当代研究生英语下册第一单元课文翻译

UNIT1

A person’s life at any given time incorporates both external and internal aspects. The external system is composed of our memberships in the culture: our job, social class, family and social roles, how we present ourselves to and participate in the world. The interior realm concerns the meanings this participation has for each of us. In what ways are our values, goals, and aspirations being invigorated or violated by our present life system? How many parts of our personality can we live out, and what parts are we suppressing? How do we feel about our way of living in the world at any given time?

一个人在每一特定时期内的生活都是由外部生活和内心生活这两个方面结合而成的。外部生活是指我们在文明社会中的实际生活（对文明社会中实际活动的参与），其中包括我们的工作、社会地位、家庭生活、（担当的）社会角色、我们如何向社会展现自己，以及如何参与到社会中去等。内心生活是指我们所参与的种种外部活动对我们个人产生的影响。例如，我们目前的生活体系是符合我们的价值观、目标和理想呢，还是与之相违背? 我们的个性能在多大程度上得到发挥，还是受到某种程度的压抑? 在每一特定时期，我们对自己的生活方式又有何种感受?

The inner realm is where the crucial shifts in bedrock begin to throw a person off balance, signaling the necessity to change and move on to a new footing in the next stage of development. These crucial shifts occur throughout life, yet people consistently refuse to recognize that they possess an internal life system. Ask anyone who seems down, “Why are you feeling low?” Most will displace the inner message onto a marker e vent: “I’ve been down since we moved, since I changed jobs, since my wife went back to graduate school and turned into a damn social worker in sackcloth,” and so on. Probably less than ten percent would say: “There is some unknown disturbance within me, an d even though it’s painful, I feel I have to stay with it and ride it out.” Even fewer people would be able to explain that the turbulence they feel may have no external cause. And yet it may not resolve itself for several years.

正是在人的内心世界这个领域中，一些重大的和基本的转变开始使人失去自我平衡，这就意味着必须进行调整，以步人人生发展的下一个阶段。人的是阶段性的：在人生必经的一些重大转折关头，如果一个人觉得失去自我平衡，这就意味着要进行调整，以步人人生发展的下一个阶段，这些重大转折贯穿人的一生，只是是人们往往不承认自己具有这样一种内在的生命系统。如果你问一个看来不得志的人：“你为何如此消沉?”大部分人总是把那些内心因素解释成比较明显的外部因素——他会对你说：“我之所以以不高兴，是因为我最近搬家了，我原来的工作也换了，我的妻子又回学校去读研究生，还要干什么倒霉的社会工作，还因为其他一些乱七八糟的事，”或许只有不足十分之一的人会说：“我感到有一种不可名状的烦恼，尽管很痛苦，可我还得设法忍受它、克服它”更少有人会承认这些思想情绪的波动和外界因素没有什么关系。然而这种痛苦可能需要好几年才能熬过去。

During each of these passages, how we feel about our way of living will undergo subtle changes in four areas of perception. One is the interior sense of self in relation to others. A second is the proportion of safeness to danger we feel in our lives. A third is our perception of time—do we have plenty of it, or are we beginning to feel that time is running out? Last, there will be some shift at the gut level in our sense of aliveness or stagnation. These are the hazy sensations that compose the background tone of living and shape the decisions on which we take action.

在这些变化和转折中，我们对生活方式的看法要经历四个感知方面的微妙变化：第一，通过与他人比较（交往）形成的自我意识（对自己的看法）；第二，在生活的各种威胁面前所具有的安全程度（的变化）；第三是我们时间的认识，是感到来日方长，还是开始感到时日无多? 最后是对自己的精力和活力的直觉意识，是感到精力充沛，还是感到力不从心? 这些都是在我们内心里产生的若明若暗的感觉，它构成了我们生活的基调，影响着我们（作为）采取行动前的（依据的）种种决定。

The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our own distinctiveness.

成年后的生活（心理发展）很不容易。正如童年时代一样，每一步不但提出新的发展仟务，还要求我们放弃对从前有效的方法。在每一发展阶段，一些不切实际的幻想得放弃，一些虚幻的安全感和舒适良好的自我感觉也得放弃，以便能有更大的空间发展自己的独特个性。

Before 18, the motto is loud and clear: “I have to get away from my parents.” But the words are seldom connected to action. Generally still safely part of our families, even if away at school, we feel our autonomy to be subject to erosion from moment to moment.

