英语专业考研翻译练习

2004－05翻译练习

一．英译汉

1. What's in a Name?

FOR thousands of years, humanity has classified the living things of this world in much the same fashion: by their appearance. If it looks like a duck, walks and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. But tackling millions of species in this way has proven to be a recipe for confusion. As taxonomists have found to their cost, what looks like a duck may in fact be a goose.

More recently, genetic techniques have been applied, particularly for distinguishing the more difficult-to-identify species such as viruses and bacteria by comparing pieces of DN A. Might this approach be more generally applicable? Paul Hebert and his colleagues at the University of Guelph, in Canada, think it might be. Just as barcodes and the "universal product code" numbering scheme uniquely identify different items at a supermarket checkout, they suggest that some stretches of DNA could perform a similar function in living things. In a paper just published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they discuss how long such a genetic barcode needs to be, and where it might be found.

A universal product code found on the high street consists of a string of 11 digits, each of which is one of ten numerals, providing 100 billion unique combinations. Genetic material, however, uses a quaternary, rather than a denary, coding system. Every organism's genome is encoded using a quartet of chemical bases－adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, generally referred to by their initial letters, A, C, G and T－in a DNA sequence that can be millions of letters long. In theory, it would only be necessary to sample 15 of those letters to create one billion unique codes.

In practice, however, the characteristics of DNA mean that 15 letters are not enough. Unlike the arbitrary numbers of a universal product code, the letters of DNA are not random, because they code for something that has a biological meaning. So the researchers estimate that a 45-letter signature would be required. As luck would have it, determining the sequence of several hundred letters now costs no more than sequencing a few dozen. As a result, the researchers are confident that it will be possible to capture enough information to distinguish tens of millions of species, using existing technology. (378 words)

2. Off the Dime

A "senior aide" to Secretary of State Colin Powell－that's usually his pal and deputy, Richard Armitage, cloaked in the rules of background －was quoted in The New York Times this spring saying that Powell thought that the Arabs and Israelis "have to move the situation off the dime."

"It took a lot of handwringing," wrote Bill Powell in last month's Fortune, "and a lot of hearings to move off the dime on homeland security." President Ronald Reagan told Congress in a radio speech in 1982 "to get off the dime and adopt the budget."

The meaning of to get off the dime, as native speakers know, is "to start moving; to stop stalling." But what's the origin? And why hasn't the old slang phrase faded along with the value of the 10-cent piece, in an era when hardly anything can be bought for a dime a dozen?

A dime, from the Latin decem, "ten", is the smallest and thinnest U.S. coin. In metaphor, it signifies anything especially tiny. When you are driving, and mean to stop at a precise point, not in a general area－you stop on a dime.

Thanks to Jonathan Lighter's Historical Dictionary of American Slang, we have the activity that coined the phrase. Carl Van Vechter, one of the earliest modern dance critics and author of the 1926 novel "Nigger Heaven"－a title nobody would use today－described the scene in a taxi-dance hall: "Sometimes a ... couple would scarcely move from one spot. Then the floor manager would cry, Git off dat dime!"

To dance on a dime was to grind bodies tightly together in clothed but sexual contact, without moving from that spot; taxi dancers working for a dime (immortalized in the 1930 Lorenz Hart lyric "Ten Cents a Dance") were exhorted by their bosses to keep the customers moving. Thus, to get off the dime came to mean "to get moving." (I get a kick out of finding that out. What a rich language we speak, often without knowing its resonances.)

Dime is still used as a teenage slang synonym for a beautiful woman. This stems from the 1979 movie "10," star ring Bo Derek, and is rooted in "On a scale from 1 to 10, she's a 10." She is now a dime.

Behind a dime is an expression of suspicion. A Southernism in the mid-20th century was "I wouldn't trust him behind a dime." A dime is not only small and difficult to hide behind, but also notably thin, as in the phrase not one thin dime. Extreme distrust is shown in behind a dime edgeways.

