1
写在前面
为了更好的保护我们的原创,从0603起我们做了以下改变:

1.公众号:一天一篇经济学人只放双语译文
2. 公众号:一天一篇外刊翻译放思维导图(审稿漫谈)感想译文用超链链接到此号
多有不便请各位多多包涵
请大家关注公众号:一天一篇外刊翻译
01 雅思公开课 
我们特邀四位雅思写作高分教师
(雅思8分以上且写作7.5以上)
给大家在未来一周时间里进行四场直播
公开课时间确定:
7.31周日晚:Esther
8.2 周二晚:William
8.6 周六晚:Colleen
8.7 周日晚:Rachel
晚上八点开始,预计半小时左右,有兴趣的同学请扫码进群
02 第一期口译训练营
0808正式开课!晚鸟票最后2天!
团队由毕业于北外高翻,蒙特雷,川大等小伙伴组成
四位一口,两位二口,多年口译实战经验
从听辨、演讲与口语、复述、笔记法、交传到模拟会议,
层层递进,只有你想不到的,没有我们讲不到的,
助力大家拿下三口、顺利开启口译学习!
点击下图,即可了解口译课详情
2
精读|翻译|词组
Alex the African Grey
非洲灰鹦鹉艾利克斯
英文部分选自经济学人20070920期讣告版块
Alex the African Grey
非洲灰鹦鹉艾利克斯
Science's best known parrot died on September 6th, aged 31
科学界最有名的鹦鹉于96日逝世,享年31岁(约为人类的60-70岁)
THE last time Irene Pepperberg saw Alex she said goodnight as usual. “You be good,” said Alex. “I love you.” “I love you, too.” “You'll be in tomorrow?” “Yes, I'll be in tomorrow.” But Alex (his name supposedly an acronym of Avian Learning Experiment) died in his cage that night, bringing to an end a life spent learning complex tasks that, it had been originally thought, only primates could master.
艾琳·佩珀伯格(Irene Pepperberg)最后一次见到艾利克斯时,她和往常一样,向他道晚安。晚安哦艾利克斯说。我爱你。”“我也爱你。”“你明天在吗?”“对,我明天会在。可是,就在当天夜里,艾利克斯便在笼中与世长辞。艾利克斯的名字据说来源于鸟类学习实验(Avian Learning Experiment)的英文首字母缩写;他终其一生都在学习复杂的任务,而人们原本认为,只有灵长类动物才能掌握这些任务。
In science as in most fields of endeavour, it is important to have the right tool for the job. Early studies of linguistic ability in apes concluded it was virtually non-existent. But researchers had made the elementary error of trying to teach their anthropoid subjects to speak. Chimpanzee vocal cords are simply not up to this—and it was not until someone had the idea of teaching chimps sign language that any progress was made.
在大多数领域当中,要完成任务,重要的是选择正确的方法,在科学界也不例外。早期对猿类开展的语言能力研究得到了这样的结论:猿类基本不具备语言能力。然而,研究人员犯了一项低级错误,那就是尝试教会这些类人猿说话。黑猩猩的声带根本不是用来说话的;等到有研究人员想到教黑猩猩学手语之后,相关研究才有所进展。
Even then, the researchers remained human-centric. Their assumption was that chimps might be able to understand and use human sign language because they are humanity'snearest living relatives. It took a brilliant insight to turn this human-centricity on its head and look at the capabilities of a species only distantly related to humanity, but which can, nevertheless, speak the words people speak: a parrot.
甚至在那时,研究人员开展研究时还依然以人类为中心。人们认为,黑猩猩是现存与人类亲缘关系最近的动物,所以它们或许能够理解并使用人类的手语。颠覆以人类为中心的思维,研究鹦鹉这种与人类亲缘关系十分遥远、却仍会说人话的动物身上的能力,能想到这一点需要极强的洞察力。
The insight in question came to Dr Pepperberg, then a 28-year-old theoretical chemist, in 1977. To follow it up, she bought a one-year-old African Grey parrot at random from a pet shop. Thus began one of the best-known double acts in the field of animal-behaviour science.
