新航道

  很多雅思考生為了提高雅思閱讀分?jǐn)?shù)，做了很多題目，但成效不大，這時可以想想是不是備考書籍選擇不當(dāng)造成，建議考生們多多看劍橋雅思真題。上海新航道雅思小編第一時間給大家?guī)砹藙?Test2雅思閱讀譯文Passage2-什么這么好笑?。希望可以幫助廣大雅思考生輕松備考雅思。

  雅思劍5Test2閱讀譯文Passage2-什么這么好笑?

  What’s so funny?

  John McCrone reviews recent research on humor

  什么這么好笑?

  ---John McCrone對近期幽默研究的回顧

  The joke comes over the headphones: ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left.’ No, not funny. Try again. ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside.’ Hah! The punchline is silly yet fitting, tempting a smile, even a laugh. Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: ‘unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose. ’

  笑話從耳機(jī)中傳出來：“狗哪一邊的毛最多?左邊。”不對，不好笑，再猜。“狗哪一邊毛最多?外邊。”哈!這句話的關(guān)鍵詞語有些荒唐，卻很合適，令人宛爾，甚至捧腹大笑。笑一直讓人類感到神秘，或許笑沒有什么意義。作家Arthur Koestler稱笑為奢侈的反射作用，“笑的獨(dú)特之處就在于它沒有明顯的生物學(xué)目的。”

  Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree. Plato expressed the idea that humor is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies on building up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline. But most modern humor theorists have settled on some version of Aristotle’s belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.

  幽默理論有著悠久的歷史。柏拉圖認(rèn)為幽默就是一種因感到比別人優(yōu)越而體會到的快樂的感覺。康德和弗洛伊德認(rèn)為講笑話則要營造一種精神上的緊張氣氛，最后抖開笑話的包袱，讓其滑稽有趣之處化解這種緊張氣氛。但是大多數(shù)當(dāng)代幽默理論家最終都采納了亞里士多德的觀點：笑話的基礎(chǔ)就是一種對不和諧情況的反應(yīng)或解釋，這種情況下笑話的關(guān)鍵語句或者沒有什么特殊意義，或者貌似荒唐卻聰明地隱含了第二層含義。

  Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humor but language understanding and reasoning in machines. He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift. A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.

  愛丁堡的計算語言學(xué)家Graeme Ritchie在研究笑話的語言結(jié)構(gòu)，不僅為了理解幽默，同時也為了了解機(jī)器的語言理解能力及推理能力他說，盡管笑話沒有固定的模式，但是許多笑話都是圍繞某個出其不意的概念轉(zhuǎn)換展開的。喜劇演員會描述一個情景，然后給出一個出人意料卻又恰如其分的解釋。

  So even if a punchline sounds silly, the listener can see there is a clever semantic fit and that sudden mental ‘Aha!’ is the buzz that makes us laugh. Viewed from this angle, humor is just a form of creative insight, a sudden leap to a new perspective.

  所以，即使笑話的關(guān)鍵語句聽起來有些荒唐，聽眾卻可以意識到其中有一個機(jī)靈恰當(dāng)?shù)恼Z義，而心頭掠過的“對呀”這一恍然大悟的感嘆就是令我們發(fā)笑的信號。從這個角度看來，幽默就是一種創(chuàng)造性的洞察力，一種向新視角的突越。

  However, there is another type of laughter, the laughter of social appeasement and it is important to understand this too. Play is a crucial part of development in most young mammals. Rats produce ultrasonic squeaks to prevent their scuffles turning nasty. Chimpanzees have a ‘play-face’ — a gaping expression accompanied by a panting ‘a(chǎn)h ah’ noise. In humans, these signals have mutated into smiles and laughs. Researchers believe social situations, rather than cognitive events such as jokes, trigger these instinctual markers of play or appeasement. People laugh on fairground rides or when tickled to flag a play situation, whether they feel amused or not.

  但是還有另外一種笑，就是社會交往中緩解緊張局面的笑。理解這種笑也是很重要的。在許多幼小的哺乳動物的發(fā)育當(dāng)中，游戲都是關(guān)鍵的一部分。老鼠會在廝打游玩時發(fā)出超聲波似的尖叫聲，防止廝打變成真的爭斗。黑猩猩有一種游戲表情，把嘴張得大大的，同時發(fā)出“啊、啊”的喘息聲。對于人類來說，這些信號都已轉(zhuǎn)化成為了微笑和大笑。研究人員認(rèn)為，激發(fā)這種本能的游戲信號或緩解緊張局面信號的因素不是笑話等認(rèn)知活動，而是社會場景。人們玩旋轉(zhuǎn)木馬或被別人逗癢，開始玩鬧時，無論是否感到好笑都會發(fā)出笑聲。

  Both social and cognitive types of laughter tap into the same expressive machinery in our brains, the emotion and motor circuits that produce smiles and excited vocalisations. However, if cognitive laughter is the product of more general thought processes, it should result from more expansive brain activity.

