TED英語(yǔ)演講：你以為語(yǔ)言只是交流工具
會(huì)第二種語(yǔ)言，就像是有了第二個(gè)靈魂”，這正是我們學(xué)外語(yǔ)的原因之一。每種語(yǔ)言都帶有自己的思維方式，有的語(yǔ)言中每個(gè)名詞都有指定的性別;而有的語(yǔ)言中沒(méi)有上下左右只有東南西北。世界上有7000多種語(yǔ)言，每一種都有自己獨(dú)特的魅力。下面是小編為大家收集關(guān)于TED英語(yǔ)演講：你以為語(yǔ)言只是交流工具，歡迎借鑒參考。
演講者：Lera Boroditsky
| 中英文演講稿 |
So, I'll be speaking to you using language... because I can. This is one these magical abilities that we humans have. We can transmit really complicated thoughts to one another. So what I'm doing right now is, I'm making sounds with my mouth as I'm exhaling.
我們通過(guò)語(yǔ)言交流，因?yàn)槲铱梢哉f(shuō)話。這是我們?nèi)祟?lèi)擁有的一種神奇能力，我們可以互相傳遞非常復(fù)雜的思想。我現(xiàn)在正在做的是，一邊呼氣，一邊用我的嘴巴發(fā)出聲音。
I'm making tones and hisses and puffs, and those are creating air vibrations in the air. Those air vibrations are traveling to you, they're hitting your eardrums, and then your brain takes those vibrations from your eardrums and transforms them into thoughts. I hope.
我在發(fā)出各種語(yǔ)調(diào)、嘶嘶聲、呼氣，而這些引起周邊的空氣振動(dòng)。這些空氣振動(dòng)傳到你那里，它們到達(dá)你的耳鼓，然后你的大腦會(huì)將你耳鼓接收到的振動(dòng)轉(zhuǎn)化成思想。至少我希望是這樣的。
I hope that's happening. So because of this ability, we humans are able to transmit our ideas across vast reaches of space and time. We're able to transmit knowledge across minds. I can put a bizarre new idea in your mind right now. I could say, "Imagine a jellyfish waltzing in a library while thinking about quantum mechanics."
我希望如此。正是因?yàn)檫@種能力，人類(lèi)能夠?qū)⑽覀兊乃枷肟缭綍r(shí)間和空間，傳遞下去我們能夠?qū)⒅R(shí)互相傳遞。比如，我現(xiàn)在就可以給你傳遞一個(gè)奇怪的想法。我可以說(shuō)，“想象一只水母在一個(gè)圖書(shū)館里一邊跳著華爾茲，一邊思考著量子力學(xué)。”
Now, if everything has gone relatively well in your life so far, you probably haven't had that thought before.
當(dāng)然如果大家的生活到目前為止都還比較順利的話，你之前應(yīng)該沒(méi)有這樣想過(guò)。
But now I've just made you think it, through language.
而我現(xiàn)在讓你們有了這個(gè)想法，正是通過(guò)語(yǔ)言做到的。
Now of course, there isn't just one language in the world, there are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And all the languages differ from one another in all kinds of ways. Some languages have different sounds, they have different vocabularies, and they also have different structures -- very importantly, different structures.
當(dāng)然，世界上不是只有一種語(yǔ)言，全球有大約7000種語(yǔ)言。這些語(yǔ)言有著各式各樣的區(qū)別。有些語(yǔ)言有不同的發(fā)音，不同的詞匯，還有不同的結(jié)構(gòu)——不同的結(jié)構(gòu)很重要。
That begs the question: Does the language we speak shape the way we think? Now, this is an ancient question. People have been speculating about this question forever. Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, said, "To have a second language is to have a second soul" -- strong statement that language crafts reality. But on the other hand, Shakespeare has Juliet say, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Well, that suggests that maybe language doesn't craft reality.
