翻译练习材料.doc

阅读并翻译全文Since at least the days of Aristotle, a search for universal principles has characterized the scientific enterprise. In some ways, this quest for commonalities defines science: without it, there is no underlying order and pattern, merely as many explanations as there are things in the world. Newtons laws of motion, the oxygen theory of combustion and Darwinian evolution each bind a host of different phenomena into a single explicatory framework. 至少从亚里士多德的时代, 科学事业就是以搜索普遍原则为特点的。在某些方面,这种寻求共性给科学下了定义:没有它,没有潜在的秩序和模式,这世上有多少东西几乎就得有多少解释。牛顿运动定律,氧气燃烧和达尔文进化理论每个绑定的一系列不同现象成一个单一的解释的框架In physics, one approach takes this impulse for unification to its extreme, and seeks a theory of everything a single generative equation for all we see. It is becoming less clear, however, that such a theory would be a simplification, given the proliferation of dimensions and universes that it might entail. Nonetheless, unification of sorts remains a major goal. 在物理,一种方法将这种统一冲动推向极端,并寻找一个万用理论一个生成方程为我们所见的一切。它正变得不那么清楚,然而,这样的理论将会是一个简化,考虑到可能需要的维度和宇宙的增殖。尽管如此,各种各样的统一仍然是一个主要的目标。This tendency in the natural sciences has long been evident in the social sciences too. Here, Darwinism seems to offer justification, for if all humans share common origins, it seems reasonable to suppose that cultural diversity could also be traced to more constrained beginnings. Just as the bewildering variety of human courtship rituals might all be considered to be forms of sexual selection, perhaps the worlds languages, music, social and religious customs and even history are governed by universal features. To filter out what is contingent and unique from what is shared might enable us to understand how complex cultural behavior arose and what guides it in evolutionary or cognitive terms. That, at least, is the hope. But a comparative study of linguistic traits published online todaysupplies a reality check. Russell Gray at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and his colleagues consider the evolution of grammars in the light of two previous attempts to find universality in language. 这种趋势在自然科学一直在社会科学也很明显。在这里,达尔文主义似乎提供理由,因为如果所有人类共同的起源,似乎有理由假设文化多样性也可以追溯到更受限的开端。就像各种各样的人类求爱仪式可能都被认为是形式的性选择,可能是世界上语言、音乐、社会和宗教习俗,甚至历史是由通用特性。过滤掉什么是偶然和独特的从什么是共同的，可能使我们能够了解复杂的文化行为发生,什么指引它在进化或认知的方面。至少,这是希望。但一个在今天在线发表的语言特征的比较研究供应一个现实。拉塞尔格雷在新西兰奥克兰大学的,和他的同事考虑语法的进化根据前两次尝试去寻找语言中的普遍性。The most famous of these efforts was initiated by Noam Chomsky, who postulated that humans are born with an innate language-acquisition capacity a brain module or modules specialized for language that dictates a universal grammar. A few generative rules are then sufficient to unfold the entire fundamental structure of a language, which is why children can learn it so quickly. Languages would diversify through changes to the parameter settings of the generative rules. 最著名的这些努力是由诺姆乔姆斯基发起的,他推测人类天生的语言习得能力大脑模块或模块专门用于语言规定了一种通用的语法。一些生成规则然后足以展开整个基础结构的语言,这就是为什么孩子们可以学习它如此迅速。语言会分散通过更改的参数设置”的生成规则。The second, by Joshua Greenberg, takes a more empirical approach to universality, identifying traits (particularly in word order) shared by many languages, which are considered to represent biases that result from cognitive constraints. Chomskys and Greenbergs are not the only theories on the table for how languages evolve, but they make the strongest predictions about universals. 第二个,约书亚格林伯格,需要更多的经验方法,识别特征普遍性(尤其是在词序)共享许多语言,这被认为是代表偏见,结果从认知的约束。乔姆斯基的和格林伯格的并不是唯一的理论在谈判桌上语言如何演变,但他们是最有力的预测共性。Gray and his colleagues have put them to the test using phylogenetic methods to examine four family trees that between them represent more than 2,000 languages. A generative grammar should show patterns of language change that are independent of the family tree or the pathway tracked through it, whereas Greenbergian universality predicts strong co-dependencies between particular types of word-order relations (and not others). 灰色和他的同事们把他们测试使用系统的方法来研究它们之间的四个家庭树代表超过2000种语言。一个生成语法应该显示模式语言变化的,独立的家族树或路径跟踪通过它,而Greenbergian普遍性预测强大的公司依赖特定类型之间的关系对于语序结构(而不是别人)。Neither of these patterns is borne out by the analysis, suggesting that the structures of the languages are lineage-specific and not governed by universals. 这两种模式是都不是由分析得到的。表明结构的语言是沿袭具体和不受共性支配。This does not mean that cognitive constraints are irrelevant, or that there are no other universals dictated by communication efficiency. It is surely inevitable that cognition sets limits on, say, word length. But such universals seem likely to be relatively trivial features of languages, just as may be the case for putative universals in music and other aspects of culture. 这并不意味着认知约束是无关紧要的,或者没有其他共性来源于通信效率。它肯定是不可避免的,认知设置限制,比方说,字长。但是这样的“共性”似乎是语言的相关琐碎特性,的就像可能是个案,假定的共性在音乐和文化的其他方面。The conclusion? We should perhaps learn the lesson of Darwinism: a universal mechanism of adaptation says little in itself about how a particular feature got to be the way it is, or about how it works. This truth has dawned on physicists too: universal equations are all very well, but the world actually c