2015考研英語：新題型試題精選(四)

   　　2015考研英語：新題型精選試題(四)

　　The relation of language and mind has interested philosophers for many centuries.(61)The Greeks assumed that the structure of language had some connection with the process of thought which took root in Europe long before people realized how diverse language could be.

　　Only recently did linguists begin the serious study of languages that were very different rom their own.Two anthropologists—linguists，F(xiàn)ranz Boas and Edward Sapir，were pioneers in describing many native languages of North and South America during the first half of the twentieth century.

　　(62)We are obliged to them because some of these languages have since vanished，as the people who spoke them died out or became assimilated and lost their native languages.Other linguists in the earlier part of this century，however，who were less eager to deal with bizarre(古怪的)data from“exotic(外來的)”language，were not always so grateful. (63)The newly described languages were often so strikingly different from the wellstudied languages of Europe and Southeast Asia that some scholars even accused Boas and Sapir of fabricating their data.Native American languages are indeed different，so much so in fact that Navajo could be used by the US military as a code during World WarⅡto sand secret messages.

　　Sapir’s pupil，Benjamin Lee Whorf，continued the study of American Indian languages. (64)Being interested in the relationship of the language and thought，Whorf developed the idea that the structure of the language determines the structure of habitual thought in a society.He reasoned that because it is easier to formulate certain concepts and not others in a given language，the speakers of that language think along one track and not along another. (65)Whorf came to believe in a sort of linguistic determinism which，in its strongest from，states that language imprisons the mind，and that the grammatical patterns in a language can produce farreaching consequences for the culture of a society.Later，this idea became to be known as the SapirWhorf hypothesis，but this term is somewhat inappropriate.Although both Sapir and Whorf emphasized the diversity of languages，Sapir himself never explicitly supported the notion of linguistic determinism.

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　　許多世紀(jì)以來哲學(xué)家一直對(duì)語言與思維的關(guān)系頗感興趣。(61)希臘人認(rèn)為，語言結(jié)構(gòu)與思維過程之間存在著某種聯(lián)系。這一觀點(diǎn)在人們尚未認(rèn)識(shí)到語言的千差萬別以前就早已在歐洲扎下了根。

　　直到最近語言學(xué)家才開始認(rèn)真研究與自己的母語截然不同的語言。兩位人類學(xué)家、語言學(xué)家佛朗茨?博厄斯和愛德華?薩皮爾在二十世紀(jì)上半葉描述了北美和南美許多土著語言，在這方面他們堪稱先驅(qū)。

　　(62)我們之所以感激他們(兩位無驅(qū))，是因?yàn)樵诖酥?，這些(土著)語言中有一些已經(jīng)不復(fù)存在了，這是由于說這些語言的部族或是消亡了，或是被同化而喪失了自己的本族語言。不過，在該世紀(jì)早期其他語言學(xué)家并不那么熱心處理“異域”語言中的怪異數(shù)據(jù)，因此他們常不被人們所稱道。(63)這些新近被描述的語言與已經(jīng)得到充分研究的歐洲和東南亞地區(qū)的語言往往差別顯著，以至于有些學(xué)者甚至指責(zé)博厄斯和薩皮爾編造了材料。美洲土著語言的確十分特異，納瓦霍語實(shí)際上在二戰(zhàn)中可以被美軍用作密碼發(fā)密碼電報(bào)。

　　薩皮爾的學(xué)生本杰明?李?沃夫繼續(xù)研究美洲印第安人的語言。(64)沃夫?qū)φZ言與思維的關(guān)系很感興趣，逐漸形成了這樣的觀點(diǎn):在一個(gè)社會(huì)中，語言的結(jié)構(gòu)決定習(xí)慣思維的結(jié)構(gòu)。他論述說，某一特定語言中比較容易形成某些特定概念，但與此有別的其他概念則不易形成，因此該語言的使用者思考問題只會(huì)沿著這一條道而不會(huì)沿著那一條道進(jìn)行。(65)沃夫進(jìn)而相信某種類似語言決定論的觀點(diǎn)，其極端說法是:語言禁錮思維，語言的語法結(jié)構(gòu)能對(duì)一個(gè)社會(huì)的文化產(chǎn)生深遠(yuǎn)的影響。后來，這種觀點(diǎn)成為了知名的薩皮爾—沃夫假說，不過這個(gè)術(shù)語有點(diǎn)不妥。雖然薩皮爾和沃夫都強(qiáng)調(diào)各種語言之間的差異性，但薩皮爾自己從來沒有明確地表示過支持語言決定論的觀念。