第一课
位于高尔夫港以西的帕斯克里斯琴镇几乎被夷为平地。住在该镇那座豪华的黎赛留公寓度
假的几位旅客组织了一次聚会,从他们所居的有利地位观赏飓风的壮观景象,结果像是有一个
其大无比的拳头把公寓打得粉碎,26人因此丧生。
柯夏克家的屋顶一被掀走,约翰就高喊道:“快上楼一一到卧室里去!数数孩子。”在倾盆大雨
中,大人们围成一圈,让孩子们紧紧地挤在中间。柯夏克老奶奶哀声切切地说道:“孩子们,
咱们大家来唱支歌吧!”孩子们都吓呆了,根本没一点反应。老奶奶独个儿唱了几句,然后她的
声音就完全消失了。
客厅的壁炉和烟囱崩塌了下来。弄得瓦砾横飞。眼看他们栖身的那间卧室电有两面墙壁行
将崩塌,约翰立即命令大伙:“进电视室去!”这是离开风头最远的一个房间。
约翰用手将妻子搂了一下。詹妮丝心里明白了他的意思。由于风雨和恐惧,她不住地发抖。
她一面拉过两个孩子紧贴在自己身边,一面默祷着:亲爱的上帝啊,赐给我力量,让我经受住
必须经受的一切吧。她心里怨恨这场飓风。我们一定不会让它得胜。
柯夏克老爹心中窝着一团火,深为自己在飓风面前无能为力而感到懊丧。也说不清为什么,
他跑到一问卧室里去将一只杉木箱和一个双人床垫拖进了电视室。就在这里,一面墙壁被风刮
倒了,提灯也被吹灭。另外又有一面墙壁在移动,在摇晃。查理.希尔试图以身子撑住它,但结
果墙还是朝他这边塌了下来,把他的背部也给砸伤了。房子在颤动摇晃,已从地基上挪开了25
英尺。整个世界似乎都要分崩离析了。
“我们来把床垫竖起来!”约翰对父亲大声叫道。“把它斜靠着挡挡风。让孩子们躲到垫子
下面去,我们可以用头和肩膀把垫子 大一点的孩子趴在地板上,小一点的一层层地压在大的身
上,大人们都弯下身子罩住他们。地板倾斜了。装着那一窝四只小猫的盒子从架上滑下来,一
下子就在风中消失了。斯普琪被从一个嵌板书柜顶上刮走而不见踪影了。那只狗紧闭着双眼,
缩成一团。又一面墙壁倒塌了。水拍打着倾斜的地板。约翰抓住一扇还连在壁柜墙上的门,对
他父亲大声叫道:“假若地板塌了,咱们就把孩子放到这块门板上面。”
就在这一刹那间,风势稍缓了一些,水也不再上涨了。随后水开始退落。卡米尔号飓风的
中心过去了。柯夏克一家和他们的朋友都幸存下来了。
第二课
然而这些人的真正奇特之处还在于他们的隐身的特性。一连几个星期,每天几乎在同一时
候总有一队老妪扛着柴草从我房前蹒跚走过。虽然他们的身影以映入我的眼帘,但老实说,我
并不曾看见她们。我所看见的是一捆捆的柴草从屋外掠过。直到有一天我碰巧走在她们身后时,
堆柴草奇异的起伏动作才使我注意到原来下面有人。这才第一次看见那些与泥土同色的可怜老
妪的躯体——枯瘦的只剩下皮包骨头、被沉重的负荷压得弯腰驼背的躯体。然而,我踏上摩洛
哥国土还不到五分钟就已注意到驴子的负荷过重,并为此感到愤怒。驴子遭到荷虐,这是无疑
的事实。摩洛哥的驴子不过如一只瑞士雪山救人犬一般大小,可它驮负的货物重量在英国军队
里让一头五英尺高的大骡子来驮都嫌过重。而且,它还常常是一连几个星期不卸驮鞍。尤其让
人觉得可悲的是,它是世上最驯服听话的牲畜。不需要鞍辔会僵绳。它便会像狗一样更随着自
己的主人。为主人拼命干上十几年活后,它便猝然倒地死去,这时,主人就把它仍进沟里,尸
体未寒,其五脏六腑便被村狗扒出来吃掉。
这种事情当然令人发指,可是,一般说来,人的苦难却没人理会。我并非在乱发议论,只
不过是指出一个事实而已。这种人简直就是一种无影无行之物。一头背上被磨得皮破肉烂的驴
子人人见了都会同情,而那驮着大捆柴草的老妇人则往往要有某种偶然因素才会受到注意。
第三课
有人举出了一个人所共知,但仍值得提出来发人深思的例子。我们谈到饭桌上的肉食时用法
语词,而谈到提供这些肉食的牲畜时则用盎格鲁一撒克逊词。猪圈里的活猪叫pig,饭桌上吃
的猪肉便成了pork(来自法语pore);地里放牧着的牛叫cattle,席上吃的牛肉则叫beef(来自
法语boeuf);Chicken用作肉食时变成poultry(来自法语poulet);calf加工成肉则变成
veal(来自法语vcau)。即便我们的菜单没有为了装洋耍派头而写成法语,我们所用的英语仍然