佩珀伯格博士就具有这样的洞察力。1977年,佩珀伯格博士年仅28岁,是一名理论化学家。为深入调查,她就从宠物店随意挑选了一只1岁的非洲灰鹦鹉,然后动物行为科学界最广为人知的一个组合就此诞生了。
Dr Pepperberg and Alex last shared a common ancestor more than 300m years ago. But Alex, unlike any chimpanzee (with whom Dr Pepperberg's most recent common ancestor lived a mere 4m years ago), learned to speak words easily. The question was, was Alex merely parroting Dr Pepperberg? Or would that pejorative term have to be redefined? Do parrots actually understand what they are saying?
虽然艾利克斯与佩珀伯格博士共同的祖先生活在三亿多年前,但比起黑猩猩(与佩珀伯格博士共同的祖先距今不过四百万年),它毫不费力地学会说人类的词汇。人们的疑问在于,艾利克斯是否只是机械地模仿佩珀伯格博士?或是有必要重新定义鹦鹉学舌这个贬义的说法?鹦鹉究竟能否理解他们学舌的内容?
Bird brained
鸟类的智力
Dr Pepperberg's reason for suspecting that they might—and thus her second reason for picking a parrot—was that in the mid-1970s evolutionary explanations for behaviour were coming back into vogue. A British researcher called Nicholas Humphrey had proposed that intelligence evolves in response to the social environment rather than the natural one. The more complex the society an animal lives in, the more wits it needs to prosper.
上世纪70年代中期,用进化论解释动物行为再度盛行。当时,英国研究员尼古拉斯·汉弗莱(Nicholas Humphrey)提出了动物智力随社会环境而非自然环境进化的观点。他认为,动物所处的社会环境越复杂,就需要进化出越高的智力来应对。佩珀伯格博士据此推断,鹦鹉有可能理解他们学舌的内容,而这也是她选择鹦鹉作为实验对象的原因之一。
The reason why primates are intelligent, according to Dr Humphrey, is that they generally live in groups. And, just as group living promotes intelligence, so intelligence allows larger groups to function, providing a spur for the evolution of yet more intelligence. If Dr Humphrey is right, only social animals can be intelligent—and so far he has been borne out.
汉弗莱博士认为,灵长类动物聪明是因为它们大多群居。群居生活促进智力的发展,而更高的智力也使大型群落得以运转,进而推动智力进化至更高水平。假如汉弗莱博士的推断无误,那么只有社会性动物才具有智力。到目前为止,他的论断依然受到支持。
Flocks of, say, starlings or herds of wildebeest do not count as real societies. They are just protective agglomerations in which individuals do not have complex social relations with each other. But parrots such as Alex live in societies in the wild, in the way that monkeys and apes do, and thus Dr Pepperberg reasoned, Alex might have evolved advanced cognitive abilities. Also like primates, parrots live long enough to make the time-consuming process of learning worthwhile. Combined with his ability to speak (or at least “vocalise”) words, Alex looked a promising experimental subject.
例如,成群的椋鸟或角马就不算真正的社会性动物,因为这些群体成员间没有建立复杂的社会关系,只是出于自保而扎堆聚集。但艾利克斯等鹦鹉则不同,他们在野外也如猴、猿那般群居。佩珀伯格博士据此推断,艾利克斯可能已进化出高水平的认知能力。鹦鹉与灵长类的另一共同点在于,他们的寿命也很长,能够让耗时费力的学习看到成果。再加上艾利克斯能说出(或是至少发声)词语,他确实是令人看好的实验对象。
And so it proved. Using a training technique now employed on children with learning difficulties, in which two adults handle and discuss an object, sometimes making deliberate mistakes, Dr Pepperberg and her collaborators at the University of Arizona began teaching Alex how to describe things, how to make his desires known and even how to ask questions.
事实也证明了这种推测。他们使用了一种现在用来帮助学习障碍儿童的训练技巧。具体方法是两个成年人处理和讨论一个物体,时不时故意犯一点错。佩珀伯格博士和她在亚利桑那大学的合作伙伴开始教授艾利克斯如何描述事物,如何表达需求,甚至如何提出问题。
By the end, said Dr Pepperberg, Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old child and had not reached his full potential. He had a vocabulary of 150 words. He knew the names of 50 objects and could, in addition, describe their colours, shapes and the materials they were made from. He could answer questions about objects' properties, even when he had not seen that particular combination of properties before. He could ask for things—and would reject a proffered item and ask again if it was not what he wanted. He understood, and could discuss, the concepts of “bigger”, “smaller”, “same” and “different”. And he could count up to six, including the number zero (and was grappling with the concept of “seven” when he died). He even knew when and how to apologise if he annoyed Dr Pepperberg or her collaborators.
