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发表于 2013-5-4 00:07:55
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Okay. "But," I hear you say, "what about the research? It's all in English." So the books are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, what happened to translation? If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, there was lots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, into Persian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europe and the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now don't get me wrong; I am not against teaching English, all you English teachers out there. I love it that we have a global language. We need one today more than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? This system equates intelligence with a knowledge of English which is quite arbitrary.
于是,我听到你们问"但是研究呢?研究报告都要用英文。”的确,研究论著和期刊都要用英文发表,但这只是一种理所当然的现象。有英语要求,自然就有英语供给,然后就这么循环下去。我倒想问问大家,为什么不用翻译呢?想想伊斯兰的黄金时代,当时翻译盛行,人们把拉丁文和希腊文翻译成阿拉伯文或波斯文,然后再由拉伯文或波斯文翻译为欧洲的日耳曼语言以及罗曼语言。于是文明照亮了欧洲的黑暗时代。但不要误会我的意思,我不是反对英语教学或是在座所有的英语老师。我很高兴我们有一个全球性的语言,这在今日尤为重要。但我反对用英语设立障碍。难道我们真希望世界上只剩下600种语言,其中又以英文或中文为主流吗?我们需要的不只如此。那么我们该如何拿捏呢?这个体制把智能和英语能力画上等号这是相当武断的。
And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsia stand did not have to have English, they didn't have to pass an English test. Case in point, Einstein. He, by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic. But fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an English test. Because they didn't start until 1964 with TOEFL, the American test of English. Now it's exploded. There are lots and lots of tests of English. And millions and millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, those fees aren't bad, they're okay, but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, we're rejecting them.
我想要提醒你们,扶持当代知识分子的这些“巨人肩膀"不必非得具有英文能力,他们不需要通过英语考试。爱因斯坦就是典型的例子。顺便说一下,他在学校还曾被认为需要课外补习,因为他其实有阅读障碍。但对整个世界来说,很幸运的当时他不需要通过英语考试,因为他们直到1964年才开始使用托福。现在英语测验太泛滥了,有太多太多的英语测验,以及成千上万的学生每年都在参加这些考试。现在你会认为,你和我都这么想,这些费用不贵,价钱满合理的。但是对数百万的穷人来说,这些费用高不可攀。所以,当下我们又拒绝了他们。
It brings to mind a headline I saw recently: "Education: The Great Divide." Now I get it, I understand why people would focus on English. They want to give their children the best chance in life. And to do that, they need a Western education. Because, of course, the best jobs go to people out of the Western Universities, that I put on earlier. It's a circular thing.
这使我想起最近看到的一个新闻标题:“教育:大鸿沟”现在我懂了。我了解为什么大家都重视英语,因为他们希望给孩子最好的人生机会。为了达成这目的,他们需要西方教育。毕竟,不可否认,最好的工作都留给那些西方大学毕业出来的人。就像我之前说的,这是一种循环。
Okay. Let me tell you a story about two scientists, two English scientists. They were doing an experiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals. But they couldn't get the results they wanted. They really didn't know what to do, until along came a German scientist who realized that they were using two words for forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does not differentiate and neither does German. So bingo, problem solved. If you can't think a thought, you are stuck. But if another language can think that thought, then, by cooperating, we can achieve and learn so much more.
好,我跟你们说一个关于两位科学家的故事:有两位英国科学家在做一项实验,是关于遗传学的,以及动物的前、后肢。但他们无法得到他们想要的结果。他们真的不知道该怎么办,直到来了一位德国的科学家。他发现在英文里前肢和后肢是不同的二个字,但在遗传学上没有区别。在德语也是同一个字。所以,叮!问题解决了。如果你不能想到一个念头,你会卡在那里。但如果另一个语言能想到那念头,然后通过合作我们可以达成目的,也学到更多。
My daughter, came to England from Kuwait. She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. It's an Arabic medium school. She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. And she was the best in the class at those subjects. Which tells us that, when students come to us from abroad, we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know, and they know it in their own language. When a language dies, we don't know what we lose with that language.
我的女儿从科威特来到英格兰,她在阿拉伯的学校学习科学和数学。那是所阿拉伯中学。在学校里,她得把这些知识翻译成英文,而她在班上却能在这些学科上拿到最好的成绩。这告诉我们,当外籍学生来找我们,我们可能无法针对他们所知道的给予赞赏,因为那是来自于他们母语的知识。当一个语言消失时,我们不知道还有什么也会一并失去。
This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently -- they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldn't study at night in his village like all the village children, because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? So he invented a cost-free solar lamp. And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. (Applause) When he received his award, he said these lovely words: "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent." A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences.
这是--我不知道各位有没有看最近的CNN--他们将一座英雄奖授予一位年轻的肯亚牧童。在他住的村庄里,他和村里其它的孩童一样无法在夜晚读书,因为煤油灯产生的烟雾会弄伤他的眼睛。再说,他也没有足够的煤油——毕竟,每天只有一块美金的收入,你还能买什么?所以他发明了不需成本的太阳能灯。现在他们村里的孩子们的成绩都和那些家里有电的孩子相同(掌声)。当他接受奖励时,说了下面这句话:"这些孩子可以带领非洲这块黑暗大陆迎向光明"一个简单的想法,却有着深远的影响。
People who have no light, whether it's physical or metaphorical, cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know. Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark. Let us celebrate diversity. Mind your language. Use it to spread great ideas.
没有“光”的人——无论具体来说,还是抽象来说,都无法通过我们的测验。我们也无法了解他们拥有的知识。别让他们和我们自己都身处在黑暗里,让我们一同为多元性欢呼!关注你自己的语言,用它来宣扬伟大的想法。
Thank you very much.
非常谢谢各位。
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