不到18岁，我们的座右铭就已非常明确而响亮：“离开父母，自力更生。”话虽如此，实际情况未必尽然。一般说来，我们依然还是家庭中无法自立的成员。即便是离家在外上学：，我们也经常感到自主权不时地要受到客观因素的限制和侵犯。

After 18, we begin Pulling Up Roots in earnest. College, military service, and short-term travels are all customary vehicles our society provides for the first round trips between family and a base of one’s own. In the attempt to separate our view of the world from our family’s view, despite vigorous protestations to the contrary—“I know exactly what I want!”— we cast about for any beliefs we can call our own. And in the process of testing those beliefs we are often drawn to fads, preferably those most mysterious and inaccessible to our parents.

18岁之后，我们便开始认真考虑如何才能真正地离家独立自主。上大学、服兵役以及短期外出旅行等自然是社会为我们提供的第一次在家庭和自己的基地之间进行的双程旅行。为了显示自己对社会的看法与父母不同，我们常常急于寻找一切可称之为独立见解的看法。我们大声抗议“我很清楚我该做什么!”但实际上对此并不确定。我们为证实自己的信念，常常追求“一些时尚概念，尤其是在父母感到神秘或者不懂的问题上更想独树一帜。

Whatever tentative memberships we try out in the world, the fear haunts us that we are really kids who cannot take care of ourselves. We cover that fear with acts of defiance and mimicked confidence. For allies to replace our parents, we turn to our contemporaries. They become conspirators. So long as their perspective meshes with our own, they are able to substitute for the sanctuary of the family. But that doesn’t last very long. And the instant they diverge from the shaky ideals of “our group”, they are seen as betrayers. Rebounds to the fami ly are common between the ages of 18 and 22.

无论在社会上尝试什么角色我们都时时有一种恐惧，即自己还是个孩子，无力照管自已。于是我们就采取了对什么都不在乎的态度，假装信心十足，以此掩盖我们的恐惧心理。为了寻求支持以摆脱父母的羁绊，我们求助于同伴，于是他们便成了为我们出谋划策的参谋。只要同伴与我们的看法一致，意趣相投，他们就可以取代家庭的庇护。但这种关系一般长不了。

一旦彼此的看法出现矛盾，双方便会分道扬镳。这时我们就又有可能回到家里。对于18到22岁的青年人来说，这种去而复返的现象司空见惯。

The tasks of this passage are to locate ourselves in a peer group role, a sex role, an anticipated occupation, an ideology or world view. As a result, we gather the impetus to leave home physically and the identity to begin leaving home emotionally.

人生这一阶段的任务是，在同龄人中、在性别角色中、在期望的职业中、以及化思想意识和世界观方面确立自己的位置。这样，我们既有离家独立的动力，也有了离家独立的心理准备。

Even as one part of us seeks to be an individual, another part longs to restore the safety and comfort of merging with another. Thus one of the most popular myths of this passage is: We can piggyback our development by attaching to a Stronger One. But people who marry during this time often prolong financial and emotional ties to the family and relatives that impede them from becoming self-sufficient.

在这个阶段，我们想离开家庭独立生活，而另一方向又渴望与另一个人结合以重新找到安全和舒适感。因此，在这段时间里，最神秘、最令人神往的事之一莫过于同一个出众的异性想结合，来带动我们事业的发展。然而，在这个阶段内结婚的青年人，越发延长同家庭及亲属在经济和感情上的维系，无法实现真正独立的愿望。

A stormy passage through the Pulling Up Roots years will probably facilitate the normal progression of the adult life cycle. If one doesn’t have an identity crisis at this point, it will erupt during a later transition, when the penalties may be harder to bear.

在力图自立的阶段中，风风雨雨的锻炼也许有利于促使一个人正常地长大成人。如果一个人没有在这一阶段遇到任何自立的危机的话，那在将来某个发展阶段他一定还会遇到，但那时他要付出的代价将可能更加沉重。

The Trying Twenties confront us with the question of how to take hold in the adult world. Our focus shifts from the interior turmoils of late adolescence—“Who am I?” “What is truth?”—and we become almost totally preoccupied with working out the externals. “How do I put my aspirations into effect?” “What is the best way to start?” “Where do I go?” “Who can help me?” “How did you do it?”