Gangsters who wish to rat on their partners in crime with a telephone call to the police or F.B.I. have a linguistic problem. The slang phrase meaning "to inform, betray" used to be to drop a dime. However, it has been a long time since a call from a pay phone cost 10 cents; in recent years, the only Mafioso betrayers who used the phrase drop a dime were elderly and often short of change. There is as yet no known underworld lingo to express snitching by using a cellphone. "Punch M for Murder" was suggested here this spring. It has been scorned by Mafiosi. (545 words)

3. Numbers Game

"Target apologizes for any discomfort," said a spokesman for the discount chain, "that may have been caused by the baseball caps and shorts carrying the insignia `88."' He explained that it was not the company's intent to promote hate.

Since when does 88 mean "hate"? It turns out that some neoNazis have discovered that the eighth letter of the alphabet is h, and to them the number 88 is an oh-so-secret coded symbol for "heil Hitler."

The Boston Herald recalled the days of dot-and-dash telegraphy, with its two-digit codes for common phrases, and observed that "on CB and ham radio, and at the bottom of an odd e-mail, you still run across '88'－`love and kisses,' which no gallant will dare use anymore to pique the interest of the YLs (young ladies) for fear they'll think he is a bug-eyed, swastika-tattooed nutcake."

Fans of Chet Gould's "Dick Tracy" strip of the 1950's will remember a piano-playing cartoon character with the musical name `88 Keys,' played by Mandy Patinkin in the 1990 movie version. It comes from the number of keys on a piano keyboard, and its symbol can be the opposite of hatred: "Some of those 88 keys are white, and some black," notes Larry Horn of Yale University, "all playing together in peaceful harmony－and each set pretty boring on its own. Makes you wonder."

This latest superstition imposed on a number, and its panicky effect on merchants, is nothing new. It's a variant of 311, three references to the 11th letter, k, for the Ku Klux Klan. (Manufacturers who may have inadvertently turned out baseball caps with that number on it will now turn white as a sheet.)

Before that, 666 was a hot number for the nervous. In the New Testament's Revelation 13:9-18, the Apostle John recalls a vision of a beast that was an opponent of Christ: "Count the number of the beast," goes the King James Version, "for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Extrapolating this into a name is an example of gematria, an ancient numbers game that assigns each letter of the alphabet a numerical value. Some scholars point out that the verse characterizes, but does not name, the beast－which ain't Satan.

Numbers are not letters. Hate groups and concerned cabals do not own the numbers, which can be used to stand for anything. So wear 88 all you like, and if you have nightmares about 666, as soda jerks used to say－I'm 86 on the mail. (431 words)

4. "Winner" and "Loser"

The word "winner" and "loser" have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who makes someone else lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of a society.

Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others. They are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask.

Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and don't pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others, evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can admire and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound, or awed by them.

Winners do not play "helpless", nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives. (208 words)

5. Person of the Year

Sept. 11 delivered both a shock and a surprise — the attack, and our response to it — and we can argue forever over which mattered more. There has been so much talk of the goodness that erupted that day that we forget how unprepared we were for it. We did not expect much from a generation that had spent its middle age examining all the ways it failed to measure up to the one that had come before— all fat, no muscle, less a beacon to the world than a bully, drunk on blessings taken for granted.

It was tempting to say that Sept. 11 changed all that, just as it is tempting to say that every hero needs a villain, and goodness needs evil as its grinding stone. But try looking a widow in the eye and talking about all the good that has come of this. It may not be a coincidence, but neither is it a partnership: good does not need evil, we owe no debt to demons, and the attack did not make us better. It was an occasion to discover, what we already were. "Maybe the purpose of all this," New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said at a funeral for a friend," is to find out if America today is as strong as when we fought for our independence or when we fought for ourselves as a Union to end slavery or as strong as our fathers and grandfathers who fought to rid the world of Nazism ". The terrorists, he argues, were counting on our cowardice. They’ve learned a lot about us since then. And so have we.

