第二讲

    Text Study
    British or American English?
    By Ian Gordon

    Para. 1a American English and British English exhibit differences, particularly in colloquial speech. In print, the differences are not great. The central vocabulary is the same in both. A Londoner who reads The Times will find no special difficulty if he flies the Atlantic and picks up the New York Times.
    Para. 1b The “slant” (or emphasis) of the news will naturally be different, but the language he reads is basically the same.
    Para. 2 For those whose first language is not English there are, however, some puzzling differences. The most obvious is spelling. In the days before print, communication was handwriting and every man spelt as he chose. Printing changed all that; by the 18th century the great English Dictionary (1755) of Dr. Johnson laid down a standard set of spellings that has altered little to the present day.

    Professor Ian A. Gordon (1908-2004)
    伊恩·戈登，语言学家，新西兰辞典编纂和
    语言学的创始人，同时也是新西兰第一所语言学
    院的创始人。
    He was born in Edinburgh and graduated from the University of Edinburgh.
    He laid the foundation of the New Zealand Dictionary Centre at Victoria University of Wellington（惠灵顿维多利亚大学).

    The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register (it became The Times on 1 January 1788).
    全国发行的综合型日报，是一张对全球政治、经济、文化发挥巨大影响力的报纸。又称《伦敦时报》。隶属于默多克 (Rupert Murdoch)的新闻集团(News Corp)。长期以来，《泰晤士报》一直被视为英国的第一主流大报，被誉为“英国社会的忠实记录者”。
    《纽约时报》（The New York Times）是一份在美国纽约出版的日报，在全世界发行，有相当的影响力，美国严肃刊物的代表，长期以来拥有良好的公信力和权威性。由于风格古典严肃，它有时也被戏称为“灰色女士”（The Gray Lady）。它最初的名字是《纽约每日时报》（The New-York Daily Times），创始人是Henry Jarvis Raymond和George Jones。

    Pick up
    拿起；捡起；整理；（通过学习或经历）获得，不经意中学会 接送
    e.g.
    a. He picked up a book from the bookshelf and read it.
    他从书架上拿起一本书，然后读了起来。
    b. He picked up the broken pieces of glass on the floor.
    他拾起地上的玻璃碎片。
    c. Let’s pick up the living room, for it looks too untidy for girls.
    我们收拾一下起居室吧，因为对于女孩来说它太脏了。
    d. While he visited Paris, he picked up some French.
　　　 在访问巴黎期间，他学了些法语。
　　　
    colloquial口语
    e.g.
    a. In colloquial speech, the Americans use the word “kid” to refer to “child”.
    在口语中，美国人用“kid”这个词来指小孩。
    b. In the United States, many people use slang in their colloquial speech. Therefore, sometimes, it is very difficult for you to understand what they are talking about.
    在美国，很多人在口语中使用俚语。因此，有时你很难听懂他们在说些什么。

    Exhibit
    vt. 表现；展现
    e.g.
    a. She exhibited pleasure by smiling.
    她用微笑表示高兴。
    b. The young musicians are eager to exhibit
    their talent.
    年轻的音乐家们都极想展现他们的才能。

    slant n. 观点，倾向性；斜面
    e.g.
    a. They give a slant to every single news item that's put on the air.
    他们播放的每一则新闻都有所偏向
    b. I want to know your slant on the problem.
    我想知道你对这个问题的看法

    Emphais
    n. 重点, 强调
    e.g.
    a. Grant puts a special emphasis on weather in his paintings.
    格兰特在他的绘画中特别注重天气。
    b. Morality was the emphasis of his speech.
    道德是他演讲的重点。

    alter vt. 改变，修改， 改建（房屋）
    e.g.
    She is trying to alter the coat.
    她正设法改那件衣服。
    vi. 改变，变动
    e.g.
    Little had altered in the village.
    村子里几乎没有什么变化。

    Till this day 直到现在，与 to this day 同义
    e.g.
    a. To this (the present) day, I still don’t understand why he did it.
    我至今还是不理解他为什么那么做。
    b. Those proposals have to this day not met with any response from them.
    他们至今还没有对这些提议做出任何反应。
    Translation
    Para. 1a美式英语和英式英语呈现出一些不同之处, 特别是在口语中。 书面语中二者的差异并不大，它们的核心词汇是相同的。一个读《泰晤士报》的伦敦人，在飞越大西洋时能毫不费力地读懂随手翻阅的《纽约时报》。
    美式英语还是英式英语？
    伊恩·戈登
    Para. 1b。报纸上新闻的观点（或重点）自然是各不相同，但他读到的语言则基本上是相同的。

    Para. 2 但是对于那些母语不是英文的人来说，就会有一些令人迷惑的差异了。最明显的是拼写。在印刷技术出现之前，文字交流是靠手书写的，每一个人都可以按自己的选择拼写。而印刷技术完全改变了这一情况; 到 了18 世纪，约翰逊博士的伟大的《英语辞典》(1755)制定了一套拼写标准，而且至今几乎没变。