大学英语精读五六册

“曲成奖学金”英语翻译大赛使用材料UNIT 1The author is not a preacher, and yet he does deliver a kind of sermon here. Who is his audience? Interestingly, his audience is your teachers of Advanced English as a foreign language. The author seeks to help them in their difficult task of teaching advanced students, their task of leading their students to a higher lever of ability and fluency. Does it encourage you to know that you are not the only one who is struggling at this level of language acquisition? A Kind of Sermonby W.S.FowlerIt is probably easier for teachers than for students to appreciate the reasons why learning English seems to become increasingly difficult once the basic structures and patterns of the language have been understood. Students are naturally surprised and disappointed to discover that a process which ought to become simpler does not appear to do so. It may not seem much consolation to point out that the teacher, too, becomes frustrated when his efforts appear to produce less obvious results. He finds that students who were easy to teach, because they succeeded in putting everything they had been taught into practice, hesitate when confronted with the vast untouched area of English vocabulary and usage which falls outside the scope of basic textbooks. He sees them struggling because the language they thought they knew now appears to consist of a bewildering variety of idioms, clichd and accepted phrases with different meanings in different contexts. It is hard to convince them that they are still making progress towards fluency and that their English is certain to improve, given time and dedication. In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some give up in disgust, while others still wait hopefully for the teacher to give them the same confident guidance he was able to offer them at first. The teacher, for his part, frequently reduced to trying to explain the inexplicable, may take refuge in quoting proverbs to his colleagues such as: You can lead a horse to water but you cant what you say. Its the way that you say it. His students might feel inclined to counter these with: The more I learn, the less I know. Of course this is not true. What both students and teachers are experiencing is the recognition that the more complex structures one encounters in a language are not as vital to making oneself understood and so have a less immediate field of application. For the same reason, from the teachers point of view, selecting what should be taught becomes a more difficult task. It is much easier to get food of any kind than to choose the dish you would most like to eat on a given day from a vast menu. Defining the problem is easier than providing the solution. One can suggest that students should spend two or three years in an English-speaking country, which amounts to washing ones hands of them. Few students have the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the best alternative course of action but even here it is necessary to make some kind of selection. It is no use telling students to go to the library and pick up the first book they come across. My own advice to them would be: read what you can understand without having to look up words in a dictionary (but not what you can understand at a glance); read what interests you; read what you have time for (magazines and newspapers rather than novels unless you can read the whole novel in a week or so); read the English written today, not 200 years ago; read as much as you can and try to remember the way it was written rather than individual words that puzzled you. And instead of read, I could just as well say listen to. My advice to teachers would be similar in a way. I would say Its no good thinking that anything will do, or that all language is useful. Its no good relying on students to express themselves without the right tools for expression. Its still your duty to choose the best path to follow near the top of the mountain just as it was to propose a practicable short-cut away from the beaten track in the foothills. And if the path you choose is too overgrown to make further progress, the whole party will have to go back and you will have to choose another route. You are still the paid guide and expert and there is a way to the top somewhere. UNIT 2Beginning with the earliest pioneers, Americans have always highly valued their freedoms, and fought hard to protect them. And yet, the author points out that there is a basic freedom which Americans are in danger of losing.What is this endangered freedom? For what reasons could freedom-loving Americans possibly let this freedom slip away? And what-steps can they take to protect it - their fifth freedom?The Fifth Freedomby Seymour St . John More than three centuries ago a handful of pioneers crossed the ocean to Jamestown and Plymouth in search of freedoms they were unable to find in their own countries, the freedoms we still cherish today: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Today the descendants of the early settlers, and those who have joined them since, are fighting to protect these freedoms at home and throughout the world. And yet there is a fifth freedom - basic to those four - that we are in danger of losing: the freedom to be ones best. St. Exupery describes a ragged, sensitive-faced Arab child, haunting the streets of a North African town, as a lost Mozart: he would never be trained or developed. Was he free? No one grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time; and nought will awaken in you the sleeping poet or musician or astronomer that possibly inhabited you from the beginning. The freedom to be ones best is the chance for the development of each person to his highest power. How is it that we