For leading that lesson, for having more faith in us than we had in ourselves, for being brave when required and rude where appropriate and tender without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking from the pain all around him, Rudy Giuliani Mayor of the World, is TIME' s 2001 Person of the Year. (335 words)

6. Scientific Predictions for the Next 30 Years

In less than 30 years time the Star Trek holodeck will be a reality. Direct links between the brain's nervous system and a computer will also create full sensory virtual environments, allowing virtual vacations like those in the film Total Recall.

There will be television chat shows hosted by robots, and cars with pollution monitors that will disable them when they offend. Children will play with dolls equipped with personality chips, computers with

in-built personalities will be regarded as workmates rather than tools, relaxation will be in front of smell-television, and digital age will have arrived.

According to BT's futurologist, Ian Pearson, these are among the developments scheduled for the first few decades of the new millennium (a period of 1,000 years), when supercomputers will dramatically accelerate progress in all areas of life.

Pearson has pieced together the work of hundreds of researchers around the world to produce a unique millennium technology calendar that gives the latest dates when we can expect hundreds of key breakthroughs and discoveries to take place. Some of the biggest developments will be in medicine, including an extended life expectancy and dozens of artificial organs coming into use between now and 2040.

Pearson also predicts a breakthrough in computer-human links. "By linking directly to our nervous system, computers could pick up what we feel and, hopefully, simulate feeling too, so that we can start to develop full sensory environments rather like the holidays in Total Recall or the Star Trek holodeck," he says. But that, Pearson points out, is only the start of man-machine integration: "It will be the beginning of the long process of integration that will ultimately lead to a fully electronic human before the end of the next century."

Through his research, Pearson is able to put dates to most of the breakthroughs that can be predicted. However, there are still no forecasts for when faster-than-light travel will be available, or when human cloning will be perfected, or when time travel will be possible. But he does expect social problems as a result of technological advances. A boom in neighborhood surveillance cameras will, for example, cause problems in 2010, while the arrival of synthetic lifelike robots will mean people may not be able to distinguish between their human friends and the droids. And home appliances will also become so smart that controlling and operating them will result in the breakout of a new psychological disorder－kitchen rage. (407 words)

7. Google

My friend went on a date last week and "Googled" the man when she got home—that is, looked him up on the Internet search engine google. com. She found that he had been involved in many malpractice suits. (He's a doctor) Her "homework" has now resulted in a discounted opinion of this man. What do you think about using Google to check up on another person?

I've done it. And many other people have, too; that's why the verb "to Google" is now a familiar neologism. (It must demoralize those poor souls at AOL, with all their child-proofing and spam and ads, that no one ever says, "I met an interesting guy and AOL'ed him.") Had your friend labored all afternoon at the courthouse checking equally public information on her date, she'd have crossed the border between casual curiosity and stalking. Her Googling, however, was akin to asking her friends about this fellow－off hand, sociable and benign.

By calling such an act "checking up" on someone, you make typing someone's name into a search engine sound devious and sinister. But that is less a consequence of its malevolence than of its novelty. Acceptable behavior is ratified by custom, and that takes time. As more and more people routinely Google their blind dates, nobody will feel uneasy doing so.

This cultural adaptation is not arbitrary, but a communal determination that an action is harmless. So it might be better to think of this not as snooping but as curiosity. If someone set you up on a blind date with a poet, he'd most likely not feel offended but flattered that you were sufficiently interested in him to read his work. But this means the time to Google is not after your blind date but before. And it never hurts to search your beau's name along with the words "ax murderer."

While Googling is innocuous, it is not entirely reliable. For starters, people share names. You can't be sure if you're reading about one guy who has had a varied career (or who can't hold a job) or several people. And you can't be sure which one will be buying you a cocktail. (The surgeon? The sock collector?) Googling myself which sounds more perverse than it is turned up an architecture prof at McGill University, a video editor, a broker of sports tickets and a table-tennis champ; I'm now jealous of all of them.

