIMMER: "More recently if you look at the coverage⁸ of various other disasters that have happened -- for example, the forest fires that started outside of Oakland, California, in 1991 -- 'refugees' was also used. It really is only with the coverage of Hurricane Katrina that it's become such a controversial term."

RS: "And why?"

BEN ZIMMER: "Well, we first started hearing objections on Friday morning, Sept. 2. That was when the Congressional Black Caucus⁹ had a press conference where they objected to the term. And that was really -- that was really the first serious objection, although there were some news reports. Actually just the previous night, Fox News reported from a shelter in Baton¹¹ Rouge¹², a person at the shelter was quoted by Fox saying: 'We're American citizens. We've had a tragedy, yes, and we're out of our homes. We are not refugees.'

"And this point that 'we're Americans, we're not refugees' was one that was picked up by the Congressional Black Caucus and other African-American leaders. The Rev¹⁰. Jesse Jackson went so far as to say that it was racist¹³ to call American citizens refugees. So there was a kind of a consensus¹⁴ that seemed to arise involving people directly affected by the storm, but also commentators¹⁵ and politicians on both sides of the political spectrum¹⁶ that it was potentially offensive to use this term."

RS: "So what you're saying here is that public perception did have an impact on what the media wrote, and what people are saying and the language of discourse¹⁷ now?"

BEN ZIMMER: "It did have a tremendous effect. But those who said that refugee was an acceptable word to use sometimes objected to the word 'evacuee¹⁸.' They said it was too clinical or too tame or perhaps euphemistic, and that refugee would be a word that really gets across the power of what happened and also was a kind of indictment¹⁹ of government officials whose neglect might have had something to do with the plight of the people.

"Another point that was made, by Lavinia Limon, who's the head of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, she was saddened, she was disappointed that people were treating the word refugee as such a pejorative²⁰ term. On the other hand, she understood that this was perhaps not the most appropriate term to use. She said that, legally, refugees are people who suffer from persecution based on race, ethnicity and religion and so forth²². She said that it would be better to call them 'displaced Americans,' because they are not people without a country."

ROBERTA COHEN: "If you acknowledge that these people are internally displaced persons, then you also can turn to international standards written specifically for these people."

AA:   That鈥檚 Roberta Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Ms. Cohen helped organize those standards for the United Nations.

ROBERTA COHEN: "If you want to call them 'evacuees,' you won't turn to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement²³. You know, the U.S. may look at I.D.P.'s as people uprooted²⁴ by a civil war or ethnic²¹ cleansing²⁵ in a country. But, according to the U.N. guidelines, they also apply to natural disasters."

RS:   Roberta Cohen of the Brookings Institution, speaking to us from Geneva. Ben Zimmer is a consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary. He spoke²⁶ to us from New Jersey²⁷.

AA:   And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is。。。。。。。。。and we're online at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

 

1 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

2 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

3 persecution   

n. 迫害,烦扰

参考例句：

• He had fled from France at the time of the persecution. 他在大迫害时期逃离了法国。
• Their persecution only serves to arouse the opposition of the people. 他们的迫害只激起人民对他们的反抗。

4 persecuted   

（尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人

参考例句：

• Throughout history, people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. 人们因宗教信仰而受迫害的情况贯穿了整个历史。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

5 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

6 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。

7 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

8 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

9 caucus   

n.秘密会议；干部会议；v.（参加）干部开会议

参考例句：

• This multi-staged caucus takes several months.这个多级会议常常历时好几个月。
• It kept the Democratic caucus from fragmenting.它也使得民主党的核心小组避免了土崩瓦解的危险。

10 rev   

v.发动机旋转，加快速度

参考例句：

• It's his job to rev up the audience before the show starts.他要负责在表演开始前鼓动观众的热情。
• Don't rev the engine so hard.别让发动机转得太快。

11 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

12 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

13 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

14 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

15 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》

16 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

17 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

18 evacuee   

n.被疏散的人员，被撤走的人员

参考例句：

• A woman sits motionless at an evacuee center for leaked radiation from the damaged fukushima nuclear facilities friday march 25 2011 in soma fukushima prefecture japan.2011年3月25日星期五，日本福岛县相马市，为福岛核设施泄露而设立的避难中心里，一位妇女一动不动地坐在那里。
• Not quite true,said Tom,a 42-year-old evacuee.但汤姆，一位42岁的避难者，说事实不尽然如此。

19 indictment   

n.起诉；诉状

参考例句：

• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
• They issued an indictment against them.他们起诉了他们。

20 pejorative   

adj.贬低的，轻蔑的

参考例句：

• In the context of ethnic tourism,commercialization often has a pejorative connotation.摘要在民族旅游语境中，商品化经常带有贬义色彩。
• But news organizations also should make every effort to keep the discussion civil and to discourage the dissemination of falsehoods or pejorat

21 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

22 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

23 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

24 uprooted   

v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园

参考例句：

• Many people were uprooted from their homes by the flood. 水灾令许多人背井离乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The hurricane blew with such force that trees were uprooted. 飓风强烈地刮着，树都被连根拔起了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 cleansing   

n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词

参考例句：

• medicated cleansing pads for sensitive skin 敏感皮肤药物清洗棉
• Soap is not the only cleansing agent. 肥皂并不是唯一的清洁剂。

26 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。

27 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。