于是，我們會(huì)問(wèn)：我們說(shuō)的語(yǔ)言是否塑造了我們的思維方式?這其實(shí)是個(gè)很古老的問(wèn)題。人們一直以來(lái)都在思考這個(gè)問(wèn)題。神圣羅馬帝國(guó)的查理曼大帝曾說(shuō)，“學(xué)會(huì)了第二種語(yǔ)言就擁有了第二個(gè)靈魂”——這是相信語(yǔ)言會(huì)創(chuàng)造現(xiàn)實(shí)。但另一方面，莎士比亞筆下的朱麗葉又說(shuō)，“名字本來(lái)沒(méi)有意義，一朵玫瑰花換個(gè)名字也照樣芬芳。”這就指也許語(yǔ)言不能創(chuàng)造現(xiàn)實(shí)。
These arguments have gone back and forth for thousands of years. But until recently, there hasn't been any data to help us decide either way. Recently, in my lab and other labs around the world, we've started doing research, and now we have actual scientific data to weigh in on this question.
這些爭(zhēng)論已經(jīng)持續(xù)了幾千年。但一直以來(lái)，都沒(méi)有任何數(shù)據(jù)能夠幫助我們確定孰是孰非。最近，在我的實(shí)驗(yàn)室和全球其它一些實(shí)驗(yàn)室，我們開(kāi)始做研究，現(xiàn)在我們有真實(shí)的科學(xué)數(shù)據(jù)，可以幫助回答這個(gè)問(wèn)題。
So let me tell you about some of my favorite examples. I'll start with an example from an Aboriginal community in Australia that I had the chance to work with. These are the Kuuk Thaayorre people. They live in Pormpuraaw at the very west edge of Cape York. What's coolabout Kuuk Thaayorre is, in Kuuk Thaayorre, they don't use words like"left" and "right," and instead, everything is in cardinal directions: north, south, east and west.
讓我給大家舉一些我喜歡的例子。先從澳大利亞的一個(gè)土著社群開(kāi)始，我有機(jī)會(huì)跟他們接觸過(guò)。他們是KuukThaayorre人，他們住在約克角城最西邊的Pormpuraaw。KuukThaayorre人有意思的一點(diǎn)是，在這個(gè)土著文化里面，他們沒(méi)有“左”和“右”這樣的詞，所有的東西都是通過(guò)基本方向來(lái)表達(dá)的：東南西北。
And when I say everything, I really mean everything. You would say something like, "Oh, there's an ant on your southwest leg." Or, "Move your cup to the north-northeast a little bit." In fact, the way that you say "hello" in Kuuk Thaayorre is you say, "Which way are you going?" And the answer should be,"North-northeast in the far distance. How about you?"
是的，我說(shuō)的是“所有的東西”。比如，你可以說(shuō)：“哦，你西南方的那條腿上有一只螞蟻”，或者“把你的杯子往東北偏北邊移一下。”事實(shí)上，他們打招呼的方式也是：“你往哪里去?”而回答會(huì)是：“遠(yuǎn)處東北偏北處，你呢?”
So imagine as you're walking around your day, every person you greet, you have to report your heading direction.
想象一下，你走在路上，你遇見(jiàn)每一個(gè)人都要報(bào)告一下你朝什么方向前進(jìn)。
But that would actually get you oriented pretty fast, right? Because you literally couldn't get past "hello," if you didn't know which way you were going. In fact, people who speak languages like this stay oriented really well. They stay oriented better than we used to think humans could.
但這會(huì)讓你很快獲得方向感，不是嗎?因?yàn)槿绻悴恢滥闱靶械姆较虻脑?，你連打招呼都沒(méi)法進(jìn)行。事實(shí)上，說(shuō)這類(lèi)語(yǔ)言的人他們的方向感非常好，遠(yuǎn)比我們以為人類(lèi)可以做到的要好。
We used to think that humans were worse than other creatures because of some biological excuse: "Oh, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales." No; if your language and your culture trains you to do it, actually, you can do it. There are humans around the world who stay oriented really well.