Even if you sort out the names, you can't rely on the veracity of online information. So while your friend did nothing unethical by Googling her guy, she'd be unwise to discredit him too quickly (as a date or a doctor) or, for that matter, to marry him, based only on a cursory search. (459 words)

8. The Method of Scientific Investigation

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind; it is simply the mode by which all phenomena are reasoned about and given precise and exact explanation. There is no more difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, between the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person, as there is between the operations and methods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely graded weights. It is not that the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, differ in the principles of their construction or manner of working; but that the latter is a much finer apparatus and of course much more accurate in its measurement than the former.

You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you some familiar examples. You have all heard it repeated that men of science work by

means of induction and deduction, that by the help of these operations, they, in a sort of sense, manage to extract from Nature certain natural laws, and that out of these, by some special skill of their own, they build up their theories. And it is imagined by many that the operations of the common mind can be by no means compared with these processes, and that they have to be acquired by a sort of special training. To hear all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men; but if you will not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus are being used by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives. There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere’s plays, where the author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he had been talking prose during the whole of his life. In the same way, I trust that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the same period. Probably there is not one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though differing in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the causes of natural phenomen a. (445 words)

9. The Innate Capacity of Species

As Gilert White, Darwin, and others observed long ago, all species appear to have the innate capacity to increase their numbers from generation to generation. The task for ecologists is to untie the environmental and biological factors that control this intrinsic capacity for population growth over the long run. The great variety of dynamic behaviors exhibited by different populations makes this task more difficult: some populations remain roughly constant from year to year; others exhibit regular cycles of abundance and scarcity; still others vary wildly, with outbreaks and shrinks that are in some cases plainly correlated with the weather, and in other cases not.

To impose some order on this variety of patterns, one school of thought proposes dividing populations into two groups. These ecologists think that the relatively steady populations have "density-dependent" growth characteristics; that is, rates of birth, death, and migration depend strongly on population density. The highly varying populations have "density-independent" growth characteristics, with living rates greatly influenced by environmental events; these rates fluctuate in a way that is wholly independent of population density.

This dividing has its uses, but it can cause problems if taken too seriously. For one thing, no population can be driven entirely by density-independent factors all the time. No matter how severely or unpredictably birth, death, and migration rates may be fluctuating around their long-term averages, if there were no density-dependent effects, the population would, in the long run, either increase or decrease without limit. Put another way, it may be that on average 99 percent of all deaths in a population arise from density-independent causes, and only one percent from factors varying with density. The factors making up the one percent may seem unimportant, and their cause may be correspondingly hard to determine. Yet, whether recognized or not, they will usually determine the long-term average population density. (306 words)

10. Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was born, according to the Chinese zodiac, during the Hour of the Dragon in the Year of the Dragon. His birth took place during an American tour of Hong Kong's Cantonese Opera Company, in which his father was a comic actor. Known in the family as Little Dragon, Lee was actually sickly and weak; he took up martial arts as a means of self-protection around his tough neighborhoods and soon became agile and versatile. A year after being named the Hong Kong Cha-Cha Champion at eighteen, he returned to the United States, where he studied philosophy and medicine.

On the side, Lee mastered every physical technique of fighting, becoming almost supernaturally good. Eventually he was most often either working out, thinking about it, or teaching others. On the street he practiced kicks on trees and pieces of litter. At the dinner table he chopped at the empty chair next to him; while watching TV he did very slow sit-ups, and even in his sleep he would kick and punch. At parties he did one-finger push-ups and would gladly remove his shirt to show off his "muscles on top of muscles." He believed that concentration was 50 percent of a workout, and "Meditation and Mental Training" always topped his daily to-do list.

Lee married Linda Emery, one of his students at his kung fu studio. Their first date was dinner atop Seattle's Space Needle. They had two children, Brandon and Shannon, and a Great Dane, Bobo, that guests weren't fond of because he drooled constantly. In restaurants Lee usually ordered two meals at once, his favorite choice being beef with oyster sauce. He drank chrysanthemum tea and high-protein drinks that he made in the blender, and consumed massive doses of vitamins, herbs, and liquidized steaks. He considered himself a sharp dresser, liked silk suits, and ironed them himself.

The word people used most often in describing Lee was intense; he was notoriously impatient except when talk turned to martial arts. He laughed at his own jokes, and he had an annoying habit of singing to himself on car trips. Many people also saw him as a kind and compassionate man who did favors for people he didn't even know.

