中級口譯之英譯漢模擬題03

Passage 11

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Today, we pioneers and leaders of electronic commerce, are meeting here to call for changes in US patent law. We believe such changes are needed to deal with new business models related to the growth of the Internet.// I share the same view with Jeff Bezos, chief executive of online bookseller . Mr. Bezos argued in an open letter that current patent laws could end up harming all kinds of businesses if the laws were not adapted to new business methods used in e-commerce.// I think U.S. Patent laws are designed to protect the commercial rights of people who have invested in new products, systems or methods. Hereby I propose that the period of protection offered by patents should be cut from 17 years to about 4 years. I also propose a one-month period of public consultation before patents are issued.// If changes in the patent laws are going to have any real impact, they must be made soon, before too many more new business method patents are issued. Some of my colleagues in the industry have already begun lobbying lawmakers to make the changes. But we have to be a little bit more patient because it will take at least two years for any changes proposed now to be approved by lawmakers and established as law.//

今天我們這些電子商務的創始人和領導人在此集會，共同呼籲修改美國專利法。我們認爲互聯網的發展已形成了一些新商業模式，專利法必須經過修改才能應付這些新情況。//我同在線書店亞馬遜電子商務公司的首席執行官傑夫.貝索斯特有相同的觀點。貝索斯先生在一封公開信中指出，現行的專利法若不加以修正以適應電子商務的新模式最終將影響所有的商務活動。//我認爲，制定美國專利法的根本出發點是爲了保護那些投資開發新產品、新系列新方法者的權益。我在這裏提議，專利權的保護期應該由原來的17年縮短爲4年。同時我也建議，專利發佈前應該有一個月的公示諮詢期。//如果想讓專利法的修改真正起到作用，那就必須加快修訂步伐，不然的話，等越來越多的商務模式新專利頒佈後再進行修改，爲時已晚。電子商務產業的一些同行已開始有立法人修改法律。但是我們還得耐心等待，現在提出的修改建議至少要等上兩年才能被立法部門確定爲正式的法律。//

Passage 12

From recorded time, man has been fascinated and delighted with music. Bone whistles, used as a type of flute, have been found dating back to 5,000 BC. Paintings from the Stone Age show early musical instruments. In modern times, man has further developed his interest in music and in recorded sound with the hardware of sound reproduction.// American inventor Thomas Edison, who was considered the father of sound recording, developed the phonographin 1877, the first device to record music in the world. While Edison concentrated at first mainly on the reproduction of voice, it was not long before the musical uses of his invention were recognized and marketed.// The widespread use of electricity in the post-World War Two period led to the invention of the modern, portable record player. It was, however, “mono”. The real enthusiastic listener to music wanted a realistic reproduction of music with “hi-fidelity” or “hi-fi”.// The 1980s saw an even greater series of developments in sound reproduction hardware. The examples are the Sony Corporation's invention and development of the tiny portable tape players known as the “Walkman”, and the compact disc, or CD, system based on the technology of computers with music information stored and reproduced digitally.//

有史記載以來，人類一直癡迷於音樂，爲音樂所陶醉。用作笛子的骨哨早已出現在公元前5，000年。從石器時代的畫中我們可以見到早期樂器的模樣。現代人進一步發展了對音樂的興趣，十分鐘情於用聲音複製設備來錄音的方式。//被譽爲錄音之父的美國發明家托馬斯·愛迪生於1877年發明了留聲機，這是世界上第一臺錄音設備。愛迪生最初的精力主要放在對說話聲音的複製上，然而時隔不久，愛迪生這項發明的音樂應用價值便爲世人所認識，並被推向了市場。//第二次世界大戰之後，電的廣泛使用使現代便攜式點唱機面世。不過這種點唱機只能單聲道放音。而真正的音樂發燒友想要的是一種給人以身臨其境感覺的高保真音響設備。//到了80年代，聲音複製設備的發展邁出了一系列更大的步伐。例如，推出了由索尼首創開發的被稱之爲“隨身聽”的袖珍便攜式磁帶放音機，以及採用電腦技術以數碼儲存與再現音樂信息的CD激光唱片音響。//Passage 13

There are about six billion people in the world. But every person is unique. Some people have black eyes; others have brown eyes. Some have dark hair, others have light hair. Besides humans, there are millions of other living creatures. Some are so tiny that we simply can't see them with our own eyes. Whatever it is, every living creature is different from every other.// Why is each living thing unique? Where do its characteristics come from? Do people receive characteristics from their mothers or fathers, or both? Which characteristics do they receive? How? These are some of the questions that biologists try to answer. The work of a man by the name Mendel a hundred years ago was especially important.//Mendel studied plants, especially pea plants. Mendel decided that pea plants carried factors, and parents passed these factors onto their offspring. Today we call these factors genes. Genes are tiny pieces of matter that carry information from parents to offspring. // Based on Mendel's work, biologists began to ask such questions as “Can we apply our information about genes to people?” they discovered that in a person genes told whether he would have brown eyes or blue eyes, whether he would have dark hair or light hair. Now we know that every person is unique.//

