词汇大师--Make an Appeal to 'Sensitivity'

　　A: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: our guest is linguist¹ Geoff Nunberg. He's been listening to how Americans debate issues, and there's a particular word he often finds they invoke²: "sensitivities."
GEOFF NUNBERG: "It's used by the left, it's used by the right. It's a word that really came into the language -- I mean sensitivity is an old word. But sensitivities, particularly in the plural³, came into the language in the nineteen seventies as a response to all of the movements of the period -- civil rights movement, feminist⁴ movement, later what was called the gay liberation movement at the time -- in an effort to get people to be more sensitive in their language and attitudes and behavior towards members of minorities or towards women or towards people with other sexual orientations⁵."
RS: "Now has that changed in the last thirty, forty years?"
GEOFF NUNBERG: "Well, it hasn't changed, at least to the extent that whenever a broadcast personality or a politician or someone makes a remark that's arguably offensive to some group, he or she is required to undergo sensitivity training. And people -- whether they're on the left criticizing a politician on the right, or on the right criticizing a politician on the left -- will argue that the remark demonstrated insensitivity on the part of the politician. So it's become a very general term in American English for any activity that might offend the members of another group."
AA: "It's interesting, it seems like one person's sensitivity is another's political correctness. Doesn't it make some people cringe when they hear that term?"

　　GEOFF NUNBERG: "Absolutely. And particularly in the academy, in the universities, where there was this effort to impose rules that respected the sensitivities of certain groups, there was this reaction where people said 'Oh, that's a matter of political correctness.' And that, in turn, in some ways it exacerbated⁶ the very problems that the sensitivity training was supposed to address, because people then had a pretext⁷ for using language that twenty or thirty years earlier would have been merely offensive. Now you can start a sentence with 'This may not be the politically correct thing to say,' and go on to say something that would have been just a horrible thing to say thirty years earlier."
RS: "In your writing you say 'over the long run, the stress on sensitivities probably set back cultural understanding as much as it advanced it.' What do you mean by that?"
GEOFF NUNBERG: "Well, I mean on the one hand, as I say, that there's been a reaction against sensitivity -- then some people pronounce it with a shudder⁸: 'Oh, let's worry about being "sensitive."' And that gives them almost a political pretext for continuing the behavior that the stress on sensitivity was supposed to address.
"And, on the other hand, an appeal to sensitivity can replace reasoned argument. But in this case those sensitivities may have any number of bases. They may be genuine, rational; they may also conceal⁹ attitudes that are ignorant or racist¹⁰ or bigoted¹¹ or unfeeling.
"Often appeals to sensitivity on one side involve people who want to offend the sensitivity of people on the other side. So it can become a way of avoiding a serious discussion of the issues. It can become a way of closing off the discussion."
AA: "You know, it's funny, when you think about it, if you describe someone these days as 'sensitive' -- maybe it's always been like this -- you can look at that two different ways. You know, one is that can be a sympathetic statement: 'Oh, this person's sensitive, we don't want to hurt their feelings.' Or, on the other hand, 'Oh, you're sensitive!' Maybe it's how you say it, or the tone or what you mean."
RS: "No, I think that what I heard from you, though, was that when it's in political discourse¹², it takes on another meaning, and that sensitive, in the word of being sensitive or not sensitive, is something personal. But when it goes beyond the personal -- is that what I'm hearing you say?"
GEOFF NUNBERG: "Yeah, I think in ordinary language it's a very difficult word, because, as you say, it can be either a criticism -- 'Don't be so sensitive!' -- or it can be a criticism to not have it. Men are always being accused by women of being insensitive, so that you can have too much sensitivity or too little sensitivity depending on the context.
"In political discourse, and particularly when it's used in the plural as sensitivities, in which case people are always talking about the feelings of a group rather than an individual, it's very often a way of suggesting that these are things you should avoid without thinking about why you should avoid them."
AA: Geoff Nunberg is a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a contributor to public radio's "Fresh Air" program. And that's WORDMASTER for this week. Archives are at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

2 invoke   

v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求

参考例句：

• Let us invoke the blessings of peace.让我们祈求和平之福。
• I hope I'll never have to invoke this clause and lodge a claim with you.我希望我永远不会使用这个条款向你们索赔。

3 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

4 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。

5 orientations   

n.方向( orientation的名词复数 )；定位；（任职等前的）培训；环境判定

参考例句：

• Welfare comparisons are also hindered by differences in orientations among economic systems. 经济制度之间倾向性的差别也会妨碍福利的比较。 来自辞典例句
• Their different value orientations led to different results in literary creation. 价值取向的分野亦导致了不同的创作局面。 来自互联网

6 exacerbated   

v.使恶化，使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The symptoms may be exacerbated by certain drugs. 这些症状可能会因为某些药物而加重。
• The drugs they gave her only exacerbated the pain. 他们给她吃的药只是加重了她的痛楚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

8 shudder   

v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动

参考例句：

• The sight of the coffin sent a shudder through him.看到那副棺材，他浑身一阵战栗。
• We all shudder at the thought of the dreadful dirty place.我们一想到那可怕的肮脏地方就浑身战惊。

9 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

10 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。

11 bigoted   

adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的

参考例句：

• He is so bigoted that it is impossible to argue with him.他固执得不可理喻。
• I'll concede you are not as bigoted as some.我承认你不象有些人那么顽固。

12 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。