翻译材料

翻译材料 Whats so funny?John McCrone reviews recent research on humourThe joke comes over the headphones: Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left. No, not funny. Try again. Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside. Hah! The punchline is silly yet fitting, tempting a smile, even a laugh. Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose.笑话从耳机中传出来：“狗哪一边的毛最多？左边。”不对，不好笑，再猜。“狗哪一边的毛最多？外边。”哈！这个笑话的关键语句有些荒唐，却很适宜，令人宛尔，甚至捧腹大笑。笑一直让人类感到神秘，或许笑没有什么意义。作家 Arthur Koestler 称笑为奢侈的反射作用，“笑的独特之处就在于它没有显著的生物学目标。”Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree. Plato expressed the idea that humour is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies onbuilding up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline. But most modern humour theorists have settled on some version of Aristotles belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.幽默理论有着悠久的历史。柏拉图认为幽默就是一个因感到比他人优越而体会到的愉快的感觉。康德和弗洛伊德认为讲笑话时需要营造一个精神上的担心气氛，最终抖开笑话的包袱，让其滑稽有趣之处化解这种担心气氛。不过大多数现代幽默理论家最终全部采纳了亚里士多德的看法：笑话的基础就是一个对不友好情况的反应或解释，这种情况下笑话的关键语句或没有什么特殊意义，或貌似荒唐却聪慧地隐含了第二层含义。Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humour but language understanding and reasoning in machines. He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift. A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.爱丁堡的计算语言学家 Graeme Ritchie 在研究笑话的语言结构，不但为了了解幽默，同时也为了了解机器的语言了解能力及推理能力。她说，尽管笑话没有固定的模式，不过很多历史老照片不能说的秘密慈禧军阀明末清初文革晚清笑话全部是围绕某个出其不意的概念转换展开的。喜剧演员会描述一个情景，然后给出一个出人意料却又恰如其分的解释。So even if a punchline sounds silly, the listener can see there is a clever semantic fit and that sudden mental Aha! is the buzz that makes us laugh. Viewed from this angle, humour is just a form of creative insight, a sudden leap to a new perspective.因此，即使笑话的关键语句听起来有些无聊，听众却能够意识到其中有一个灵巧适当的语义，而心头擦过的“对呀”这一恍然大悟的感叹就是令我们发笑的信号。从这个角度看来，幽默就是一个发明性的洞察力，一个向新视角的突越。However, there is another type of laughter, the laughter of social appeasement and it isimportant to understand this too. Play is a crucial part of development in most young mammals. Rats produce ultrasonic squeaks to prevent their scuffles turning nasty. Chimpanzees have a play-face - a gaping expression accompanied by a panting ah, ah noise. In humans, these signals have mutated into smiles and laughs. Researchers believe social situations, ratherthan cognitive events such as jokes, trigger these instinctual markers of play or appeasement. People laugh on fairground rides or when tickled to flag a play situation, whether they feel amused or not.不过还有另外一个笑，就是社会交往中缓解担心局面的笑。了解这种笑也是很主要的。在很多幼小的哺乳动物的发育当中，游戏全部是关键的一部分。老鼠会在厮打游玩时发出超声波似的尖叫声，预防厮打变成真的争斗。黑猩猩有一个游戏表情，把嘴张得大大的，同时发出“啊、啊”的喘息声。对于人类来说，这些信号全部已转化成为了微笑和大笑。研究人员认为，激发这种本能的游戏信号或缓解担心局面信号的原因不是笑话等认知活动，而是社会场景。大家玩旋转木马或被他人逗痒，开始玩闹时，不论是否感到好笑全部会发出笑声。Both social and cognitive types of laughter tap into the same expressive machinery in our brains, the emotion and motor circuits that produce smiles and excited vocalisations. However, ifcognitive laughter is the product of more general thought processes, it should result from more expansive brain activity.不论是社交场所中的笑还是认知活动中的笑，全部是我们大脑中的同一表示机制在起作用。情感和运动神经网络令人微笑，并发出笑声。不过，假如认知活动中的笑是更多元的思维过程的产物的话，那么这种笑应该源于更广泛的大脑活动。Psychologist VinodGoel investigated humour using the new technique of single event functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRl). An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to track the changes in oxygenated blood that accompany mental activity. Until recently, MRIscanners needed several minutes of activity and so could not be used to track rapid thought processes such as comprehending a joke. New developments now allow half-second snapshots of all sorts of reasoning and problem-solving activities.心理学家 VinodGoel 使用“单事件”官能磁共振成像这一新技术对幽默进行调查研究，磁共振成像扫描仪使用磁场和无线电波跟踪伴伴随心理活动的充氧血液中发生的改变。直到最近，这种扫描仪全部还需要数分钟的时间才能完成扫描，因此无法用于跟踪了解笑话这么快速的思维过程。而新的进展使全部的推理和处理问题活动全部能在半秒钟就快速成像。