1705048884 读书足以怡情，足以博彩，足以长才。其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其博彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处世判事之际。

1705048885

1705048886 若从形式和内容两个方面对原文和译文进行分析，无疑，汉译均有明显胜出。如for ornament, is in discourse一句，其汉译“其博彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中”，不仅文采灿烂，而且将原句的内涵做了深刻的阐扬和艺术的发挥。

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1705048888 纵览今日之汉语，“借形”外来语（如WTO、CT、MTV、CD等）和“借音”外来语（如伊妹儿、丁克、舍宾、销品茂等）“比翼齐飞”；当“亲密接触”等网络文学新词和“零距离”等科技术语的活用闪亮登场，我们的汉语并没有“忘本”，并没有舍弃文言传统。相反，富有表现力和生命力的文言用词用语，在汉语的“流通领域”得到了空前的认可和正确运用。中华民族久受压抑的民族精神在改革开放以来的20多年中得到空前焕发，汉语如古木逢春，一派昂然生机！

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1705048890 现代汉语没有忘本，且十分注重汲取文言精华，以致典雅美能够成为现代汉语的鲜明个性的现状，令我们语言工作者深感欣慰，特别是当我们把研究的目光投向大洋彼岸的时候。英语（特别是美国英语）在尊重语言传统、继承语言精华方面存在着各种问题。

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1705048892 美国小说家Theodore Dreiser（西奥多·德莱塞）在长篇小说Sister Carrie（《嘉丽妹妹》）有以下一段：

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1705048894 When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions.

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1705048896 一个18岁的姑娘离家出门，她无非有两种遭遇。要么落到好人手里，而过上好日子，要么马上接受了三教九流的道德标准，由好变坏。在这样的环境里，要保持中间状态是不可能的。大都市里到处是狡诈的骗局，其程度并不差于比它小得多的装着人样的诱惑者。有的力量巨大，会像修养到家的人那样用激情来骗人上当。万点灯火的闪耀和乞爱挑情的眼波，就影响人的道德而言，具有同样的魔力。天真未凿的心灵，多半是有压根儿超出人力之上的力量所败坏的。喧嚣的市声、沸腾的生活、鳞次栉比的楼房，用暧昧的言词叩击着受惊的心弦。倘使没有个有阅历的人在旁边，给她低声指点迷津。真不知这一切会把多少谎言妄语灌入这不知警惕的人的耳朵里呢！由于不明这花花世界的真相，它的美景就像音乐一般，往往会使一些头脑简单的人的知觉放松，然后削弱，然后堕入歧途。

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1705048898 这是一段抒情议论文字，议论农村的姑娘入城以后等待她们的命运以及世俗大网。作者分析入木三分，文字却有些艰涩。笔者就其中的第四个句子请教了美国教授Bill Hofmann。他对此句提供了paraphrase（释意）：The city—the urban whole—has its own tempting allures which are no less (are greater) than any single man can exhibit. Bill Hofmann教授在解答了难句之后，还发表了以下令笔者惊诧的议论：

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1705048900 When I first read your problem sentence, I had no idea what it meant. Its meaning became clear only within the context of the paragraph. 初读此句，Bill也竟坦言感到had no idea！

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1705048902 Thus I doubt that most college students could make much sense of this paragraph without a lot of struggle—and most would hate it! （现今的美国大学生理解写成于100年之前的此段文字也要经过a lot of struggle！更不可思议的是：most would hate it!）

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1705048904 And the prose of that paragraph is very dense and—by modern standards—difficult to read and understand. Our modern literature has all but abandoned the strong stylistic devices that were characteristic of writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Just as our society has become streamlined, homogenized, “fast”, and focused on mass appeal, our prose literature has followed suit. Modern readers—the mass readers—like their prose quick and easy, simple and clear.

