【美聯(lián)英語】堅持-關于堅持的英語演講稿(中英文對照)2

1、 兩分鐘做個小測試，看看你的英語水平/test/quwen.aspx?tid=16-73675-0美聯(lián)英語提供： 關于堅持的英語演講稿（中英文對照）2別堅持說英語 Dont insist on EnglishI know what youre thinking. You think Ive lost my way, and somebodys goingto come on the stage in a minute and guide me gently back to my seat.(Applause) I get that all the time in Dubai. Here on

2、holiday are you, dear?(Laughter) Come to visit the children? How long are you staying?我知道你們在想什么，你們覺得我迷路了，馬上就會有人走上臺溫和地把我?guī)Щ匚业淖簧稀?掌聲)。我在迪拜總會遇上這種事?！皝磉@里度假的嗎，親愛的?”(笑聲)“來探望孩子的嗎?這次要待多久呢?Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. I have been living and teaching in theGulf for over 30 years. (Applause) An

3、d in that time, I have seen a lot of changes.Now that statistic is quite shocking. And I want to talk to you today aboutlanguage loss and the globalization of English. I want to tell you about my friendwho was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. And one fine day, she decidedto take them into th

4、e garden to teach them some nature vocabulary. But it wasshe who ended up learning all the Arabic words for the local plants, as well astheir uses - medicinal uses, cosmetics, cooking, herbal. How did those studentsget all that knowledge? Of course, from their grandparents and even their great-grand

5、parents. Its not necessary to tell you how important it is to be ableto communicate across generations.恩，事實上，我希望能再待久一點。我在波斯灣這邊生活和教書已經超過30 年了。(掌聲)這段時間里，我看到了很多變化?，F(xiàn)在這份數(shù)據(jù)是挺嚇人的，而我今天要和你們說的是有關語言的消失和英語的全球化。我想和你們談談我的朋友，她在阿布達比教成人英語。在一個晴朗的日子里，她決定帶她的學生到花園去教他們一些大自然的詞匯。但最后卻變成是她在學習所有當?shù)刂参镌诎⒗Z中是怎么說的。還有這些植物是如何被用作藥材，

6、化妝品，烹飪，香草。這些學生是怎么得到這些知識的呢?當然是從他們的祖父母，甚至曾祖父母那里得來的。不需要我來告訴你們能夠跨代溝通是多么重要。But sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. A language diesevery 14 days. Now, at the same time, English is the undisputed global language.Could there be a connection? Well I dont know. But I do know that Ive s

7、een alot of changes. When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait in the dayswhen it was still a hardship post. Actually, not that long ago. That is a little bittoo early. But nevertheless, I was recruited by the British Council along withabout 25 other teachers. And we were the first non-Mus

8、lims to teach in the stateschools there in Kuwait. We were brought to teach English because thegovernment wanted to modernize the country and empower the citizensthrough education. And of course, the U.K. benefited from some of that lovelyoil wealth.但遺憾的是，今天很多語言正在以前所未有的速度消失。每14 天就有一種語言消失，而與此同時，英語卻無庸

9、置疑地成為全球性的語言。這其中有關聯(lián)嗎?我不知道。但我知 道的是，我見證過許多改變。初次來到海灣地區(qū)時，我去了科威特。當時教英文仍然是個困難的工作。其實，沒有那么久啦，這有點太久以前了。總之，我和其他25 位老師一起被英國文化協(xié)會聘用。我們是第一批非穆斯林的老師，在科威特的國立學校任教。我們被派到那里教英語，是因為當?shù)卣Ｍ麌铱梢袁F(xiàn)代化并透過教育提升公民的水平。當然，英國也能得到些好處，產油國可是很有錢的。Okay. Now this is the major change that Ive seen - how teaching English hasmorphed from being

10、 a mutually beneficial practice to becoming a massiveinternational business that it is today. No longer just a foreign language on theschool curriculum. And no longer the sole domain of mother England. It hasbecome a bandwagon for every English-speaking nation on earth. And why not?After all, the be

11、st education - according to the latest World University Rankings- is to be found in the universities of the U.K. and the U.S. So everybody wantsto have an English education, naturally. But if youre not a native speaker, youhave to pass a test.言歸正傳，我見過最大的改變，就是英語教學的蛻變如何從一個互惠互利的行為變成今天這種大規(guī)模的國際產業(yè)。英語不再是學校

12、課程里的外語學科，也不再只是英國的專利。英語(教學)已經成為所有英語系國家追逐的潮流。何樂而不為呢?畢竟，最好的教育來自于最好的大學，而根據(jù)最新的世界大學排名，那些名列前茅的都是英國和美國的大學。所以自然每個人都想接受英語教育，但如果你不是以英文為母語，你就要通過考試。Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps youhave a computer scientist whos a genius. Would he need the same language asa lawyer,

13、for example? Well, I dont think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They cant pursuetheir dream any longer, till they get English. Now let me put it this way, if I met amonolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I

14、stop him fromentering my British University? I dont think so. But indeed, that is exactly whatwe do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us firstthat your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too muchpower to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barr

15、ier would be toouniversal.但僅憑語言能力就拒絕學生這樣對嗎?譬如如果你碰到一位天才計算機科學家，但他會需要有和律師一樣的語言能力嗎?我不這么認為。但身為英語老師的我們，卻總是拒絕他們。我們處處設限，將學生擋在路上，使他們無法再追求自己的夢想，直到他們通過考試?，F(xiàn)在容我換一個方式說，如果我遇到了一位只會說荷蘭話的人，而這個人能治愈癌癥，我會阻止他進入我的英國大學嗎?我想不會。但事實上，我們的確在做這種事。我們這些英語老師就是把關的。你必須先讓我們滿意，使我們認定你的英文夠好。但這可能是危險的。把太多的權力交由這么小的一群人把持，也許會令這種障礙太過普及。Okay. Bu

