-
全新版大学英语
UNIT-3
课文翻< /p>
译及课后答案
UNIT
3
Text
A
Maia Szalavitz, formerly a
television producer, now spends her time as a
writer. In this essay she explores digital reality
and its
consequences. Along the way,
she compares the digital world to the
dimension.
迈亚·塞拉维茨曾是电视制片人，目前
从事写作。她在本文中探索了数字化世界及其后果。与此同时，她将数字化世界与真实
世
界做了比较，承认电子空间自有其魅力。
A Virtual Life
Maia Szalavitz
After too long on the Net, even a phone
call can be a shock. My boyfriend's Liverpool
accent suddenly becomes impossible to
interpret after his easily understood
words on screen; a secretary's clipped tone seems
more rejecting than I'd imagined it would
be. Time itself becomes fluid
—
hours become minutes, or seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are
now just two ordinary
days.
虚拟世界的生活
迈亚·塞拉维茨
在网上呆了太久，听到电话铃声也会吓
一大跳。显示屏上看多了我男朋友那些一目了然的文字，他的利物浦口音一下子变得难
以
听懂；而秘书的清脆快速的语调听上去比我想像的要生硬。时间本身变得捉摸不定——几小时变成几分钟，或几秒
钟延伸为
几天。周末原本是我一周的黄金时段，现在却不过是平平常常的两天。
For the last three years, since I
stopped working as a television producer, I have
done much of my work as a telecommuter. I
submit articles and edit them via email
and communicate with colleagues on Internet
mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England,
so much of our relationship is also
computer-assisted.
在我不再当电视制片人的这三年间，我的大部
分工作都是在家里使用计算机终端进行的。我通过电子邮件投稿和校订，利用互
联网上的
邮件列表与同行交流。我男朋友住在英国，因此两人的关系也在很大程度上借助于电脑维系。
If I desired, I could stay inside for
weeks without wanting anything. I can order food,
and manage my money, love and work. In
fact, at times I have spent as long as
three weeks alone at home, going out only to get
mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I
watched most of the endless snowstorm
of '96 on TV
.
我要是愿意的话，可以一连几个星期不出
门而什么也不缺。我可以在网上订购食品、网上理财、网上恋爱、网上工作。事实上
我有
时独自呆在家里长达三个星期，只偶尔出去拿信、买报纸及日用品。
1996
年那 一场接一场的暴风雪我大都是在电视上看到
的。
But after
a while, life itself
begins
to
feel unreal. I start
to feel
as
though
I've become
one with my machines,
taking
data in,
spitting
them back out, just another link in the Net.
Others on line report the same symptoms. We start
to feel an aversion to
outside forms of
socializing.
We have become the Net critics' worst nightmare.
然而，一段时间之后，生活本
身就显得不那么真实了。我开始觉得自己似乎与机器融为一体了，我接收信息，再发送出去，就
< br>如同互联网的一个连接点。其他上网的人也谈到了同样的症状。我们开始厌恶外面的社交方式。我们的状况 成了批评互联网的
人们最害怕见到的一幕。
What first seemed like a luxury,
crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about
hair, and clothes and face, has become a
form of escape, a lack of discipline.
And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of
the cave can be quite difficult.
一下床就上机，不再为发型、服饰、面部化妆烦心，起初看似奢华的享受如今却成为一种
对生活的逃避，一种缺乏自律的表现。
你一旦开始用网络交际取代人与人的真实接触，要
走出这种穴居状态就会相当困难。
I
find
myself
shyer,
more
cautious,
more
anxious.
Or,
conversely,
when
suddenly
confronted
with
real
live
humans,
I
get
overexcited,
speak too much, interrupt. I constantly worry if I
am dressed appropriately, that perhaps I've
actually forgotten to
put on a skirt
and walked outside in the T-shirt and underwear I
sleep and live in.
我发现自己变得比以前怯生、谨慎、焦虑。或
者，反过来，当我突然面对现实中活生生的人时，会变得过于兴奋，说个不停，
爱打断别
人的讲话。我老是担心自己衣着是否得体，担心自己会不会真的忘了穿裙子，只穿着夜间睡觉、白天活动时穿的那
件
T
恤和内衣就出门了。
At
times, I turn on the television and just leave it
to talk away in the background, something that I'd
never done previously. The
voices of
the programs are comforting, but then I'm jarred
by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by
soap operas, or needing
to keep up with
the latest news and the weather.
every
story over and over and over, even when they are
of no possible use to me.