到了二十几岁，我们面临的难题是如何在这成年人的世界中生存（自立）。再内心波功的青春期后期，我们关注的焦点是：“我究竟是怎样的一个人?”“生活的真谛到底是什么?”而此时我们几乎全沉浸在有关外部生活的问题上：“怎样才能使自己的抱负得以实现?”“最好从何处着手？”“我们应该朝什么目标努力?”“谁能帮我的忙?”“别人是如何走过来的?”

In this period, which is longer and more stable compared with the passage that leads to it, the tasks are as enormous as they are exhilarating: To shape a Dream, that vision of ourselves which will generate energy, aliveness, and hope. To prepare for a lifework. To find a mentor if possible. And to form the capacity for intimacy, without losing in the process whatever consistency of self we have thus far mustered. The first test structure must be erected around the life we choose to try.

与前一阶段相比，这个阶段的时间更长，也更稳定一些。在这个阶段中，人们的任务既艰巨而又令人振奋：绘制一幅美妙的生活蓝图，这种美好的憧憬会使我们充满活力、激情和希望；为毕生的事业做好准备；如果可能的话，找一个良师益友。还要培养一种既不丧失自己固有的风格，又能做到善解人意的能力。最初的实验基地必须围绕自己设计的生活监图去建立。

Doing what we “should” is the most pervasive theme of the twenties. The “shoulds” are largely defined by family models, the press of the culture, or the prejudices of our peers. If the prevailing cultural instructions are that one should get married and settle down behind one’s own door, a nuclear family is born.

“做我们‘应该’做的事。”这是二十儿岁的人的生活基调。但我们应该做什么主要取决于家庭的类型，文化的影响，以及同龄人的特定见解。如果当时最盛行的社会时尚就是到了这种年龄要结婚成家，那么年青人就会去建立小家庭。

One of the terrifying aspects of the twenties is the inner conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. It is largely a false fear. Change is quite possible, and some alteration of our original choices is probably inevitable.

二十几岁的人内心有一种可怕的想法，他们认定自已所做的选择将来不能改弦易辙。实际上这种担忧是不对的，因为变化是可能的，改变初衷也常常是必然的。

Two impulses, as always, are at work. One is to build a firm, safe structure for the future by making strong commitments, to “be set”. Y et people who slip into a ready-made form without much self-examination are likely to find themselves locked in.

这个时期有两个方面的动力在起作用。一种动力是信誓旦旦地要为未求筑造一个坚实而安全的生活构架。不过那些未经深思熟虑就落入一种现成的生活模式的人，往往到头来会发观自己陷入了一个十分狭小的天地里而不能自拔。

The other urge is to explore and experiment, keeping any structure tentative and therefore easily reversible. Taken to the extreme, these are people who skip from one trial job and onelimited personal encounter to another, spending their twenties in the transient state.

另外一种动力就是不断地开拓和尝试。他们把任何生活结构都看成是试验性的，因而可以随意更改的。在极端的情况下，这些人的工作试来换去，人际之间的短暂邂逅接二连三，结果很可能在一种反复不定的状态中度过这二十几岁的时光。

Although the choices of our twenties are not irrevocable, they do set in motion a Life Pattern. Some of us follow the locked-in pattern, others the transient pattern, the wunderkind pattern, the caregiver pattern, and there are a number of others. Such patterns strongly influence the particular questions raised for each person during each passage through the life.’

虽然我们在二十几岁时的选择并不是一成不变的，它们对于我们生活方式的形成还是起着决定性的作用。有的人按照关在自己小天地里的生活模式一直生活下去，有些人则变来变去很难定型；有的人少年得志，成就卓著，有的人一心为他人奉献。当然还有其他一些类型。这些生活模式都极大地影响着每个人在人生每一阶段所面临的具体问题。

Buoyed by powerful illusions and belief in the power of the will, we commonly insist in our twenties that what we have chosen to do is the one true course in life. Our backs go up at the merest hint that we are like our parents, that two decades of parental training might be reflected in our current actions and attitudes.

由于幻想的鼓舞和支持以及对自己的意志充满信心，我们在二十几岁时普遍认定自己所选择的道路是人生真正的事业所在。如果有人说我们很像自已的父母，说我们的言行举止是父母十多年来教育和熏陶的结果，我们会很不高兴。

“Not me,” is the motto, “I’m different.”

“不，我绝不是那样，我与他们不同。”我们总会这样说。