16、t, I hear you say, what about the research? Its all in English. So thebooks are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfillingprophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, whathappened to translation? If you think about the Islamic Golden Age,

17、 there waslots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, intoPersian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europeand the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now dont get me wrong; I am not against teaching English,

18、all you Englishteachers out there. I love it that we have a global language. We need one todaymore than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to endup with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We needmore than that. Where do we draw the line? This syste

19、m equates intelligencewith a knowledge of English which is quite arbitrary.于是，我聽到你們問但是研究呢?研究報告都要用英文?！钡拇_，研究論著和期刊都要用英文發(fā)表，但這只是一種理所當然的現(xiàn)象。有英語要求，自然就有英語供給，然后就這么循環(huán)下去。我倒想問問大家，為什么不用翻譯呢?想想伊斯蘭的黃金時代，當時翻譯盛行，人們把拉丁文和希臘文翻譯成阿拉伯文或波斯文，然后再由拉伯文或波斯文翻譯為歐洲的日耳曼語言以及羅曼語言。于是文明照亮了歐洲的黑暗時代。但不要誤會我的意思，我不是反對英語教學或是在座所有的英語老師。我很高興我們有一個全

20、球性的語言，這在今日尤為重要。但我反對用英語設立障礙。難道我們真希望世界上只剩下600 種語言，其中又以英文或中文為主流嗎?我們需要的不只如此。那么我們該如何拿捏呢?這個體制把智能和英語能力畫上等號這是相當武斷的。And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders todaysintelligentsia stand did not have to have English, they didnt have to pass anEnglish test. Case in point, Einstein. He, by th

21、e way, was considered remedial atschool because he was, in fact, dyslexic. But fortunately for the world, he did nothave to pass an English test. Because they didnt start until 1964 with TOEFL, theAmerican test of English. Now its exploded. There are lots and lots of tests ofEnglish. And millions an

22、d millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, those fees arent bad, theyre okay, but they areprohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, were rejectingthem.我想要提醒你們，扶持當代知識分子的這些“巨人肩膀不必非得具有英文能力，他們不需要通過英語考試。愛因斯坦就是典型的例子。順便說一下，他在學校還曾被認為需要課外補習，因為他其

23、實有閱讀障礙。但對整個世界來說,很幸運的當時他不需要通過英語考試，因為他們直到 1964 年才開始使用托?！，F(xiàn)在英語測驗太泛濫了，有太多太多的英語測驗，以及成千上萬的學生每年都在參加這些考試?，F(xiàn)在你會認為，你和我都這么想，這些費用不貴，價錢滿合理的。但是對數(shù)百萬的窮人來說，這些費用高不可攀。所以，當下我們又拒絕了他們。It brings to mind a headline I saw recently: Education: The Great Divide. Now Iget it, I understand why people would focus on English. They

24、want to give theirchildren the best chance in life. And to do that, they need a Western education.Because, of course, the best jobs go to people out of the Western Universities,that I put on earlier. Its a circular thing.這使我想起最近看到的一個新聞標題：“教育：大鴻溝”現(xiàn)在我懂了。我了解為什么大家都重視英語，因為他們希望給孩子最好的人生機會。為了達成這目的，他們需要西方教育。

25、畢竟，不可否認，最好的工作都留給那些西方大學畢業(yè)出來的人。就像我之前說的，這是一種循環(huán)。Okay. Let me tell you a story about two scientists, two English scientists. Theywere doing an experiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hindlimbs of animals. But they couldnt get the results they wanted. They really didnt know what to do, un

26、til along came a German scientist who realized that theywere using two words for forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does notdifferentiate and neither does German. So bingo, problem solved. If you cantthink a thought, you are stuck. But if another language can think that thought,then, by cooper

27、ating, we can achieve and learn so much more.好，我跟你們說一個關于兩位科學家的故事：有兩位英國科學家在做一項實驗，是關于遺傳學的，以及動物的前、后肢。但他們無法得到他們想要的結果。他們真的不知道該怎么辦，直到來了一位德國的科學家。他發(fā)現(xiàn)在英文里前肢和后肢是不同的二個字，但在遺傳學上沒有區(qū)別。在德語也是同一個字。所以，叮!問題解決了。如果你不能想到一個念頭，你會卡在那里。但如果另一個語言能想到那念頭，然后通過合作我們可以達成目的，也學到更多。My daughter, came to England from Kuwait. She had studi

28、ed science andmathematics in Arabic. Its an Arabic medium school. She had to translate it intoEnglish at her grammar school. And she was the best in the class at thosesubjects. Which tells us that, when students come to us from abroad, we maynot be giving them enough credit for what they know, and t

29、hey know it in theirown language. When a language dies, we dont know what we lose with thatlanguage.我的女兒從科威特來到英格蘭，她在阿拉伯的學校學習科學和數(shù)學。那是所阿拉伯中學。在學校里，她得把這些知識翻譯成英文，而她在班上卻能在這些學科上拿到最好的成績。這告訴我們，當外籍學生來找我們，我們可能無法針對他們所知道的給予贊賞，因為那是來自于他們母語的知識。當一個語言消失時，我們不知道還有什么也會一并失去。 This is - I dont know if you saw it on CNN recently - they gave the HeroesAward to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldnt study at night in hisvillage like all the village children,because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke andit damaged his eyes. And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, becausewhat does a dollar a day buy for you? So he inv