in America have begun to lose this freedom, and how can we regain it for our nations youth? I believe it has started slipping away from us because of three misunderstandings.First, the misunderstanding of the meaning of democracy. The principal of a great Philadelphia high school is driven to cry for help in combating the notion that it is undemocratic to run a special program of studies for outstanding boys and girls. Again, when a good independent school in Memphis recently closed, some thoughtful citizens urged that it be taken over by the public school system and used for boys and girls of high ability, that it have entrance requirements and give an advanced program of studies to superior students who were interested and able to take it. The proposal was rejected because it was undemocratic! Thus, courses are geared to the middle of the class. The good student is unchallenged, bored. The loafer receives his passing grade. And the lack of an outstanding course for the outstanding student, the lack of a standard which a boy or girl must meet, passes for democracy. The second misunderstanding concerns what makes for happiness. The aims of our present-day culture are avowedly ease and material well-being: shorter hours; a shorter week; more return for less accomplishment; more softsoap excuses and fewer honest, realistic demands. In our schools this is reflected by the vanishing hickory stick and the emerging psychiatrist. The hickory stick had its faults, and the psychiatrist has his strengths. But the trend is clear. Tout comprendre cest tout pardoner (To understand everything is to excuse everything). Do we really believe that our softening standards bring happiness? Is it our sound and considered judgment that the tougher subjects of the classics and mathematics should be thrown aside, as suggested by some educators, for doll-playing? Small wonder that Charles Malik, Lebanese delegate at the U.N., writes: There is in the West (in the United States) a general weakening of moral fiber. (Our) leadership does not seem to be adequate to the unprecedented challenges of the age. The last misunderstanding is in the area of values. Here are some of the most influential tenets of teacher education over the past fifty years: there is no eternal truth; there is no absolute moral law; there is no God. Yet all of history has taught us that the denial of these ultimates, the placement of man or state at the core of the universe, results in a paralyzing mass selfishness; and the first signs of it are already frighteningly evident. Arnold Toynbee has said that all progress, all development come from challenge and a consequent response. Without challenge there is no response, no development, no freedom. So first we owe to our children the most demanding, challenging curriculum that is within their capabilities. Michelangelo did not learn to paint by spending his time doodling. Mozart was not an accomplished pianist at the age of eight as the result of spending his days in front of a television set. Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, they responded to the challenge of their lives by a disciplined training: and they gained a new freedom. The second opportunity we can give our boys and girls is the right to failure. Freedom is not only a privilege, it is a test, writes De Nouy. What kind of a test is it, what kind of freedom where no one can fail? The day is past when the United States can afford to give high school diplomas to all who sit through four years of instruction, regardless of whether any visible results can be discerned. We live in a narrowed world where we must be alert, awake to realism; and realism demands a standard which either must be met or result in failure. These are hard words, but they are brutally true. If we deprive our children of the right to fail we deprive them of their knowledge of the world as it is. Finally, we can expose our children to the best values we have found. By relating our lives to the evidences of the ages, by judging our philosophy in the light of values that history has proven truest, perhaps we shall be able to produce that ringing message, full of content and truth, satisfying the mind, appealing to the heart, firing the will, a message on which one can stake his whole life. This is the message that could mean joy and strength and leadership - freedom as opposed to serfdom.UNIT 3Do you want a better life? According to the author of the following article, the solution is easy. Simply change the way you look at yourself - and you will change the way you live. Improving your self-image is your key to living a better life.Your Key to a Better Lifeby Maxwell MaltzThe most important psychological discovery of this century is the discovery of the self-image. Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze. In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the sort of person I am. It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood. From all these we mentally construct a self, (or a picture of a self). Once an idea or a belief about ourselves goes into this picture it becomes true, as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity, but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true. This self-image becomes a golden key to living a better life because of two important discoveries: 1. All your actions, feelings, behavior - even your abilities - are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or will power. The man who conceives himself to be a failure type person will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions, or his will power, even if opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one who was meant to suffer will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions. The