Deciding that film was the best way to dispel martial arts' repu-tation as glorified street fighting, Lee began making his own movies, with himself as the writer, star, director, and choreographer of the fights.

In the United States, his movies included Fists of Fury, Return of the Dragon, and finally Enter the Dragon, considered one of the most commercially successful films ever made. Many assumed that the fight sequences used a stuntman or other tricks, but in fact Lee did his own stunts—and was forced to slow down his movements because they registered only as a blur on camer a. The highest paid actor in the world, he inspired generations of Americans to take up martial arts. He had a mansion in Hong Kong surrounded by an eight-foot stone wall topped with broken glass and spikes; every room was kept locked to guard against theft by workmen.

Lee planned to retire at thirty-five, to spend more time with his family and do something beneficial for society, but he died at thirty-two from a swelling resulting from fluid on the brain. For someone in such superb condition to die abruptly was so strange that rumors have flown ever since. One rumor claims that, like Elvis Presley, Lee is still alive and waiting to return to public life. But his body is buried in Seattle—next to that of his son, Brandon, who also became a movie actor and died suddenly, in 1993 at age twenty-eight, after being accidentally shot during the filming of a violent movie called The Crow. (628 words)

11. Private Eye

After my jewelry was stolen, the police warned me that I might never get it back. But they didn't realize what lengths I'd go to.

You wouldn't believe the stolen goods that go unclaimed at police departments. In the West Valley of Southern California, property-recovery rooms look like yard sales before neighbors arrive. I've seen an autographed baseball, two handguns, a set of golf clubs and a suitcase clearly marked with a woman's address.

"People must know their stuff's gone," I said to one of the detectives jammed at a tiny desk. "Don't they care?"

He shrugged. "Most don't try to get it back," he said.

That's why every cop here was treating me like a bit of a freak. Not only did I try, I succeeded. I was there to pick up my cellphone, which was taken three weeks ago from my car with my purse and a small box containing my jewelry. I had just come from picking up my favorite green enamel necklace and other pieces from a sheriff's department a dozen miles away. A detective took my picture with a Polaroid for his files.

"Smile," he told me. "Then sign."

In the picture, I'm clenching my teeth. In the past weeks, I had learned that it takes one quality above others to be a great detective: rage. Without mine, I wouldn't be here.

I had just started wearing my jewelry again after years of keeping my expensive earrings tucked away so the small, curious hands of my boys wouldn't pull them off. I had become a clogs-and-jeans mother, and lately I realized that wasn't enough. So out came my antique rose gold bracelet, a gift from my parents that I wore through my 20's to cocktail parties at this or that embassy. Somehow, it comforted me.

Before leaving for Labor Day weekend with my family, I went to grab our toothbrushes and saw the bracelet in a drawer. I had a distinct feeling that I should take it with me. Even now, I can't explain why, but it was as if someone had whispered, someone might break in. It didn't make sense, but I gathered my jewelry and stashed it in our car's glove compartment.

After driving to Santa Barbara, I carried my sons to bed but forgot the jewelry. I didn't even remember it at 3 a.m. when I was startled awake. I dreamed my wallet had been stolen. But, hazy with sleep, I didn't go to the car; I pulled the covers tight.

The next morning, my husband left for a hike. That's when it happened. Thieves broke into our car at the trailhe ad. For days, I was mad at myself for not heeding my dream, mad at Steven for parking trailside and mad that everything I did to protect my jewelry, starting with bringing it with us, led to its loss.

Three days later, my bank called; someone had forged a check in my name. I called the police. I was furious, but all I said to the supervisor was: "Maybe it's good. We could get a le ad."

The supervisor didn't seem interested. "It's a busy time for us," he said. Mine was one of many burglaries on the books. He wasn't sure when his department would have times on to work on it. Then he told me that he was about to leave for a cruise."

"Fine," I said. "I'll sleuth."

"Go ahead," he said, "if you have time."