我們?cè)?jīng)以為人類(lèi)的方向感要比其他生物差，而我們也找了生物原因方面的借口：“哦，我們沒(méi)有可以感測(cè)磁場(chǎng)的鳥(niǎo)嘴或魚(yú)鱗”。事實(shí)并非如此。如果你的語(yǔ)言和文化給了你這方面的訓(xùn)練，你是可以做到的。世界上有些人的方向感就非常好。
And just to get us in agreement about how different this is from the way we do it, I want you all to close your eyes fora second and point southeast.
為了確保我們大家都同意在這點(diǎn)上我們的思維方式有多大差異，請(qǐng)大家閉上眼睛，然后指向東南方。
Keep your eyes closed. Point. OK, so you can open your eyes. I see you guys pointing there, there, there, there, there... I don't know which way it is myself --You have not been a lot of help.
先不要睜開(kāi)眼睛，請(qǐng)指向東南方?，F(xiàn)在，你們可以睜開(kāi)眼睛了。我看到你們有指向那兒、那兒、那兒、那兒的……我自己也不知道哪邊是東南方，你們也沒(méi)能幫到我。
So let's just say the accuracy in this room was not very high. This is a big difference in cognitive ability across languages, right? Where one group -- very distinguished group like you guys --doesn't know which way is which, but in another group, I could ask a five-year-old and they would know.
暫且就說(shuō)，在座的大家在這個(gè)問(wèn)題上的準(zhǔn)確度不是很高。這就是不同語(yǔ)言之間的認(rèn)知能力的巨大差異，一群像在座的各位一樣非常優(yōu)秀的人分不清哪里是哪里，而如果換做另一群人，一個(gè)5歲的孩子也知道答案。
There are also really big differences in how people think about time. So here I have pictures of my grandfather at different ages. And if I ask an English speaker to organize time, they might lay it out this way, from left to right. This has to do with writing direction. If you were a speaker of Hebrew or Arabic, you might do it going in the opposite direction, from right to left.
人們思考時(shí)間的方式也非常不同。這里是幾張我的祖父在不同年齡段的照片。如果我讓一個(gè)英語(yǔ)使用者將它們按時(shí)間進(jìn)行排列，他們可以會(huì)這樣排，從左到右。這跟寫(xiě)字的方向有關(guān)。如果你說(shuō)的是希伯來(lái)語(yǔ)或阿拉伯語(yǔ)，你則可能會(huì)以相反的方向排列，從右到左。
But how would the Kuuk Thaayorre, this Aboriginal group I just told you about, do it? They don't use words like"left" and "right." Let me give you hint. When we sat people facing south, they organized time from left to right. When we sat them facing north, they organized time from right to left. When we sat them facing east, time came towards the body.
那KuukThaayorre人——我剛才提到的土著民會(huì)怎么排呢?他們沒(méi)有“左”和“右”的概念。我來(lái)提示一下大家。當(dāng)我們讓他們面朝南方的時(shí)候，他們將時(shí)間順序從左向右排;當(dāng)面朝北方的時(shí)候，他們將時(shí)間順序從右到左排;當(dāng)他們面朝東方的時(shí)候，他們將時(shí)間從遠(yuǎn)到近排。
What's the pattern? East to west, right? So for them, time doesn't actually get locked on the body at all, it gets locked on the landscape. So for me, if I'm facing this way, then time goes this way, and if I'm facing this way, then time goes this way. I'm facing this way, time goes this way -- very egocentric of me to have the direction of time chase me around every time I turn my body. For the Kuuk Thaayorre, time is locked on the landscape. It's a dramatically different way of thinking about time.
發(fā)現(xiàn)規(guī)律了么?從東到西，對(duì)嗎?因此對(duì)他們來(lái)說(shuō)，時(shí)間跟身體的方向無(wú)關(guān)，而是跟地理有關(guān)。對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，如果我面向這邊，時(shí)間就是這樣走的;如果我面向這邊，時(shí)間就是這樣走的;如果我面向這邊，時(shí)間就是這樣走的——完全以我為中心，我每次一轉(zhuǎn)身，時(shí)間也要跟著我改變方向。對(duì)KuukThaayorre人來(lái)說(shuō)，時(shí)間是跟地理有關(guān)的。這是一種思考時(shí)間的截然不同的方式。
Here's another really smart human trick. Suppose I ask you how many penguins are there. Well, I bet I know how you'd solve that problem if you solved it. You went, "One, two, three, four,five, six, seven, eight." You counted them. You named each one with a number, and the last number you said was the number of penguins. This is a little trick that you're taught to use as kids. You learn the number list and you learn how to apply it. A little linguistic trick.