是诺曼底式的英语。这一切向我们昭示了诺曼底人征服之后英国文化上所存在的深刻的阶级裂
痕。
撒克逊农民种地养畜,自己出产的肉自己却吃不起,全都送上了诺曼底人的餐桌。农民们
只能吃到在地里乱窜的兔子。兔子肉因为便宜,诺曼底贵族自然不屑去吃它。因此,活兔子和
吃的兔子肉共用rabbit这个词表示,而没有换成由法语lapin转化而来的某个词。
当我们今天听着有关双语教育问题的争论时,我们应该设身处地替当时的撒克逊农民想一
想,新的统治阶级把法语用来对抗撒克逊农民自己的语言,从而在农民周围筑起一道文化障碍。
当英国人在像觉醒者赫里沃德这样的撒克逊领袖领导下起来造反时,他们一定深深地感受到了
文化上的屈辱。“标准英语”——如果那时候有这个名词的话——已经变成法语。而九百年后
我们在美国这儿仍然继承了这种影响。
第四课
我们能否建立一个把东西南北联在一起的伟大的全球联盟来对付这些敌人,以确保人类享
有更为富有成效的生活呢?你是否愿意参加这一具有历史意义的行动呢?
在世界漫长的历史上,只有少数几代人能在自由面临极大危险的时刻被赋予保卫自由的任
务。在这一重任面前,我不退缩,我欢迎这一重任。我认为我们中间不会有人愿意与别人或另
一代人调换位置。我们从事这一事业的那种精力、信念和献身精神将照耀我们的国家和一切为
此出力的人们。这一火焰所发出的光芒将真正照亮这个世界。
因此,美国同胞们,你们应该问的不是你们的国家能为你们做些什么,而是你们自己能为
你们的国家做些什么。
和我处在同样地位的世界各国的公民们,你们应该问的不是美国会为你们做些什么,而是
我们一起能为人类自由做些什么。
Lesson 1
1. We're elevated 23 feet. (para3)
We're 23 feet above sea level.
2. The place has been here since 1915, and no hurricane has ever bothered it. (para 3)
The house has been here since 1915, and no hurricane has ever caused any
damage to it.
3. We can batten down and ride it out. (para 4)
We can make the necessary preparations and survive the hurricane without
much damage.
4. The generator was doused, and the lights went out. (para 9)
Water got into the generator and put it out. It stopped producing electricity,
so the lights also went out.
5. Everybody out the back door to the cars! (para 10)
Everybody go out through the back door and run to the cars.
6. The electrical systems had been killed by water. (para 11)
The electrical systems in the car had been put out by water.
7. John watched the water lap at the steps, and felt a crushing guilt. (para17)
As John watched the water inch its way up the steps, he felt a strong sense
of guilt because he blamed himself for endangering the whole family by
deciding not to flee inland.