I didn't, but I'd make it. I called every pawnshop for miles and e-mailed photos in the hope someone would recognize my jewelry. "I'm working with the police to track down some stolen property of mine," I told merchants. I wasn't working for the police, but I was working with them, I reasoned, even if my partners didn't care. I ordered a credit-card report. One charge to Exxon didn't specify the location of the gas station, so I called Exxon headquarters and then drove an hour to get the station's surveillance tape and sent it via FedEx to the police.

My husband didn't think I should be playing vigilante anymore. What he didn't understand was that I was ready to fight for my jewelry not because it has sentimental value, as any woman's does, but because I'd come to think of the chain of golden figure-eights in my bracelet as my only connection to the woman I was before him and the children.

Two weeks later, there was a break. A methamphetamine addict was arrested with some of my family's things in his car. A detective called from a town 30 miles away I was so delighted I told her, "I think he's working with a woman who signed one of my checks." The detective later linked my case with another and got a search warrant.

Like me, she wouldn't let go. Amazingly, the jewelry turned up in the apartment of a suspected accomplice.

Before I left the police trailer with my recovered goods, I asked how other burglaries are solved, hoping to talk shop.

"Takes a squeaky wheel," one cop said. "This time, it's you."

I told them I thought the culprit lived nearby. Two detectives exchanged glances. "The crooks spent $17.19 at Carl's Jr. one night and then went to Texaco at 5:07 four blocks away."

The detectives were silent for a moment. "You're sick," said one, only half-joking.

Sorry guys, I couldn't trust you with this one. (907 words)

12. Longing to Belong

Over the next few days, the man my family wished me to marry was introduced into the inner sanctum. He was a distant cousin. His luxuriant black mustache was generally considered to compensate for his lack of height. I was told breathlessly that he was a fighter pilot in the Pakistani Air Force. As an outsider, he wouldn't have been permitted to meet an unmarried girl. But as a relative, he had free run of the house. Whenever I appeared, a female cousin would fling a child into his arms. He'd pose with it, whiskers twitching, while the women cooed their admiration.

A huge cast of relatives had assembled to see my uncle's son marry. The wedding lasted nearly 14 days and ended with a reception. The bride and groom sat on an elevated stage to receive greetings. While the groom was permitted to laugh and chat, the bride was required to sit perfectly still, her eyes demurely lowered. I didn't see her move for four hours.

Watching this tableau vivant of a submissive Afghan bride, I knew that marriage would never be my easy route to the East. I could live in my father's mythological homeland only through the eyes of the storyteller. In my desire to experience the fairy tale, I had overlooked the staggeringly obvious: the storyteller was a man. If I wanted freedom, I would have to cut my own path. I began to understand why my uncle's wife had resorted to using religion to regain some control — at least in her own home. Her piety gave her license to impose her will on others.

My putative fiancéreturned to Quetta, from where he sent a constant flow of lavish gifts. I was busy examining my hoard when my uncle's wife announced that he was on the phone. My intended was a favorite of hers; she had taken it upon herself to promote the match. As she handed me the receiver, he delivered a line culled straight from a Hindi movie: "We shall have a love-match, ach-cha?" Enough was enough. I slammed down the phone and went to find Aunt Amin a. When she had heard me out, she said: "I'm glad that finally you've stopped this silly wild goose chase for your roots. I'll have to extricate you from this mess. Wait here while I put on something more impressive." As a piece of Islamic one-upmanship, she returned wearing not one but three head scarves of different colors.

My uncle's wife was sitting on her prayer platform in the drawing room. Amina stormed in, scattering servants before her like chaff. "Your relative ... ," was Amina's opening salvo, ". . . has been making obscene remarks to my niece." Her mouth opened, but before she could find her voice, Amina fired her heaviest guns: "Over the telephone."

"How dare you!" her rival began.

It gave Amina exactly the opportunity she needed to move in for the kill. "What? Do you support this lewd conduct? Are we living in an American movie? Since when have young people of mixed sexes been permitted to speak to each other on the telephone"? Let alone to talk —as I regret to inform you your nephew did — of love! Since when has love had anything to do with marriage? What a dangerous and absurd concept!"

