高级英文写作教程之 部分翻译.docx

1、高级英文写作教程之 部分翻译四年级散文与写作Lesson One The Delicate Art of the Forest 林中高招 Mark TwainText 1 Coopers gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-

2、properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. As it was = as it was not rich = though it was not rich Vocabulary del

3、icate Marked by sensitivity of discrimination: a critics delicate perception. endowment /endaumEnt/ n. 1. The act of supplying with income, or a talent. 2. Funds or property donated to an institution, an individual, or a group as a source of income. 3. A natural gift, ability, or quality. stage-prop

4、erty things, objects used on stages except scenery, costumes cunning Marked by or given to artful subtlety and deceptiveness device A plan or scheme, especially a malign one. artifice skillful tricks savage Not civilized; barbaric circumvent outwit; to defeat or outwit by cleverness or stratagem; to

5、 surround or encircle with enmity moccasin A soft leather slipper traditionally worn by Native Americans twig Any small, leafless branch of a woody plant handy Readily accessible vessel A craft, especially one larger than a rowboat, designed to navigate on water steer a. To direct the course of. b.

6、To maneuver (a person) into a place or course of action. skipper The master of a ship undertow The seaward pull of receding waves after they break on a shore. sailorcraft cannon A large, mounted weapon that fires heavy projectiles. Cannon include guns, howitzers, and mortars. promptly immediately da

7、isy Slang One that is deemed excellent or notable. trail A mark or trace left by something that has moved or been dragged by. stump To clear stumps from; To bring to a halt; baffle slush Soft mud; slop; mire. vacate To cease to occupy or hold; give up 译文 库伯的发明天份并不怎么样，虽然如此，他却不厌其烦地运用它，而且还自鸣得意。他还真的用它干了

8、几件十分惬意的事。在他的舞台道具盒里，只有七八个高招、秘诀和妙计，能够让他的土人和林子中的人相互蒙来蒙去。他最大的快事就是摆弄这些天真的把戏，看（欣赏）它们起作用。 Text A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. 译文 其中一个他喜欢的，就是让一个穿鹿

9、皮鞋的人踩着另一个也穿鹿皮鞋的敌人的脚印，借以掩盖自己的行踪。干这个让库伯不知磨烂了多少双鹿皮鞋（靴筒）。 Text Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody does

10、nt step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. 译文 另一个他常常从他的盒子里拿出来的道具就是他的断树枝。他比什么都喜欢干树枝，所以不遗余力地使用它。他的书要是有哪一章没有人踩上干树枝，惊动周围二百码内的印地安人和白人，那

11、就谢天谢地了。每回库伯笔下的人碰到危险，而一分安静一分金的时候，他保准要踩上一根干树枝。 Text There may be a hundred handier-things to step on, but that wouldnt satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he cant do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken

12、Twig Series. 译文 尽管附近有上百种东西可以踩，但那称不了库伯的心。库伯要他最后找一个干树枝。要是他找不到，就去借一个。照他这样，皮袜子故事集干脆就叫它断树枝丛书好了。 Text I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as practised by Natty Bumppo and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three sa

13、mples. 译文 很遗憾，我没有足够的篇幅，写上几十个例子，看看奈地班波和其他库伯专家们是怎样运用他的森林中的高招。大概我们可以试着斗胆举它两三个例子。 Text Cooper was a sailor - a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving toward a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold

14、her back against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isnt that neat? 译文 库伯曾经航过海当过海军军官。但是他却一本正经（煞有介事）地告诉我们，一条被风刮向海岸就要撞礁的船，被船长驶向一个有离岸暗流的地点而得救。因为暗流顶着风，把船冲了回来。看看这森林术，这行船术，或者叫别的什么术，怎么样？（千载难逢的机会，可就是被库伯找到了，）真巧吧（真是干净利索吧）？ Text For several years Cooper was daily

15、 in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so - and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. 译文 有好几年，库伯每天都呆在炮兵部队。他当然注意到了一个炮弹落到地上要么钻到地里，要么就会弹起来，跳出百把尺，再弹再

16、跳，直到跳不动了，就往前滚。 Text Now in one place he loses some females - as he always calls women - in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the Reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cann

17、on-blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesnt strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across

18、the plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isnt it a daisy? 译文 现在有个地方，他的几个女性（他总是这样称呼女的）在一个雾夜在平原附近的树林边上迷了路。他的目的就是给班波一个机会来给读者显示一下他的森林中的本事。这些迷了路的人正在寻找一个城堡。她们听到一声炮响，接着一发炮弹就滚进树林，停在她们脚下。对女性，这毫无价值。但对可敬的班波则完全不同了。我敢发誓，要是班波不立刻行动，跟着弹痕，穿过浓雾，跨过平原，找到要塞，就让我一生不得安宁。怎么样？够巧的了吧？ Text If Cooper had any real know

19、ledge of Natures ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one of his acute Indian experts, Chinachgook (pronounced Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a person he is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor I could never have guessed out the way to find it.