再給大家說(shuō)一個(gè)人類(lèi)的聰明之處。假設(shè)我問(wèn)你，這里有多少只企鵝，我敢說(shuō)我知道你會(huì)怎么解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題。你會(huì)“一二三四五六七八”地?cái)?shù)過(guò)去。你讓每一只企鵝對(duì)應(yīng)一個(gè)數(shù)字，你念出的最后一個(gè)數(shù)字就是企鵝的總數(shù)。這是你小時(shí)候就學(xué)會(huì)了的技巧，你學(xué)會(huì)了數(shù)數(shù)，你也學(xué)會(huì)了怎么用它。這是一種語(yǔ)言學(xué)的技巧。
Well, some languages don't do this, because some languages don't have exact number words. They're languages that don't have a word like "seven" or a word like"eight." In fact, people who speak these languages don't count, and they have trouble keeping track of exact quantities. So, for example, if I ask you to match this number of penguins to the same number of ducks, you would be able to do that by counting. But folks who don't have that linguistic trick can't do that.
但有些語(yǔ)言不是這樣的，因?yàn)橛行┱Z(yǔ)言沒(méi)有精確的數(shù)字詞匯。有一些語(yǔ)言是沒(méi)有比如“七”或者“八”之類(lèi)的數(shù)字的。事實(shí)上，對(duì)那些使用沒(méi)有數(shù)字的語(yǔ)言的人來(lái)說(shuō)，他們不會(huì)數(shù)數(shù)，計(jì)算精確的數(shù)量對(duì)他們來(lái)說(shuō)是很難的。比如，如果我讓你把這么多的企鵝跟同一數(shù)量的鴨子匹配起來(lái)，你數(shù)一下就可以做到了。但對(duì)那些沒(méi)有這一語(yǔ)言特征的人來(lái)說(shuō)卻無(wú)法做到。
Languages also differ in how they divide up the color spectrum -- the visual world. Some languages have lots of words for colors, some have only a couple words, "light" and "dark." And languages differ in where they put boundaries between colors. So, for example, in English, there's a word for blue that covers all of the colors that you can see on the screen, but in Russian, there isn't a single word.
語(yǔ)言的差異還體現(xiàn)在我們?nèi)绾畏直骖伾?，那些視覺(jué)的東西。有些語(yǔ)言有很多的顏色詞匯，有的則很少，就只有“淺色”和“深色”。這些語(yǔ)言差異體現(xiàn)在不同顏色之間的界限在哪里。比如，在英語(yǔ)里面，我們有藍(lán)色這個(gè)詞，它包含了你在屏幕上看到的所有顏色。但是在俄語(yǔ)里面，卻沒(méi)有這樣的一個(gè)詞。
In stead, Russian speakers have to differentiate between light blue, "goluboy,"and dark blue, "siniy." So Russians have this lifetime of experience of, in language, distinguishing these two colors. When we test people's ability to perceptually discriminate these colors, what we find is that Russian speakers are faster across this linguistic boundary. They're faster to be able to tell the difference between a light and dark blue.
相反，俄語(yǔ)使用者要把淺藍(lán)色“goluboy”和深藍(lán)色“siniy”區(qū)別開(kāi)來(lái)。所以俄語(yǔ)使用者一生都會(huì)在語(yǔ)言上區(qū)別這兩種顏色。當(dāng)我們測(cè)試人們辨別這些顏色的能力的時(shí)候，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)俄語(yǔ)使用者能夠更快地進(jìn)行這種概念切換，他們能夠更快地分辨淺藍(lán)色和深藍(lán)色。
And when you look at people's brains as they're looking at colors -- say you have colors shifting slowly from light to dark blue -- the brains of people who use different words for light and dark blue will give a surprised reaction as the colors shift from light to dark, as if, "Ooh, something has categorically changed," whereas the brains of English speakers, for example, that don't make this categorical distinction, don't give that surprise, because nothing is categorically changing.
