2012年考研翻译题及参考答案

Part C

Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)

Since the days of Aristotle, a search for universal principles has characterized the scientific enterprise. In some ways, this quest for commonalities defines science. Newton’s laws of motion and Darwinian evolution each bind a host of different phenomena into a single explicatory frame work.

(46) In physics, one approach takes this impulse for unification to its extreme, and seeks a theory of everything—a single generative equation for all we see. It is becoming less clear, however, that such a theory would be a simplification, given the dimensions and universes that it might entail, nonetheless, unification of sorts remains a major goal.

This tendency in the natural sciences has long been evident in the social sciences too. (47) Here, Darwinism seems to offer justification for it all humans share common origins it seems reasonable to suppose that cultural diversity could also be traced to more constrained beginnings. Just as the bewildering variety of human courtship rituals might all be considered forms of sexual selection, perhaps the world’s languages, music, social and religious customs and even history are governed by universal features. (48) To filter out what is unique from what is shared might enable us to understand how complex cultural behavior arose and what guides it in evolutionary or cognitive terms.

That, at least, is the hope. But a comparative study of linguistic traits published online today supplies a reality check. Russell Gray at the University of Auckland and his colleagues consider the evolution of grammars in the light of two previous attempts to find universality in language.

The most famous of these efforts was initiated by Noam Chomsky, who suggested that humans are born with an innate language—acquisition capacity that dictates a universal grammar. A few generative rules are then sufficient to unfold the entire fundamental structure of a language, which is why children can learn it so quickly.

(49) The second, by Joshua Greenberg, takes a more empirical approach to universality identifying traits (particularly in word order) shared by many language which are considered to represent biases that result from cognitive constraints.

Gray and his colleagues have put them to the test by examining four family trees that between them represent more than 2,000 languages. (50) Chomsky’s grammar should show patterns of language change that are independent of the family tree or the pathway tracked through it. Whereas Greenbergian universality predicts strong co-dependencies between particular types of word-order relations. Neither of these patterns is borne out by the analysis, suggesting that the structures of the languages are lire age-specific and not governed by universals

【参考答案】

46. In physics, one approach takes this impulse for unification to its extreme, and seeks a theory of everything—a single generative equation for all we see

【参考译文】物理学中的一个理论把这种归一的冲动发挥到了极致，它探寻一种万有理论——一个关于我们能看到的一切的生成方程式。

47. Here, Darwinism seems to offer justification for it all humans share common origins it seems reasonable to suppose that cultural diversity could also be traced to more constrained beginnings.

【参考译文】在这里，达尔文主义似乎提供了有力的理由，因为如果全人类有共同的起源，那么假设文化差异也能够追溯到更有限的源头好像就是合理的了。

48. To filter out what is unique from what is shared might enable us to understand how complex cultural behavior arose and what guides it in evolutionary or cognitive terms.

【参考译文】把差异性和独特性从共性中过滤出来也许能让我们理解复杂的文化行为是如何产生的，是什么从进化或认知领域指导着它。

49. The second, by Joshua Greenberg, takes a more empirical approach to universality identifying traits (particularly in word order) shared by many language which are considered to represent biases that result from cognitive constraints.

【参考译文】约书亚格林伯格为寻找语言的共性而付出努力提出了第二种理论。他采用了一个更实用的共性理论，做法是辨认出众多语言的共有特征(尤其是按照词序排列)，这些特征被认为代表了由认知局限导致的偏差。

50. Chomsky’s grammar should show patterns of language change that are independent of the family tree or the pathway tracked through it. Whereas Greenbergian universality predicts strong co-dependencies between particular types of word-order relations.(www.yygrammar.com)

【参考译文】乔姆斯基生成语法应该表明语言变化的模式，这些模式独立于族谱或贯穿其中的路径，然而格林伯格的共性理论预测词序关系的特殊类别之间(而不是其他)有着强烈的共存性。