Text B

---

1-b-1

The characters chiefly noted in American speech by all who have discussed it, are, first, its general uniformity throughout the country; second, its impatient disregard of grammatical, syntactical, and phonological rule and precedent, and third, its large capacity ( distinctly greater than of the English of present-day English ) for taking in new words and phrases from outside sources, and for manufacturing new locutions out of its own materials.

chiefly adv.主要;首先，第一;尤其
impatient adj. 不耐烦的;热切的，渴望的;不能容忍的，恼火的
disregard  vt.不顾;不理会;漠视，忽视;蔑视，轻视

所有讨论过美式英语的人都会注意它的显著特征，一是其在全国范围内的普遍一致性；二是其不注重语法，句法和音韵等规则和惯例；三是其巨大的容量（明显超过当前的英式英语），这得益于美式英语能从外来语言中吸收新的词汇和短语和从自己本身的语言材料中创新出新的惯用语。

1-b-2

There may be slight differences in pronunciation and intonation--a Southern softness, a Yankee drawl, a Western burr--but in the words they use and the way they use them all Americans, even the least tutored, follow the same line. One observes, of course, a polite speech and a common speech. But the common speech is everywhere the same, and its uniform vagaries take the place of the dialectic variations of other lands. A Boston street-car conductor could go to work in Chicago or San Francisco without running the slightest risk of misunderstanding his new fares. Once he had picked up half a dozen localisms, he would be, to all linguistic intents and purposes, fully naturalized.

Yankee:[‘jæŋki] n.<英口>美国佬；北方佬；<美>(南北战争时的)北军 adj.美国北方人的；美国佬式的
drawl: [drɔːl] n.慢吞吞拉长调子说话的方式  v.拖长调子说话
burr:[bɜr] n.粗嗓音；(机器部件快速运转时有规律的)呼呼声；毛边；芒刺 v.用粗喉音说话
vagary: [‘veɪgərɪ] n.奇特；奇特行为；奇想；变幻莫测

美国人可能在发音、语调上存在着轻微的差异——如南方人语调柔和、北方人讲话带拖音、西部人发音较粗。但所有的美国人，即使是受教育最少的那部分人，在词汇的使用及用词方法上都是一脉相承的。当然，人们也观察了礼貌用语和通用语的用法。然而通用语在全美国都是一样的，这种统一的奇特行为取代了其他各个地方在方言上的差异。一位波士顿电车售票员如果去芝加哥或旧金山工作，面对新的乘客，他也不会有任何误解他们的风险。一旦他学会了五六句当地话，从语言学的意图和目的来看，他就彻底本土化了。

1-b-3

The Americans , though partly of the same blood, have felt no such restraint, and acquired no such habit of conformity. On the contrary , they have plunged to the other extreme , for the conditions of life in their new country have put a high value upon the precisely opposite qualities of curiosity and daring, and so they have acquired that character of restlessness , that impatience of forms ,that disdain for the dead hand, which now broadly marks them. From the first , says a recent literary historian , they have been “less phlegmatic , less conservative than the English. There were climatic influences , it may be ; there was surely a spirit of intensity everywhere that made for short effort,” Thus , in the arts ,and thus in business , in politics , in daily intercourse ,in habits of mind and speech . The American is not , in truth , lacking in a capacity for discipline ; he has it highly developed; he submits to leadership readily , and even to tyranny . But , by a curious twist , it is not the leadership that is old and decorous that commonly fetches him , but the leadership that is new and extravagant.

restraint  [rɪˈstreɪnt] n.拘束;抑制，克制;控制，限制;约束力
conformity [kənˈfɔ:məti]n.符合;一致;遵从;依照
plunge [plʌndʒ] vt.用力插入;使陷入vi.跳入;全心投入;突降，俯冲n.投入，陷入;游泳，跳水
extreme n.极端;困境;[数]极限值;[常用复数]在两末端的事物
disdain [dɪsˈdeɪn] n.鄙视，轻蔑vt.鄙视;不屑于做，不愿意做
phlegmatic [flegˈmætɪk] adj.冷漠的;冷静的;镇定的;迟钝的
tyranny  [ˈtɪrəni] n.暴虐;专横;暴行
decorous [ˈdekərəs] adj.厚重;端庄得体的