  無論是社交場合中的笑還是認(rèn)知活動中的笑，都是我們大腦中的同一表達(dá)機(jī)制在起作用。情感和運(yùn)動神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)令人微笑，并發(fā)出笑聲。但是，如果認(rèn)知活動中的笑是更多元的思維過程的產(chǎn)物的話，那么這種笑應(yīng)當(dāng)源干更廣泛的大腦活動。

  Psychologist Vinod Goel investigated humour using the new technique of ‘single event’ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to track the changes in oxygenated blood that accompany mental activity. Until recently, MRI scanners needed several minutes of activity and so could not be used to track rapid thought processes such as comprehending a joke. New developments now allow half-second ‘snapshots’ of all sorts of reasoning and problem-solving activities.

  心理學(xué)家Vinod Goel使用“單事件”官能磁共振成像這一新技術(shù)對幽默進(jìn)行調(diào)查研究，磁共振成像掃描儀使用磁場和無線電波跟蹤伴隨著心理活動的充氧血液中發(fā)生的變化。直到最近，這種掃描議都還需要數(shù)分鐘的時間才能完成掃描，所以無法用于跟蹤理解笑話這樣迅速的思維過程。而新的進(jìn)展使所有的退理和解決問題活動都能在半秒鐘就快速成像。

  Although Goel felt being inside a brain scanner was hardly the ideal place for appreciating a joke, he found evidence that understanding a joke involves a widespread mental shift. His scans showed that at the beginning of a joke the listener’s prefrontal cortex lit up, particularly the right prefrontal believed to be critical for problem solving. But there was also activity in the temporal lobes at the side of the head (consistent with attempts to rouse stored knowledge) and in many other brain areas. Then when the punchline arrived, a new area sprang to life — the orbital prefrontal cortex. This patch of brain tucked behind the orbits of the eyes is associated with evaluating information.

  盡管Goel感到弄清了大腦內(nèi)部的活動并不能完美地解決笑話的理解問題，他卻發(fā)現(xiàn)理解笑話需要思維的大轉(zhuǎn)換。他的掃描儀顯示聽笑話的人在笑話開始時前額腦皮層會發(fā)亮，尤其是對 解決問題起關(guān)鍵作用的右前額會發(fā)亮。但是在頭部側(cè)面的顳葉也會有活動，表明在試圖激發(fā)已有的知識，大腦其他許多區(qū)域也有活動。然后，當(dāng)包揪抖開時，一個新的區(qū)域——前額眼眶腦皮層活躍起來。這個蜷縮在眼眶后邊的大腦區(qū)域是與處理信息相聯(lián)系的。

  Making a rapid emotional assessment of the events of the moment is an extremely demanding job for the brain, animal or human. Energy and arousal levels may need to be retuned in the blink of an eye. These abrupt changes will produce either positive or negative feelings. The orbital cortex, the region that becomes active in Goel’s experiment, seems the best candidate for the site that feeds such feelings into higher-level thought processes, with its close connections to the brain’s sub-cortical arousal apparatus and centres of metabolic control.

  無論人腦還是動物的大腦，迅速對眼前的事件作出情感上的判斷都是一件非常艱巨的任務(wù)。能量和受激反應(yīng)的程度都要在一眨眼的功夫作出調(diào)整。這些突然的改變產(chǎn)生的感覺既有積極的又有消極的。在Goel實驗中變得活躍的眼眶腦皮層區(qū)域由于與大腦的次腦皮層喚激結(jié)構(gòu)和新陳代謝控制中樞有著密切的聯(lián)系，似乎最有可能是將這些感覺轉(zhuǎn)入更高一層的思維過程的區(qū)域。

  All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to their own thoughts. Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition. Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response. The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine. Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a person’s outlook.

  所有的溫血動物對外界變化的刺激都在不斷地作出細(xì)微的調(diào)整，但人類由于擁有語言而有著更為復(fù)雜的內(nèi)心活動，所以人類不僅會對周圍的環(huán)境產(chǎn)生感情上的反應(yīng)，而且會對自身的思維產(chǎn)生感情上的反應(yīng)。一旦某一苦苦尋找的答案出現(xiàn)了，人就會突然產(chǎn)生一種快樂的認(rèn)可感。由于創(chuàng)造性的發(fā)現(xiàn)是令人愉悅的，人類學(xué)會了尋找獵取這種自然反應(yīng)的途徑。笑話可以進(jìn)人我們的一般評估機(jī)制，這就說明有趣與惡心，或者有趣與恐怖之間的界限是十分微妙的。一個笑話給人帶來的是快樂還是痛苦取決于一個人的價值觀。

  Humor may be a luxury, but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. As Peter Derks, a psychologist at William and Mary College in Virginia, says: ‘I like to think of humour as the distorted mirror of the mind. It’s creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. If we can figure out how the mind processes humor, then we’ll have a pretty good handle on how it works in general.’

  幽默可能算是一種奢侈品，但其背后的機(jī)制卻不是進(jìn)化過程中的偶然事件。正如弗吉尼亞州威廉—瑪麗學(xué)院的心理學(xué)家Peter Derks所說：“我樂意將幽默想像成是思維的歪曲鏡，幽默是創(chuàng)造性的，感性的、與分析和語言有關(guān)的。如果我們能夠找出思維是如何處理幽默的，我們就能從整體上處理好其運(yùn)作機(jī)制。”

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