My Peshawari aunt was not only outclassed; she was out-Islamed too. "My niece is a rose that hasn't been plucked," Amina said. "It is my task as her chaperone to ensure that this happy state of affairs continues.

A match under such circumstances is quite out of the question. The engagement is off." My uncle's wife lost her battle for moral supremacy and, it seemed, her battle for sanity as well. In a gruff, slack-jawed way that I found unappealing, she made a sharp, inhuman sound that sounded almost like a bark. (646 words)

二．汉译英

1. 翻译教材前言

翻译是一门实践性极强的学问，需要长期下苦功夫才能真正学到手。翻译能力的形成不能单靠学习理论知识、强化技巧训练，而是需要扎扎实实的双语功底及大量的翻译实践。因此，从某种意义上讲，一个人的翻译能力不是课堂上讲出来的，也不是翻译技巧所能造就的，而是要靠自己脚踏实地地干出来。本书正是基于这方面的考虑，为培养和增进读者的英汉互译的实际动手能力而编写成的。

2．《毛泽东选集》（节选）

我们中国是世界上最大国家之一，它的领土和整个欧洲的面积差不多相等。在这个广大的领土之上，有广大的肥田沃地，给我们以衣食之源；有纵横全国的大小山脉，给我们生长了广大的森林，贮藏了丰富的矿产；有很多的江河湖泽，给我们以舟揖和灌溉之利；有很长的海岸线，给我们以交通海外各民族的方便。从很早的古代起，我们中华民族的祖先就劳动、生息、繁殖在这块广大的土地之上。

3．《邓小平文选》（节选）

我们的现代化建设，必须从中国的实际出发。无论是革命还是建设，都要注意学习和借鉴外国经验。但是，照抄照搬别国经验、别国模式，从来不能得到成功。这方面我们有过不少教训。

把马克思主义的普遍真理同我国的具体实际结合起来，走自己的道路，建设有中国特色的社会主义，这就是我们总结长期历史经验得出的基本结论。

4. 蒋南翔

蒋南翔（1913—1988年）著名教育家、江苏宜兴人。1952年被任命为清华大学校长，是清华历史上最有建树的校长之一。他一手建立起工程物理、工程化学、工程力学数学、自动控制、精密仪器等新兴科学和技术系科，并提出要把高等学校建设成教学、科研、生产的“三联基地”，依靠教师队伍和职工队伍“两个车轮”发展学校，对清华的发展和国家新兴科学技术的建设起到了重要的作用。作为一位教育家,他一贯强调德智体全面发展的教育方针，要求清华学子练好身体，“争取至少为祖国健康工作五十年”。其主要著述已汇编为《蒋南翔文集》出版。

5. 学院办学宗旨

学院按照“以马克思主义为指导，理论与实际相结合，中西融会，古今贯通，文理渗透，综合创新”的原则开展科学研究，先后承担包括国家科学社会基金、自然科学基金等有关科研项目百余项。全院共有50余项科研成果分别获得国家科技进步奖、教育部、有关部委和省市的优秀成果奖。

学院的办学宗旨是为我国培养高层次的人文社会科学方面的专门人才。多年来培养的各类学生具有较高的思想理论修养，知识面宽，基本功扎实，从事人文社会科学的研究和教学、新闻传播、对外经贸和文化交流、国家公务员等社会工作，有较强的适应和开拓能力，受到用人单位的普遍欢迎。

6. 汉语言文学专业介绍

一. 二年级着重基础，除大学英语、高等数学和计算机应用等课程外，学生要完成本专业的主干课程：写作、现代汉语、古代汉语、中国现当代文学史、中国古代文学史、世界文学、语言学概论、文学概论、中国文化名著导读等。

三、四年级选修汉语系列和中国文化系列的专业课程，撰写研究论文；同时，还可选修外语、史学、哲学、法学、社会学、教育学、新闻传播、经济管理或计算机科学与技术方面的系列课程，以便在本科毕业前后，多数学生能分别进入相关第二学士学位学习阶段，或硕士研究生学习阶段。