20、 It was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not stumped for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that persons moccasin-tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like cases - no, even the eternal law

21、s of Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader. 译文 如果库伯不是对自然规律一无所知，他就是故意隐瞒事实。比方说，他的精明的印地安专家之一，名叫芝稼哥（我想，该读作芝加哥）的，跟踪一个人，在穿过树林的时候，脚印就找不到了。很明显，脚印是再也没法找到了。无论你还是我，都猜不出，怎么会找到它。对芝加哥可完全不同。他没迟疑多久。他改变了一条小溪的流向，在原来泥泞的河床上，那人的鹿皮鞋印竞然历历在目。在其他情况下，脚印一定被水冲得荡然无存，但在（库伯笔下）

22、这里流水竟然冲不掉脚印！对，当然不会冲掉啰！因为只要库伯要给读者显示一下他森林中的本事，永恒的自然规律也会失效。 Lesson Two The Emotive Component of Meaning 词义的情感成分Text If the human mind were a strictly logical device like a calculating machine, it would deal with words simply as names of categories, and with categories as essential tools for imposing or

23、der and system on a universe which otherwise presents itself as an unsorted chaos of sense stimuli. But human reaction to words, like much other human behavior, is also motivated by irrational impulses such as those we label love, hate, joy, sorrow, fear, awe, and so forth; and whenever the users of

24、 a language evince a fairly uniform emotional response to a given word, that response becomes part of the connotation, therefore part of the standard meaning of the word in that language. While the bulk of the vocabulary doubtless consists of words that carry little or no perceptible emotional charg

25、e (lamp, book,read, subtract, through), there are nevertheless a good many that produce reactions of various colors and shades, with voltages ranging from mild to knockout force. 译文 如果人脑真的象计算机，是一个严密的逻辑运算器，那它就会把字词处理得象排序归类的名字；进而把排序归类当成基本工具，使以感官刺激来表现的无序宇宙有序化（并把归类作为基本方法，使整个宇宙的事物变得有秩序，否则整个宇宙看起来就是一片杂乱无章感官

26、刺激因素）。但人对词语的反应，象许多人类的其他行为一样，都受非理性的冲动，如爱、恨、喜、忧、惧、畏等的影响；而当一种语言的使用者显示出划一的情感反应，这反应就成为词义内涵的一部分，成为这个词在那种语言中的标准词义。词汇的主要部分当然是由灯、书、读、减、过这样的只带一点或一点也不带“ 情感电荷” 的词汇组成的。但也有不少词汇却能产生不同感情色彩的反应，它们的“ 情感 电压” 有的弱，有的能把人“ 击倒” 。 New words Hayakawa: Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (b. 1906), Canadian-born Japanese American linguist,

27、 writer, and politician. Hayakawa was an opponent of dissident students during his tenure as president of San Francisco State College (1968-1973) and was a U.S. senator from 1977 to 1982. snarl 1 snB: v. snarled, snarling, snarls v. intr. 1. To growl viciously while baring the teeth. 2. To speak ang

28、rily or threateningly. v. tr. 1. To utter with anger or hostility: snarled a retort. n. 1. A vicious growl. 2. A vicious, hostile utterance. Frequentative of obsolete snar perhaps from Dutch or Low German snarren to rattle probably of imitative origin snarler n. snarlingly adv. snarl y adj. purr pE:

29、 n. 1. The soft vibrant sound made by a cat. 2. A sound similar to that made by a cat: the purr of an engine. v. purred, purring, purrs v. intr. 1. To make or utter a soft, vibrant sound: The cat purred. The sewing machine purred. v. tr. 1. To express by a soft, vibrant sound. Imitative Text Not tha

30、t it is always easy to distinguish the emotional response to a word itself from the emotional response to the class of things or concepts the word names. A rose or a skylarks song by any other names would smell or sound as sweet, and a dung heap or a subway trains wheel-screech by any other names wo

31、uld be a stench in the nostril or a pain in the eardrum; but many words are undoubtedly loaded with the speakers or hearers feelings, independent of any observable attributes in the class of objects named. When someone says Watch your language! he is usually not attacking your right to refer to the

32、thing(s) your are referring to, but only urging you to abstain from an expression that in itself, quite apart from its denotation and linguistic connotation, is offensive to his ear or eye. There are, as Professor Hayakawa puts it, words that snarl and words that purr - and, of course, there are innumerable gradations in between. An informer and an informant deliver the same confidential information; selective service and the draft impose identical duties on young male citize