考研英语水平的进步,不仅要记单词,还需要阅读外语文献等资料。接下来,小编为2024考研者们,整理出——2024考研英语同源外刊:没有语言,我们还能思考吗?供考生参考。
2024考研英语同源外刊:没有语言,我们还能思考吗?
Language is so deeply embedded in almost every aspect of the way we interact with the world that it’s hard to imagine what it would be like not to have it. What if we didn’t have names for things?
语言是如此的深植于我们与世界互动的方方面面,以至于很难想象没有语言会是什么样子。如果事物没有其名字会如何呢?
What if we didn’t have experience making statements, asking questions, or talking about things that hadn’t actually happened? Would we be able to think? What would our thoughts be like?
如果我们没有陈述、提问或谈论从未发生过的事情的经验呢?我们能思考吗?我们的想法会是什么样子?
The answer to the question of whether thought is possible without language depends on what you mean by “thought.” Can you experience sensations, impressions, feelings without language? Yes, and very few would argue otherwise.
没有语言的思维是否可能,这个问题的答案取决于你对“思维”的定义。你能在没有语言的情况下体验感觉、印象和感受吗?是的,而且很少有人不这么认为。
But there is a difference between being able to experience, say, pain or light, and possessing the concepts “pain” and “light.” Most would say true thought entails having the concepts.
但是,能够体验疼痛或光线,与拥有“疼痛”和“光线”的概念之间是有区别的。大多数人会说,真正的思想需要有概念。
Many artists and scientists, in describing their own inner processes while they work, say they do not use words to solve problems, but images. The autistic author Temple Grandin, in explaining how she thinks visually rather than linguistically, says that concepts for her are collections of images.
许多艺术家和科学家在描述自己工作时的内心过程时说,他们不是用文字来解决问题,而是用图像来解决问题。自闭症作家坦普尔·格兰丁在解释她如何用视觉而不是语言来思考时说,对她来说,概念是图像的集合。
Her concept of “dog,” for example, “is inextricably linked to every dog I’ve ever known. It’s as if I have a card catalog of dogs I have seen, complete with pictures, which continually grows as I add more examples to my video library.”
例如,她对“狗”的概念“与我所认识的每一只狗都有着千丝万缕的联系。这就好像我有一个我看过的狗的卡片目录,配有图片,随着我向视频库中添加更多的例子,它会不断增长。”
Of course, Grandin has language, and knows how to use it, so it is hard to say how much of her thinking has been influenced by it, but it’s not unimaginable—and probably likely—that there are people who lack the ability to use language and think in the way she describes.
当然,格兰丁有语言,也知道如何使用语言,所以很难说她的思想有多少受到了语言的影响,但这并非不可想象——而且很可能——有些人缺乏像她描述的那样使用语言和思考的能力。
There is also evidence that deaf people cut off from language, spoken or signed, think in sophisticated ways before they have been exposed to language.
也有证据表明,失聪的人在接触语言之前,无论是口语还是手语,都会以复杂的方式思考。
When they later learn language, they can describe the experience of having had thoughts like those of the 15 year old boy who wrote in 1836. after being educated at a school for the deaf, that he remembered thinking in his pre-language days “that perhaps the moon would strike me, and I thought that perhaps my parents were strong, and would fight the moon, and it would fail, and I mocked the moon.”
当他们后来学习语言时,他们可以描述这样的经历:有一个15岁的男孩,于1836年在一所聋哑学校接受教育后写道,他记得在没有语言的日子里,他想“也许月亮会袭击我,我想也许我的父母很强大,会和月亮战斗,而月亮会失败,我会嘲笑月亮。”
Also, the spontaneous sign languages developed by deaf students without language models, in places like Nicaragua, display the kind of thinking that goes far beyond mere sensory impression or practical problem solving.
此外,在尼加拉瓜等地,失聪学生在没有语言模型的情况下自发发展出的手语,显示出一种远远超出感官印象或解决实际问题的思维方式。
However, while it appears that we can indeed think without language, it is also the case that there are certain kinds of thinking that are made possible by language. Language gives us symbols we can use to fix ideas, reflect on them, and hold them up for observation.
然而,虽然我们似乎确实可以在没有语言的情况下思考,但也有一些特定的思考是通过语言来实现的。语言给我们提供了符号,我们可以用它来确定思想,进行反思,并举一反三。
It allows for a level of abstract reasoning we wouldn’t have otherwise. The philosopher Peter Carruthers has argued that there is a type of inner, explicitly linguistic thinking that allows us to bring our own thoughts into conscious awareness. We may be able to think without language, but language lets us know that we are thinking.
它允许我们进行一定程度的抽象推理。哲学家彼得·卡拉瑟斯认为,有一种内在的、明确的语言思维,可以让我们把自己的想法带入有意识的意识。我们可以不用语言思考,但是语言让我们知道我们在思考。
重难点词汇:
inextricably [ˌɪnɪkˈstrɪkəbli] adv. 逃不掉地;解决不了地
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