Although Goel felt being inside a brain scanner was hardly the ideal place for appreciating a joke, he found evidence that understanding a joke involves a widespread mental shift. His scansshowed that at the beginning of a joke the listener$ prefrontal cortex lit up, particularly the right prefrontal believed to be critical for problem solving. But there was also activity in the temporal lobes at the side of the head (consistent with attempts to rouse stored knowledge) and in many other brain areas. Then when the punchline arrived, a new area sprang to life -the orbital prefrontal cortex. This patch of brain tucked behind the orbits of the eyes is associated with evaluating information.尽管 Goel 感到搞清了大脑内部的活动并不能完美地处理笑话的了解问题，她却发觉了解笑话需要思维的大转换。她的扫描仪显示听笑话的人在笑话开始时前额脑皮层会发亮，尤其是对处理问题起关键作用的右前额会发亮。不过在头部侧面的颞叶也会有活动，表明在试图激发已经有的知识，大脑其它很多区域也有活动。然后，当包袱抖开时，一个新的区域前额眼眶脑皮层活跃起来。这个蜷缩在眼眶后边的大脑区域是和处理信息相联络的。Making a rapid emotional assessment of the events of the moment is an extremely demanding job for the brain, animal or human. Energy and arousal levels may need, to be retuned in the blink of an eye. These abrupt changes will produce either positive or negative feelings. Theorbital cortex, the region that becomes active in Goels experiment, seems the best candidate for the site that feeds such feelings into higher-level thought processes, with its close connections to the brains sub-cortical arousal apparatus and centres of metabolic control.不论人脑还是动物的大脑，快速对眼前的事件作出情感上的判定全部是一件很艰巨的任务。能量和受激反应的程度全部要在一眨眼的功夫作出调整。这些忽然的改变产生的感觉现有主动的又有消极的。在 Goel试验中变得活跃的眼眶脑皮层区域因为和大脑的次脑皮层唤激结构和新陈代谢控制中枢有着亲密的联络，似乎最有可能是将这些感觉转入更高一层的思维过程的区域。All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to theirown thoughts. Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition. Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response. The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine. Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a persons outlook.全部的温血动物对外界改变的刺激全部在不停地作出细微的调整，但人类因为拥有语言而有着更为复杂的内心活动，因此人类不但会对周围的环境产生感情上的反应，而且会对本身的思维产生感情上的反应。一旦某一苦苦寻求的答案出现了，人就会忽然产生一个愉快的认可感。因为发明性的发觉是令人愉悦的，人类学会了寻求猎取这种自然反应的路径。笑话能够进入我们的通常评定机制，这就说明有趣和恶心，或有趣和恐怖之间的界限是十分微妙的。一个笑话给人带来的是愉快还是痛苦取决于一个人的价值观。Humour may be a luxury, but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. As, a psychologist at William and Mary College in Virginia, says: I like to think of humour as the distorted mirror of the mind. Its creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. If we can figure out how the mind processes humour, then well have a pretty good handle on how it works in general.幽默可能算是一个奢侈品，但其背后的机制却不是进化过程中的偶然事件。正如弗吉尼亚州威廉玛丽学院的心理学家 Peter Derks 所说：“我愿意将幽默想像成是思维的歪曲镜，幽默是发明性的、感性的、和分析和语言相关的。假如我们能够找出思维是怎样处理幽默的，我们就能从整体上处理好其运作机制。”14 Arthur Koestler considered laughter biologically important in several ways. F 15 Plato believed humourtobe a sign of above-average intelligence.NG16 Kant believed that asuccessfuljoke involves the controlled release of nervous energy.T 17 Current thinking on humour has largely ignored Aristotles view on the subject.F 18 Graeme Ritchies work linksjoketo artificialintelligence. T19 Most comedians use personal situations as a source of humour. NG20 Chimpanzeesmake particularnoises when they are playing.TQuestions 21-23The diagram below shows the areas of the brain activated by jokes.Label the diagram.Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 21-23 on your answer sheet.Questions 24-27Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G below.Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.24One of the brains most difficult tasks is to25Because of the language they have developed, humans26Individual responses to humour27PeterDerks believes that humourAreact to their own thoughts. Bhelped create language in humans. Crespond instantly to whatever is happening.problem solvingTemporal lobesevaluating informationCAFD