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1705048906 Hofmann教授对当今美国读者对所谓prose literature的文字风格要求作了四字概括：quick and easy, simple and clear。并高屋建瓴地认为：Our modern literature has all but abandoned the strong stylistic devices that were characteristic of writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 句中的动词abandoned多么痛快，多么坚决！同时又和我们对于传统文学作品和文言的所持的尊重、继承和“笑纳”态度，恰成鲜明对照！

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1705048908 一年半以后的今日，笔者又和Hofmann教授旧事重新。笔者将他的上述言论重新发还给他，让他再证实一下以上观点。Hofmann教授有以下修正：

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1705048910 I did not mean all modern literature, but the literature which is aimed at the mass market.

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1705048912 然而，Hofmann教授在此修正之后，马上又有以下新论：

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1705048914 One of our leading magazines, Time, formerly claimed that the style throughout the magazine was so standardized that the personality of the reporters had been stripped away. The style became known as “Timese”—a separate language like Chinese or Japanese. Time magazine has since modified its editorial policies to allow for more individual voices and styles in some sections of the magazine.

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1705048916 可见，quick and easy, simple and clear的文字风格已成时代之潮流，浩浩荡荡，不可阻挡，就连著名刊物Time也力不从心。

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1705048918 为什么旧时的文学作品如此受到冷落呢？Hofmann教授做了以下几点饱蘸个人感情的分析：

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1705048920 语言现状：To my ears, the modern argot sounds as strange as the English of Chaucer, but much less melodious or imaginative. Teenagers have developed their own short-hand codes for use on cell phones. MTV and Rap musicians explore language, images, and values that I find deplorable. Much television programming is maudlin, sentimental, mindless junk. Talk shows are trivial or banal beyond belief; nothing in that milieu requires language of any quality or style. Life at the crotch level requires few words and less style.

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1705048922 There are villains aplenty in the assaults on language and style. Governments at all levels, abetted by lawyers, create the most godawful arcane, turgid, incomprehensible corruption of the language imaginable. The military slaughters the mother-tongue. Propagandists, politicians, advertising agencies, and hustlers of all varieties explore language as a means, not of communication, but of misrepresentation, distortion, and manipulation. The religious community is not innocent in all this. Preachers and evangelists give the lie to all their pieties. The King James version of the Holy Bible whose English language was tutor and inspiration to generations of famous writers has been rendered into a watered-down, bland dribble of sentences lacking the power and rhythms of the older version.

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1705048924 Hofmann教授的忧思：Much of the literature that was studied in our schools 50 years ago has been replaced to accommodate the new political correctness. Because I am old and tutored in that traditional literature, I lament its loss, but there are those—perhaps the majority—who would say, “It’s about time we gave the other voices a chance to be heard.”

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1705048926 1）文化现状：Our culture is so full of distractions and media blitz that the printed word (in excess of two sentences) gets very little attention. Radio, television, music, movies, automobiles, drugs and alcohol, sports, etc. all compete for the public’s attention, time, and money—especially money. On quiet shelves in libraries and bookstores, in a few select magazines, quality literature waits for the rare devotee.

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1705048928 2）新事物层出不穷：So much is new. Everyone is forced to learn so many new things—computers, cell phones, a myriad of electronic devices, new concepts, new discoveries, changing world scenes and politics, new ideas… . Science and the space program alone mean changing our thinking almost daily. Just keeping up with the present means there is little time for the past. And all of those new things introduce new vocabulary. We now have software that will write our letters for us automatically, and computer programs equipped with artificial intelligence that study and anticipate our style of writing and make suggestions.

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1705048930 3）社会的多样性：Diversity. We call ourselves a pluralistic society in which many cultures and many life styles exist side by side, and each minority wants its voice heard and its culture addressed. Schools today have classes in Afro-American literature, Hispanic studies, women’s literature, gay literature, etc. Those classes have often replaced the literature which formed our past—the literature produced by Anglo-Saxon and European white males.

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1705048932 4）相对短暂的历史和移民精神使然：We are a young country with scarcely 300 years of history behind us, and that history began with the fervor to be different from the Europe of old. Generations of our immigrants wanted to start a new life here. Casting off the old and beginning anew is deeply imbedded in our national character, even when the old is only yesterday. If the traditions of language must also be cast off, so be it—at least that seems to be the modern attitude.

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