當(dāng)你觀察人們?cè)诳催@些顏色的大腦時(shí)，假設(shè)你給他們看從淺藍(lán)色到深藍(lán)色的漸變，那些用不同詞形容“淺藍(lán)”和“深藍(lán)”的人的大腦會(huì)在顏色從淺到深的轉(zhuǎn)換時(shí)表現(xiàn)出驚訝，仿佛“哦，某些事情發(fā)生了根本的變化”，而不做這種分辨的英語(yǔ)使用者的大腦則不會(huì)表現(xiàn)出驚訝，因?yàn)闆](méi)發(fā)生什么根本的變化。
Languages have all kinds of structural quirks. This is one of my favorites. Lots of languages have grammatical gender; every noun gets assigned a gender, often masculine or feminine. And these genders differ across languages. So, for example, the sun is feminine in German but masculine in Spanish, and the moon, the reverse. Could this actually have any consequence for how people think?
語(yǔ)言還有各種各樣的結(jié)構(gòu)特征。這個(gè)是我最喜歡的。很多語(yǔ)言都有語(yǔ)法上的詞性，每個(gè)名詞都有一個(gè)指定的詞性，通常是陽(yáng)性或陰性。這些詞性在不同語(yǔ)言中有所不同。比如，太陽(yáng)在德語(yǔ)中是陰性的，在西班牙語(yǔ)中則是陽(yáng)性的，月亮則相反。那這會(huì)不會(huì)影響人們的思考方式呢?
Do German speakers think of the sun as some how more female-like, and the moon somehow more male-like? Actually, it turns out that's the case. So if you ask German and Spanish speakers to, say, describe a bridge, like the one here -- "bridge" happens to be grammatically feminine in German, grammatically masculine in Spanish -- German speakers are more likely to say bridges are "beautiful," "elegant"and stereotypically feminine words. Whereas Spanish speakers will be more likely to say they're "strong" or "long," these masculine words.
德語(yǔ)使用者會(huì)覺(jué)得太陽(yáng)更女性化，而月亮更男性化嗎?事實(shí)的確如此。如果你讓德語(yǔ)使用者和西班牙語(yǔ)使用者描述一座橋，就像這一座，“橋”在德語(yǔ)中是陰性的，在西班牙語(yǔ)中則是陽(yáng)性的。德語(yǔ)使用者更傾向于說(shuō)橋“美麗”或“優(yōu)雅”以及其他很女性化的詞，而西班牙語(yǔ)使用者則傾向于說(shuō)橋“強(qiáng)壯”或“綿長(zhǎng)”，那些更男性化的詞。
Languages also differ in how they describe events, right? You take an event like this, an accident. In English, it's fine to say, "He broke the vase." In a language like Spanish, you might be more likely to say, "The vase broke," or, "The vase broke itself." If it's an accident, you wouldn't say that someone did it.
語(yǔ)言的差異還體現(xiàn)在它們對(duì)事件的描述上。以這件事為例，一個(gè)意外。在英語(yǔ)里面，你可以說(shuō)“他打碎了花瓶”。在西班牙語(yǔ)里面，你更可能會(huì)說(shuō)“花瓶碎了”，或者“花瓶自己碎了”。如果這是一個(gè)意外，你不會(huì)說(shuō)是誰(shuí)打碎的。
In English, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, "I broke my arm." Now, in lots of languages, you couldn't use that construction unless you are a lunatic and you went out looking to break your arm -- (Laughter) and you succeeded. If it was an accident, you would use a different construction.