self-image is a premise, a base, or a foundation upon which your entire personality, your behavior, and even your circumstances are built. Because of this our experiences seem to verify, and thereby strengthen our self-images, and a vicious or a beneficent cycle, as the case may be, is set up. For example, a schoolboy who sees himself as an F type student, or one who is dumb in mathematics, will invariably find that his report card bears him out. He then has proof. A young girl who has an image of herself as the sort of person nobody likes, will find indeed that she is avoided at the school dance. She literally invites rejection. Her woebegone expression, her hang-dog manner, her over-anxiousness to please, or perhaps her unconscious hostility towards those she anticipates will affront her - all act to drive away those whom she would attract. In the same manner, a salesman or a businessman will also find that his actual experiences tend to prove his self-image is correct. Because of this objective proof it very seldom occurs to a person that his trouble lies in his self-image or his own evaluation of himself. Tell the schoolboy that he only thinks he cannot master algebra, and he will doubt your sanity. He has tried and tried, and still his report card tells the story. Tell the salesman that it is only an idea that he cannot earn more than a certain figure, and he can prove you wrong by his order book. He knows only too well how hard he has tried and failed. Yet, as we shall see later, almost miraculous changes have occurred both in grades of students, and in the earning capacity of salesmen - when they were prevailed upon to change their self-images. 2. The self-image can be changed. Numerous case histories have shown that one is never too young nor too old to change his self-image and thereby start to live a new life. One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life, has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the center. Numerous patients have said to me something like the following: If you are talking about positive thinking, Ive tried that before, and it just doesnt work for me. However, a little questioning invariably brings out that these individuals have employed positive thinking, or attempted to employ it, either upon particular external circumstances, or upon some particular habit or character defect (I will get that job. I will be more calm and relaxed in the future. This business venture will turn out right for me, etc.) But they had never thought to change their thinking of the self which was to accomplish these things. Jesus warned us about the folly of putting a patch of new material upon an old garment, or of putting new wine into old bottles. Positive thinking cannot be used effectively as a patch or a crutch to the same old self-image. In fact, it is literally impossible to really think positively about a particular situation, as long as you hold a negative concept of self. And, numerous experiments have shown that once the concept of self is changed, other things consistent with the new concept of self, are accomplished easily and without strain. One of the earliest and most convincing experiments along this line was conducted by the late Prescott Lecky, one of the pioneers in self-image psychology. Lecky conceived of the personality as a system of ideas, all of which must seem to be consistent with each other. Ideas which are inconsistent with the system are rejected, not believed, and not acted upon. Ideas which seem to be consistent with the system are accepted. At the very center of this system of ideas - the keystone - the base upon which all else is built, is the individuals ego ideal, his self-image, or his conception of himself. Lecky was a school teacher and had an opportunity to test his theory upon thousands of students. Lecky theorized that if a student had trouble learning a certain subject, it could be because (from the students point of view) it would be inconsistent for him to learn it. Lecky believed, however, that if you could change the students self-conception, which underlies this viewpoint, his attitude toward the subject would change accordingly. If the student could be induced to change his selfdefinition, his learning ability should also change. This proved to be the case. One student who misspelled 55 words out of a hundred and flunked so many subjects that he lost credit for a year, made a general average of 91 the next year and became one of the best spellers in school. A boy who was dropped from one college because of poor grades, entered Columbia and became a straight A student. A girl who had flunked Latin four times, after three talks with the school counselor, finished with a grade of 84. A boy who was told by a testing bureau that he had no aptitude for English, won honorable mention the next year for a literary prize. The trouble with these students was not that they were dumb, or lacking in basic aptitudes. The trouble was an inadequate self-image (I dont have a mathematical mind; Im just naturally a poor speller). They identified with their mistakes and failures. Instead of saying I failed that test (factual and descriptive) they concluded I am a failure. Instead of saying I flunked that subject they said I am a failure. Instead of saying I flunked that subject they said I am a flunk-out. For those who are interested in leaning more of Leckys work, I recommend securing a copy of his book: self consistency, a Theory of Personality. The Island Press, Now York, N.Y.NUIT 5As the author points out below, the success of science has less to do with a particular method than with an essential attitude of the scientist. This attitude is essentially one of inquiry, experimentation and humili