据佩珀伯格博士说,到最后艾利克斯的智力相当于一个五岁的儿童,而且他还没有发挥出自己全部的潜力。他的词汇量有150个。他知道50种物品的名称,并且能描述它们的颜色、形状和材质。他能够回答出关于物品特性的问题,即使他没见过那种特性组合。他会要东西,如果别人给的不是他要的,他会拒绝接受并再次提出请求。他能够理解,也能够跟人讨论如大点小点一样不同这些概念。他能够从零数到六(在他离世之前,他正努力攻克数到七的难关)。他甚至知道惹恼了艾利克斯博士和她的合作伙伴的时候,该何时以及如何道歉。
And the fact that there were a lot of collaborators, even strangers, involved in the project was crucial. Researchers in this area live in perpetual fear of the “Clever Hans” effect. This is named after a horse that seemed to count, but was actually reacting to unconscious cues from his trainer. Alex would talk to and perform for anyone, not just Dr Pepperberg.
众多合作研究者甚至是陌生人参与到了这项研究中,这一点至关重要。这个领域的研究者们始终聪明的汉斯效应充满恐惧。这个名词来源于一匹据称能数数的马,但是实际上它只是对训练者无意识给予的暗示做出的反应。艾利克斯却可以跟任何人说话,为任何人表演,而不仅仅是佩珀伯格博士。
There are still a few researchers who think Alex's skills were the result of rote learning rather than abstract thought. Alex, though, convinced most in the field that birds as well as mammals can evolve complex and sophisticated cognition, and communicate the results to others. A shame, then, that he is now, in the words of Monty Python, an ex-parrot.
如今仍然有不少研究者认为艾利克斯的技能是死记硬背的结果,而不是抽象思维的能力。然而,艾利克斯却说服了这个领域的大多数研究者相信,鸟类和哺乳动物一样可以进化出复杂而深刻的认知,并能把这种认知传达给其他人或动物。然而遗憾的是,艾利克斯现在,用巨蟒剧团(Monty Python)经典鹦鹉短剧中的话来说就是——已经嗝屁了。
翻译组:
Gretle,爱翻译,爱生活
Vicky,少儿英语老师+笔译新人
Lee,爱骑行的妇女之友+Timberland
Nikolae,新手人民教师,声优探索者,乃木坂47AKB49
校对组:
奥莉,梦想讲相声的中二病患者,猫是本体
Claire,进进退退,摇摇摆摆,探索世界ing
Francis,达人观之,生死一耳;何必生之为乐,死之为悲
3
打造
独立思考 | 国际视野 | 英文学习
小组
01 第一期口译训练营
团队由毕业于北外高翻,蒙特雷,川大等小伙伴组成
四位一口,两位二口,多年口译实战经验
从听辨、演讲与口语、复述、笔记法、交传到模拟会议,
层层递进,只有你想不到的,没有我们讲不到的,
助力大家拿下三口、顺利开启口译学习!
点击下图,即可了解口译课详情
02 第一期雅思写作课
语法录播+写作直播+写作批改,
夯实语法基础,拿下雅思大小作文。
五位雅思写作7.5分及以上的老师授课
点击下图,即可了解雅思写作课详情
03 第十二期翻译打卡营
4位一笔,3位二笔
21天录播课程
既有中译英,也有英译中。
从翻译的流程策略,
英汉语言特点,方法,类型,
背景知识到细致的语言点,
我们都逐一讲解以及答疑,让同学们吃透翻译。
点击下图,即可了解翻译打卡营详情!
04 第四期二笔实务课直播课
授课教师全部为一笔
授课内容全部为CATTI实务考试相关
小班直播课,随机批改,有针对性讲解
每位同学拥有一次批改机会
点击下图,即可了解二笔直播课详情!
05 早起打卡营

12个月以来,小编已经带着7000多人早起打卡
早起倒逼自己早睡,戒掉夜宵,戒掉手机
让你发现一个全新的自己,创造早睡早起的奇迹!
早起是最简单的自律!
第54期五点半早起打卡营


第24期六点早起打卡营
欢迎你的加入!
点击下图,即可了解早起打卡营详情
继续阅读
阅读原文