本系目前提供的第二学士学位有：编辑学，计算语言学；硕士学位有：中国现当代文学，语言学及应用语言学（含计算机中文信息处理），历史文献学，新闻传播学。

目前中文系与海外多所大学建立了广泛的学术交流与合作关系。现有近200名外国留学生在中文系长期进修或攻读学位。

7. 温哥华

温哥华的辉煌是温哥华人的智慧和勤奋的结晶，其中包括多民族的贡献。加拿大地广人稀，国土面积比中国还大，人口却不足3000万。吸收外来移民，是加拿大长期奉行的国策。可以说，加拿大除了印地安人外，无一不是外来移民，不同的只是时间长短而已。温哥华则是世界上屈指可数的多民族城市。现今180万温哥华居民中，还有一半不是在本地出生的，每4个居民中就有一个是亚洲人。而25万华人对温哥华的经济转型起着决定性作用，其中有一半是近5年来才到温哥华的，他们的到来使温哥华成为

亚洲以外最大的中国人聚居地。

8. 天坛

大街小巷熙熙攘攘。等车的人争先恐后地挤上了车。上车以后，又你推我涂地抢着购买车票。公共汽车颠簸了一阵，便到达目的地——天坛。我下了车，走进天坛的大门。一刹那间，那公共汽车上的拥挤闷热全被忘却了。

已经是傍晚了，人很少。到回音壁的时候，门已经关了，不能进去。我走到天坛的前面，抬头一看，广阔的天空衬托出金碧辉煌的天坛。一只孤独的乌鸦栖息在穹顶上，嘶哑地叫了一声，拍着翅膀飞了起来。我低头统天坛走了一圈，然后停下来，站了一会儿，欣赏着这特殊的气氛。

宏伟的天坛，无声的天空和盘旋着的乌真可入画。凭吊天坛，我触景生情，想到了人类的古往今来，久久不能自已。

9.谦虚与诚恳

有一次，几个中国人到一位比较富裕的美国人家里去做客，

主人引他们参观自己的住所。中国客人说：“你们的房子多好啊。

非常漂亮。”主人听了十分高兴，按美国习惯笑着回答说：“谢谢。”

有些中国客人对她的回答感到意外。

在餐桌上主人对大学毕业不久的中国女翻译说：“你的英语很好，很流利。”女翻译谦虚地说：“不！不！我的英语说得很不好。”

主人没想到她会这样回答，感到有些迷惑不解。

那位美国主妇的回答是否像有些中国人认为的那样“不够谦虚”呢？那位年轻的中国女翻译的回答是否像美国主人听起来那

样“不够诚恳”呢？

其实，美国主妇的回答并非不谦虚，中国女翻译回答也不是

不诚恳。讲英语的人听到别人赞扬，一般说“谢谢”，表示接受，

说明自己认为对方的赞扬是诚心诚意的，所赞扬的事是值得赞扬的。因此不应“假装自卑”或“故作谦虚”。但是，对中国人来说，

听到别人赞扬时，通常要表示受之有愧，做得很不够；或者说自

己的成就不过是由于侥幸，或者说是客观条件造成的，等等，而

接受赞扬则意味着有骄傲自满情绪或缺乏教养。因此，上述两种

回答引起不同反应是由于双方语言习惯不同。他们都根据各自的

风俗去理解别人所说的话。

10. 出国留学教育的政策目标

摘要：留学教育是培养和造就优秀人才的重要途径，吸引

和鼓励优秀留学人员回国工作或为国服务是出国留学教育的政

策目标。改革开放25年来，中国政府采取了不断扩大派遣留学

人员的战略决策，确立了“支持留学、鼓励回国、来去自由”`的

12字留学工作方针；同时加大了吸引在外留学人员的政策力度。

落实业已出台的各项优惠政策，为留学回国人员提供“实际、实在、实用”的保障措施，是目前吸引在外优秀留学人员工作的当

务之急。

关键词：留学教育；在外留学人员；政策研究