8. Get us through this mess, will you? (para17)
Oh God, please help us to get through this storm safely.
9. She carried on alone for a few bars; then her voice trailed away. (para 21)
Grandmother Koshak sang a few words alone and then her voice gradually
grew dimmer and stopped.
10. Janis had just one delayed reaction. (para 34)
Janis displayed rather late the exhaustion brought about by the nervous
tension caused by the hurricane.
Lesson 2
1. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict
building-lot. (para2)
The burying-ground is nothing more than a huge piece of wasteland full of
mounds of earth looking like a deserted and abandoned piece of land on
which a building was going to be put up.
2. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact. (para3)
All the imperialists build up their empires by treating the people in the
colonies like animals (by not treating the people in the colonies as human
beings).
3. They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink
back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard. (para3)
They are born. Then for a few years they work, toil and starve. Finally they
die and are buried in graves without a name.
4. A carpenter sits crosslegged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chair-legs at lighting speed.
(para9)
Sitting with his legs crossed and using a very old-fashioned lathe, a
carpenter quickly gives a round shape to the chair-legs he is making.
5. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews. (para10)
Immediately from their dark hole-like cells everywhere a great number of
Jews rushed out wildly excited.
6. …every one of them looks on a cigarette as a more or less impossible luxury. (para10)
Every one of these poor Jews looked on the cigarette as a piece of luxury
which they could not possibly afford.
7. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous. (para16)
However, a white -skinned European is always quite noticeable.
8. In a tropical landscape one’s eye takes in everything except the human beings.
(para16)
If you take a look at the natural scenery in a tropical region, you see
everything but the human beings.
9. No one would think of running cheap trips to the Distressed Areas. (para17)
No one would think of organizing cheap trips for the tourists to visit the
poor slum areas (for these trips would not be interesting).
10. …for nine-tenths of the people the reality of life is an endless, back-breaking struggle
to wring a little food out of an eroded soil. (para17)
life is very hard for ninety percent of the people.With hard backbreaking
toil they can produce a little food on the poor soil.
11.She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast of burden.
She took it for granted that as an old woman she was the lowest in the
community,that she was only fit for doing heavy work like an animal.
12. People with brown skins are next door to invisible. (para21)
People with brown skins are almost invisible.
13.Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms,… (para23)
The Senegalese soldiers were wearing ready-made khaki uniforms which
hid their beautiful well-built bodies.
14. How long before they turn their guns in the other direction? (para25)
How much longer before they turn their guns around and attack us?
15.Every white man there had this thought stowed somewhere or other in his mind.
(para26)
Every white man,the onlookers,the officers on their horses and the white
N.C.Os. marching with the black soldiers,had this thought hidden
somewhere or other in his mind.
Lesson 3
1.And it is an activity only of human. (para1)
And conversation is an activity which is found only among human beings.
2.Conversation is not for making a point. (para2)
Conversation is not for persuading others to accept our idea or point of view.
3.In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. (para2)
In fact a person who really enjoys and is skilled at conversation will not
argue to win or force others to accept his point of view.
4.Bar friends are not deeply involved in each other’s lives. (para3)
People who meet each other for a drink in the bar of a pub are not intimate
friends for they are not deeply absorbed or engrossed in each other's lives.
5. …it could still go ignorantly on… (para6)
The conversation could go on without anybody knowing who was right or
wrong.
6.There are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef (boeuf). (para9)
These animals are called cattle when they are alive and feeding in the fields;
but when we sit down at the table to eat.we call their meat beef.
7. The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their French
against his own language. (para11)
The new ruling class by using French instead of English made it difficult for
the English to accept or absorb the culture of the rulers.
8.English had come royally into its own. (para13)
The English language received proper recognition and was used by the King
once more.
9. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the
lower classes. (para15)
The phrase,the King's English,has always been used disrespectfully and
jokingly by the lower classes. The working people very often make fun of
the proper and formal language of the educated people.