世界上約有60億人。每個人都與衆不同，有些人的眼睛爲黑色，有些人的眼睛爲褐色。有些人頭髮烏黑，有些人頭髮淺淡。除了人類之外，還有數以百萬計的其他生物。有些生物微乎其微，是我們無法用肉眼看到的。無論何種生物，每一個都與衆不同。//爲什麼每個生物都會與衆不同呢？生物的特性又是從何而來？人們的特性是遺傳自母親，還是父親，或是父母雙親？人們從父母所得到的又是哪些特性呢？他們又是如何得到那些特性的呢？生物學家試圖找到這些問題的答案。一百年前一個叫做門德爾的人所作的研究工作具有特別重要的意義。//門德爾的研究對象是植物，他尤其注重對豌豆植物的研究。他斷定，豌豆植物帶有遺傳因子，父輩植物將這些因子傳給子代植物。今天我們講這些遺傳因子稱爲基因。基因是一種將遺傳信息從父代傳給子代的微小物質。//依據門德爾的試驗結果，生物學家開始提出了許多問題，例如，我們能否將基因理論運用到人的身上？他們發現，一個人的基因可以告訴我們這個人的眼睛是褐色的還是藍色的，他的頭髮是烏黑的還是淺色的。現在我們知道每個人都是一個與衆不同的獨特體。//

Passage 14

The human brain contains an average of ten billion neurons or nerve cells, each of which is linked with one thousand to ten thousand other neurons. These nerve cells participate in countless electrical microcircuits which make possible thought, perception, communication, and other types of mental activity.// The outside surface of the brain, which is known as the cortex, consists of a thin wrinkled mantleof gray tissue made up of millions of neurons. This layer of the brain represents man's relatively recent evolutionary step in neurological development and is not present to a comparable degree in any other species.// The brain is divided into two roughly symmetricalhemispheres, sometimes called right and left brains. The activity of the two hemispheres is coordinated by a number of interconnecting nerve pathways. The two sides of the brain, while fairly comparable in size and form, appear to specialize in handling various tasks.// Current evidence suggests that the left and right hemispheres differ in some way in their function. For example, specialized linguistic and perceptualskills are each associated with a particular hemisphere of the brain. In most individuals, the left hemisphere has primary responsibility for language, while the right hemisphere controls visual and spatialskills as well as the perception of nonlinguistic sounds and musical melodies.//

人的大腦平均有100 億個神經元，或者叫做神經細胞。每個神經元與其它一千至一萬個神經元相連。神經元從事着不可悉數的微電路脈衝活動，並由此產生思維，感覺，交流以及一些其他腦力活動。//大腦的外皮層叫做腦皮層，腦皮層很薄，有褶皺，是一層由數百萬計的神經元組成的灰色組織。腦皮層代表着人類在其神經發展的歷史長河中近期的進化，任何其他物質的腦皮層都無法和人類的腦皮層相提並論。// 整個大腦分爲兩個大致對稱的半球，有時被稱爲右半腦和左半腦。一些互爲聯繫的神經束對這兩個腦半球活動進行協調。大腦兩個半球雖然有着相似的尺寸和形狀，卻各司其職。//據目前所知，兩個腦半球有着不同的功能。例如：語言能力和感知能力隸屬於不同的半球。大多數人的左半球負責語言操作，而右半球則掌管與視覺和空間相關的技能，負責對非語言聲音以及音樂的感知。//

Passage 15

For a woman, conventional beauty is her only attribute. She is supposed to have no lines or wrinkles, no scars or blemishes. She is thin, generally tall and long legged, and above all young. All beautiful women in television commercials conform to this norm. The image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially.// Many women go to great lengths to manipulate and change their faces and bodies. More than a million dollars is spent every hour on cosmetics in this country. A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self.// Adolescentfemales are also discouraged from growing up and becoming adult. Growing older is the great taboo. Although boys are allowed and encouraged to become mature adults, girls are encouraged to remain little girls, to be passive and dependent, never to mature. Someone placed in a double bind, they are supposed to be sexy and virginal, experienced and naive, seductiveand pure.// Misleading advertisements and commercials depict a world in which love and passion are reversed solely for products, in which sexuality becomes a commodity, and in which young women are the worst victims.//

對一個女子來說，標準美是她的唯一標誌。她的皮膚應該天生麗質，沒有皺紋，沒有疤痕，沒有瑕疵。她的身材應該清瘦苗條，通常是個高挑個，雙腿修長，而青春年少則是首要條件。所有在電視廣告中出現的“花容月貌”的靚女都符合這個標準。這種形象被認爲是人爲的，也只有人爲可以塑造。//許多婦女盡其所能來擺弄和修改自己的容貌體態。在該國每小時花費在化妝品上的錢超過一百萬元。女子已習以爲常的視自己的臉蛋爲面具，視自己的身體爲物品，像是一種脫離了原型而又高於原型的東西。//少女自然成長也不被看好，年齡上升是大忌。雖然男孩可以成爲成熟的男子，並且還受到鼓勵。但對女孩的要求確實必須妙齡永駐，唯唯諾諾，依附順從，永不成熟。對她們的要求總有兩面性，既要求他們性感多情，又冰清玉潔；既老道練達，又少不更事；既風騷冶豔，又質樸無華。// 在被誤導性的廣告所描繪的世界裏，愛戀和激情只爲產品存在，性也成了商品，其中年輕女子則成了最大的犧牲者。//