在英語(yǔ)里面，很奇怪的是，我們甚至?xí)f(shuō)，”我弄傷了我的手臂“。在很多語(yǔ)言里面，你完全不會(huì)這樣說(shuō)，除非你是一個(gè)瘋子，你試圖弄傷自己的手臂，而且還成功了。如果它是一場(chǎng)意外，你會(huì)使用不一樣的語(yǔ)言結(jié)構(gòu)。
Now, this has consequences. So, people who speak different languages will pay attention to different things, depending on what their language usually requires them to do. So we show the same accident to English speakers and Spanish speakers, English speakers will remember who did it, because English requires you to say, "He did it; he broke the vase." Whereas Spanish speakers might be less likely to remember who did it if it's an accident, but they're more likely to remember that it was an accident. They're more likely to remember the intention.
這會(huì)造成不同的結(jié)果。使用不同語(yǔ)言的人關(guān)注的點(diǎn)會(huì)不一樣，這取決于他們的語(yǔ)言是怎么要求的。如果我們讓英語(yǔ)使用者和西班牙語(yǔ)使用者看同樣的意外事件，英語(yǔ)使用者會(huì)記得這件事是誰(shuí)干的，因?yàn)橛⒄Z(yǔ)需要你說(shuō)“是他做的，他打碎了花瓶”;而西班牙語(yǔ)使用者則不太可能會(huì)記得是誰(shuí)干的——如果這是一個(gè)意外事件的話，他們更可能會(huì)記得這是一個(gè)意外，他們更可能記得意圖。
So, two people watch the same event, witness the same crime, but end up remembering different things about that event. This has implications, of course, for eyewitness testimony. It also has implications for blame and punishment. So if you take English speakers and I just show you someone breaking a vase, and I say, "He broke the vase," as opposed to "The vase broke," even though you can witness it yourself, you can watch the video, you can watch the crime against the vase, you will punish someone more, you will blame someone more if I just said, "He broke it," as opposed to, "It broke." The language guides our reasoning about events.
所以?xún)蓚€(gè)人看同樣的事件，目睹同樣的罪行，但記得的卻不一定一樣。在目擊證詞方面，這是值得深思的，這對(duì)責(zé)備和懲罰也有影響。如果我給英語(yǔ)使用者看一個(gè)人不小心打碎花瓶，然后我說(shuō)“他打碎了花瓶”，而不是說(shuō)“花瓶碎了”，即使你自己親眼看到了事件的經(jīng)過(guò)，你看了那段視頻，你可以看到花瓶的“罪行”，但是你卻會(huì)更傾向于懲罰、責(zé)備那個(gè)人——僅僅因?yàn)槲艺f(shuō)“他打碎了花瓶”，而不是“花瓶碎了”。語(yǔ)言會(huì)引導(dǎo)我們對(duì)事件的認(rèn)知。
Now, I've given you a few examples of how language can profoundly shape the way we think, and it does so in a variety of ways. So language can have big effects, like we saw with space and time, where people can lay out space and time in completely different coordinate frames from each other.
那我給了大家?guī)讉€(gè)語(yǔ)言如何影響我們思考的例子，它主要通過(guò)幾個(gè)方式。語(yǔ)言可以造成大的影響，我們舉了時(shí)間和空間的例子，人們對(duì)時(shí)間和空間的排列可以迥然不同。
Language can also have really deep effects -- that's what we saw with the case of number. Having count words in your language, having number words, opens up the whole world of mathematics. Of course, if you don't count, you can't do algebra, you can't do any of the things that would be required to build a room like this or make this broadcast, right? This little trick of number words gives you a stepping stone into a whole cognitive realm.