10. The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there. (para15)
There still exists in the working people,as in the early Saxon peasants,a
spirit of opposition to the cultural authority of the ruling class.
11. There is always a great danger that ―words will harden into things for us.‖ (para18)
There is always a great danger that we might forget that words are only
symbols and take them for things they are supposed to represent.
12. Even with the most educated and the most literate, the King’s English slips and slides
in conversation. (para18)
Even the most educated and literate people do not use standard,formal
English all the time in their conversation
Lesson 4
1. And yet the same revolutionary belief for which our forebears fought is still at issue
around the globe... (para2)
Our ancestors fought a revolutionary war to maintain that all men were
created equal and God had given them certain unalienable rights which no
state or ruler could take away from them. But today this issue has not yet
been decided in many countries around the world.
2. This much we pledge—and more. (para5)
This much we promise to do and we promise to do more.
3. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. (para6)
United and working together we can accomplish a lot of things in a great
number of joint undertakings.
4. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. (para9)
We will not allow any enemy country to subvert this peaceful revolution
which brings hope of progress to all our countries.
5. …our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the
instruments of peace… (para10)
The United Nations is our last and best hope of survival in an age where the
instruments of war have far surpassed the instruments of peace.
6. …to enlarge the area in which its writ may run… (para10)
We pledge to help the United Nations enlarge the area in which its authority
and mandate would continue to be in effect or in force.
7. …before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in
planned or accidental self-destruction… (para11)
Before the terrible forces of destruction, which science can now release,
overwhelm mankind; before this self-destruction, which may be planned or
brought about by an accident, takes place
8. …yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of
mankind’s final war… (para13)
Yet both groups of nations are trying to change as quickly as possible this
uncertain balance of terrible military power which restrains each group
from launching mankind's final war.
9. So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of
weakness,… (para14)
So let us start once again (to discuss and negotiate) and let us remember
that being polite is not a sign of weakness. 10. Let both sides try to call
forth the wonderful things that science can do for mankind instead of the
frightful things it can do.
11. …each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national
loyalty. (para21)
Americans of every generation have been called upon to prove their loyalty
to their country (by fighting and dying for their country's cause).
12. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our
deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love,… (para27)
Let history finally judge whether we have done our task welt or not, but our
sure reward will be a good con-science for we will have worked sincerely
and to the best of our ability.
L esson1
1. Wind and rain now wiped the house. ----metaphor(暗喻)
2. The children went from adult to adult like buckets in a fire brigade. --simile (明喻)
3. The wind sounded like the roar of a train passing a few yards away. -----simile
4. …it seized a 600,00 gallon Gulfport oil tank and dumped it 3.5 miles away. ----
personification(拟人)
5. Rcihelieu Apartments were smashed apart as if by a gigantic fist, and 26 people
perished. ---- simile、personification
6. …the Salvation Army’s canteen trucks and Red Cross volunteers and staffers were
going wherever possible to distribute hot drinks, food, clothing and bedding. -----
7. The federal government shipped 4,400,000 pounds of food, moved in mobile
homes, set up portable classrooms, opened offices to provide low-interest, long-term
business loans. ----
8. We can batten down and ride it out. -----metaphor
9. Everybody out the back door to the cars!—ellipsis (省略) sentence
10. Telephone poles and 20-inch-thick pines cracked like guns as the winds snapped
them. ----- simile、onomatopoeia(拟声)
11. Several vacationers at the luxurious Richelieu Apartments there held a hurricane
party to watch the storm from their spectacular vantage point-----transferred epithet
12. Strips of clothing festooned the standing trees, and blown down power lines
coiled like black spaghetti over the roads----metaphor;
13. He held his head between his hands, and silently prayed: ―Get us through this
mess, will You?‖------- alliteration押头韵
14. . …household and medical supplies streamed in by plane, train, truck and car. ---
--- metaphor
Lesson2
1. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict
building-lot. -----simile
2. They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years. ----alliteration
3. ... and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable numbers, like clouds
of flies. ----simile
4. And really it was almost like watching a flock of cattle to see the long column, a