虽然多种民族生活在一起，美国人并没有觉得不方便,也并没有要求生活习惯的一致。相反，由于他们原来的生活环境认同了好奇和勇敢的品质，于是他们又进入了另外一个极端。因此他们形成轻视礼节，鄙视陈规陋习的不安分的性格。目前这已经成为了美国人普遍的特点。史料表明，从一开始他们就“比英国人热情，不保守。也可能有气候方面的影响，但肯定处处都存在着有助于简约的强烈精神。”在艺术创作、商务活动、政治、日常交往、思维习惯和讲话方面都是如此。当然美国人并不缺乏自律的能力，而是把这种能力发展到了更高的阶段。他们乐意服从领导，甚至独裁。但在好奇心的驱使下，除了那种新锐，敢作敢为的领导外，并不服从那种老派的，一本正经的对他们没什么影响的领导。

1-b-4

But more important than its sheer inventions, if only because much more numerous, are its extensions of the vocabulary, both absolutely and in ready workableness, by the devices of rhetoric. The American, from the beginning, has been the most ardent of recorded rhetoricians. His politics bristles with pungent epithets; his whole history has been bedizened with tall talk; his fundamental institutions rest far more upon brilliant phrases than upon logical ideas. And in small things as in large he exercises continually an incomparable capacity (for projecting hidden and often fantastic relationships into his speech.)

sheer: adj.纯粹的、完全的
workableness : 可使用
rhetoric : n.修辞    rhetorician : n.修辞
ardent : adj.热情的、热心的
bristle : n. 鬃毛、猪毛 vi.密密麻麻的充满
pungent : adj.尖刻的、严苛的、刺鼻的
epithet : n.形容词、绰号
bedizen : v.俗丽的穿着

但是，比纯粹创新更重要的，是美语词汇通过修辞方式进行扩展，既现成实用又数量庞大。从一开始，美式英语就一直热衷于已有修辞。其政治活动充斥着尖刻的形容词；美国历史被夸张言辞所粉饰，它的基础制度更多建立在美妙的措词、而非逻辑思维之上。无论大事小事，美国人不断磨炼着一种无与伦比的能力：把隐含意思和通常奇妙的话语揉进引人注目的言语之中。

1-b-5

American, despite the gallant efforts of the pedagogues, has so far escaped any such suffocating formalization. We, too, of course, have our occasional practitioners of the authentic English Jargon; in the late Grover Cleveland we produced an acknowledged master of it. But in the main our faults in writing lie in precisely the opposite direction. That is to say, we incline toward a directness of statement which, at its greatest, lacks restraint and urbanity altogether, and toward a hospitality which often admits novelties for the mere sake of their novelty, and is quite uncritical of the difference between a genuine improvement in succinctness and clarity, and mere extravagant raciness.

gallant [ˈgælənt]  (adj.)奋力的。
pedagogue [ˈpedəgɒg] (n.)教师，教员。
suffocate [ˈsʌfəkeɪt] (v.)窒息。
formalism [ˈfɔ:məlɪzəm] (n.)形式主义
succinct [səkˈsɪŋ(k)t] (adj.)简洁的，简明的。
clarity [ˈklærəti] (n.)清楚，明晰。

不管那些学究式的教师们如何努力，但到目前为止，美国人避开了这种令人窒息的形式化语言。当然，我们偶然也会出现正宗英语的信奉者。在最近的克利夫兰，我们就有一位正宗的英语大师。但基本上，我们文风的弊端在于我们与正中英语背道而驰。也就是说，我们倾向于直截了当的表述，在它最佳状态时，即无约束，也不考虑文雅，而是为了交际，只是出于新颖的目的，常常接纳新奇的事物，对于简明和清晰哪个更名符其实的争执是相当的宽容，只不过是过于随性了点。

1-b-6

“Language,” says A.H. Sayce ,
is not artificial product, contained in books and dictionaries and governed by the strict rules of impersonal grammarians. It is the living expression of the mind and spirit of a people, ever changing and shifting, whose sole standard of correctness is custom and the common usage of the community. … The first lesson to be learned is that there is no intrinsic right or wrong in the use of language, no fixed rules such as are the delight of the teacher of Latin prose. What is right now will be wrong hereafter, what language rejected yesterday she accepts today.

community [kəˈmju:nəti]  A particular community is a group of people who are similar in some way..(n.)群体；团体。
intrinsic [ɪnˈtrɪnsɪk] If something has intrinsic value or intrinsic interest, it is valuable or interesting because of its basic nature or character, and not because of its connection with other things..(adj.)内在的，固有的，本身的。

A.H. 塞斯说：
语言，不是包括在书籍、字典以及由严格的规则支配的没有人情味的语法当中的人仿造的产品。它是人精神与心灵的生动表达，会变化和更替，正确性的唯一标准就是惯例和大家共同的用法。…我们需要学习的第一课就是在语言的使用上不存在本质的对或错，没有固定的规则，就像拉丁文散文老师那样愉悦。所谓现在正确的东西，将来可能就会是错误的东西，语言昨天拒绝的，可能在今天就会接受。