語(yǔ)言還可以有很深的影響，我們舉了數(shù)字的例子。如果你的語(yǔ)言里有數(shù)量詞，有數(shù)字，這會(huì)開(kāi)啟一個(gè)全新的數(shù)學(xué)世界。如果你不能數(shù)數(shù)，你自然也不會(huì)代數(shù)學(xué)，你將不能做任何需要數(shù)學(xué)的事情，像建一個(gè)這樣的演講廳，或進(jìn)行轉(zhuǎn)播，對(duì)吧?小小的數(shù)字給我們提供了踏進(jìn)一整個(gè)認(rèn)知領(lǐng)域的墊腳石。
Language can also have really early effects, what we saw in the case of color. These are really simple, basic, perceptual decisions. We make thousands of them all the time, and yet, language is getting in there and fussing even with these tiny little perceptual decisions that we make. Language can have really broad effects. So the case of grammatical gender may be a little silly, but at the same time, grammatical gender applies to all nouns. That means language can shape how you're thinking about anything that can be named by a noun. That's a lot of stuff.
語(yǔ)言的影響還可能很早就發(fā)生，我們舉了顏色的例子。這是非常簡(jiǎn)單、基本、感知型的決定，我們無(wú)時(shí)無(wú)刻不在做這樣的決定，而語(yǔ)言就在那里影響著我們做的這些小小的決定。語(yǔ)言可以有很廣闊的影響，我們舉了語(yǔ)法上的詞性的例子看似微不足道，但它卻適用于所有名詞。這意味著語(yǔ)言可以影響你如何思考所有能用名詞表達(dá)的東西。那可是很多東西。
And finally, I gave you an example of how language can shape things that have personal weight to us -- ideas like blame and punishment or eyewitness memory. These are important things in our daily lives.
最后，我舉了一個(gè)語(yǔ)言可以如何影響跟我們切身相關(guān)的事件的例子，如責(zé)備、懲罰和目擊證詞。這些是我們的日常生活中非常重要的方面。
Now, the beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is. Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000 -- there are 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And we can create many more --languages, of course, are living things, things that we can hone and change to suit our needs. The tragic thing is that we're losing so much of this linguistic diversity all the time. We're losing about one language a week, and by some estimates, half of the world's languages will be gone in the next hundred years.
語(yǔ)言多樣性的美麗在于它向我們揭示了人類(lèi)的大腦是多么巧妙和靈活。人類(lèi)大腦創(chuàng)造的不是一個(gè)認(rèn)知體系，而是7000個(gè)，世界上有7000種語(yǔ)言。而我們還可以創(chuàng)造更多。語(yǔ)言是有生命的，是我們可以打磨和改變以滿足我們需求的東西。不幸的是，這種語(yǔ)言多樣性正在不斷喪失。大概平均每個(gè)星期就有一種語(yǔ)言消失，據(jù)估計(jì)，在接下來(lái)的100年里世界上一半的語(yǔ)言將會(huì)消失。
And the even worse news is that right now, almost everything we know about the human mind and human brain is based on studies of usually American English-speaking undergraduates at universities. That excludes almost all humans. Right? So what we know about the human mind is actually incredibly narrow and biased, and our science has to do better.
更糟糕的是，現(xiàn)在幾乎我們所知道的所有關(guān)于人類(lèi)大腦和思維的東西都是基于大學(xué)中說(shuō)美式英語(yǔ)的學(xué)生的研究。這就幾乎排除了所有人類(lèi)，不是嗎?所以其實(shí)我們對(duì)人類(lèi)思維的了解是非常狹隘和具有偏見(jiàn)的，而我們的科學(xué)應(yīng)該做得更好。
I want to leave you with this final thought. I've told you about how speakers of different languages think differently, but of course, that's not about how people elsewhere think. It's about how you think. It's how the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, "Why do I think the way that I do?" "How could I think differently?" And also," What thoughts do I wish to create?"
最后，我想再讓大家思考一個(gè)問(wèn)題。我已經(jīng)講了不同語(yǔ)言的使用者思考的不同方式，當(dāng)然，這不是是關(guān)于其他地方的人怎么思考，而是關(guān)于你怎么思考，關(guān)于你說(shuō)的語(yǔ)言如何影響了你的思維方式。大家可以問(wèn)問(wèn)自己：“我為什么是這樣思考問(wèn)題的?”“我能換種方式思考嗎?”還有，“我想創(chuàng)造什么樣的想法?”
Thank you very much.(Applause)
非常感謝。(鼓掌)
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