mile or two miles of armed men, flowing peacefully up the road, while the great white
birds drifted over them in the opposite direction, glittering like scraps of paper. -----
simile
5. The little crowd of mourners –all men and boys, no women—threaded their way
across the market place between the piles of pomegranates and the taxis and the camels,
wailing a short chant over and over again.--—Contrast(对比)
6. A carpenter sits cross-legged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chair- legs at lightning
speed.—- transferred epithet
7. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews, many
of them old grandfathers with flowing grey beards, all clamoring for a cigarette. -----
transferred epithet
8. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous.—-synecdoche(提喻)
9. As the storks flew northward the Negroes were marching southward—
a long, dusty column, infantry, screw- gun batteries, and then more infantry, four or five
thousand men in all, winding up the road with a clumping of boots and a clatter of iron
wheels.—---onomatopoetic
10. Not hostile, not contemptuous, not sullen, not even inquisitive. —--
elliptical sentence
11. This wretched boy, who is a French citizen and has therefore been dragged from
the forest to scrub floors and catch syphilis in garrison towns, actually has feelings of re
verence before a white skin. —-synecdoche提喻
12. The gazelle I was feeding seemed to know that this thought was in my mind.
我现在喂着的这只瞪羚好象已经看透了我的心思。—Personification (拟人)
13. She accept- ed her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast of burden.
-----Alliteration(头韵)
14. I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact.(P21)
我并不是在发表议论,而仅仅是在陈述一个事实 ----Understatement(含蓄陈述)
Lesson3
1. … and no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles
or just glows. ---mixed-metaphor
2. ‖ here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.‖ --pan
3. … that suddenly the alchemy of conversation took place, and all at once there was a focus. ----metaphor
4. The glow of the conversation burst into flames. ----metaphor
5. We had traveled in five minutes to Australia. -----metaphor
The fact that their marriages may be on the rocks, or that their love affairs have been broken or even that they got out of bed on the wrong side is simply not a concern.--—metaphor
6. The conversation was on wings. ----metaphor
8. The bother about teaching chimpanzees how to talk is that they will probably try to talk sense and so ruin all conversation. -----sarcasm反讽
9. They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into each other's lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feelings. -----simile
10. … we ought to think ourselves back into the shoes of the Saxon peasant. ----
11. Otherwise one will bind the conversation, one will not let it flow freely here and there. ----
12. We would never hay gone to Australia, or leaped back in time to the Norman Conquest. ----
13. They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into, each other’s lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feelings.—-simile
14. Is the phrase in Shakespeare? ----metonymy
15. The Elizabethans blew on it as on a dandelion clock, and its seeds multiplied, and floated to the ends of the earth.—simile
16. Even with the most educated and the most literate, the King’s English slips and slides in conversation.—alliteration, metaphor
17. When E.M.F orster writes of ―the sinister corridor of our age,‖ we sit up at the vividness of the phrase, the force and even terror in the image.—--metaphor
18. Perhaps it because of my upbringing in English pubs that I think bar conversation has a charm of its own. (P3)-------exaggeration
Lesson4
1. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of co-operative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do, for we dare not meet a power f ull challenge at odds and split asunder.—antithesis
2.…in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.—metaphor
3. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.—
regression (回环:A-B-C)
4. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days.—allusion 引典; climax
5. And so, my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.—contrast, winding
6 We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change. - parallelism
7. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike….—
alliteration
8. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or i11, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. ----–parallelism; consonance
10. To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe… ------
11. …struggling to break the bonds of mass misery…----
12. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. -----antithesis
13. … to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. ---repetition
14. And if a beachhead of co- operation may push back the jungle of suspicion…-----metaphor
15. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. -----antithesis
16.And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house. -----metaphor
17. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
-----extended metaphor
18. …to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak… ----metaphor
19.With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds… -----parallelism
20. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers.--------metaphor