Work moves into the background. I decide to
check my email.
有时我把电视机开着，让它
作为背景声音一直响着，以前我从不这样做。电视节目中的说话声让人感到宽慰，可那些广告又叫
我心烦。我发现自己沉浸在肥皂剧里，或者不停地收看最新的新闻报道和天气预报。一而再再而三地从“
每日新闻”
、
“一线新
闻”
、
< p>“夜间新闻”、
有线新闻电视网、纽约一套上收看有关每一 条新闻的各种不同视角的报道，尽管它们对我毫无用处。工作
成了次要的。我决定去看一
下自己的电子信箱。
On line,
I find
myself attacking
everyone in
sight. I am bad-tempered, and
easily angered.
I find
everyone
on my mailing
list
insensitive,
believing that they've forgotten that there are
people actually reading their wounding remarks. I
don't realize that I'm
projecting until
after I've been embarrassed by someone who
politely points out that I've attacked her for
agreeing with me.
在网上，我发现自己见谁攻谁。我脾气暴躁，动
辄生气。我觉得我与之通信的每一个人都麻木不仁，认为他们已经忘却还有人
真会去读他
们那些刻薄伤人的言辞。直到有人礼貌地指出，她同意我的观点却遭到我的抨击时，我才意识到，自己是在以己度
人，不由得深感尴尬。
When I'm
in this state, I fight my boyfriend as well,
misinterpreting his intentions because of the lack
of emotional cues given by
our typed
dialogue. The fight takes hours, because the
system keeps crashing.
I say a line, then he does, then crash! And yet we
keep on, doggedly.
在这种精神状态下，
我也和男朋友吵架，常因键出的对话缺乏情感暗示而误解他的本意。由于系统常出故障，两人一争就是几
个小时。我写一句，他回一句，接着系统失灵！可我们俩还是锲而不舍地接着吵。
I'd never realized how important daily
routine is: dressing for work, sleeping normal
hours. I'd never thought I relied so much on
co-workers for company. I began to
understand why long-term unemployment can be so
damaging, why life without an externally
supported daily plan can lead to higher
rates of drug abuse, crime, suicide.
以前
我从未意识到日常的生活起居是多么重要，如穿戴整齐去上班，按时就寝。以前我从未想过自己会那么依赖同事做
伴。我
开始理解为什么长时间的失业会那么伤人，为什么一个人的生活缺少了外部支持的
日常计划就会导致吸毒、犯罪、自杀率的增
长。
To restore balance to my life, I force
myself back into the real world. I call people,
arrange to meet with the few remaining friends
who haven't fled New York City. I try
to at least get to the gym, so as to set apart the
weekend from the rest of my week. I arrange
interviews for stories, doctor's
appointments
—
anything to get me out of the house and connected with others.
为了恢复生活的平衡，我强迫自己回到真实世界中去。我给别人打电话，与所剩无几的仍然住在纽约城
的几个朋友安排见面。
我至少设法去去健身房，以便使周末与工作日有所不同。我安排采
访好写报道，预约看医生——安排任何需要我出门与他人接
触的活动。
But sometimes being face to face is too
much. I see a friend and her ringing laughter is
intolerable
—
the noise of conversation in
the restaurant,
unbearable. I make my excuses and flee. I re-enter
my apartment and run to the computer as though it
were a
place of safety.
但有时面
对面地与人相处实在难以忍受。我与一位朋友见面，她那种响亮的笑声让人忍无可忍——饭店里的噪杂谈话声也让
人
受不了。我找了个藉口逃之夭夭。我重新回到我的公寓，冲向电脑，似乎那儿才是一个
安全的地方。
I click on the modem, the once-annoying sound of the connection now as pleasant as my favorite tune. I enter my password. The
real world disappears.
我点击鼠标，打开调制解调器，曾经听了就烦的连接声此刻听
起来就如同最心爱的曲子那么悦耳。我键入密码。真实世界转瞬
便消逝了。
Text
B
Thought you were safe
sharing secrets with Internet friends? Wait for
the doorbell?
你以为与网友分享秘密不会出事儿吗？等着门铃响起来吧……
Mother's Mad
about
the InternutsCarol
SarlerR
T 1.
Tap
tap
tappa
tap-tap. It is
the
last
sound
to be
heard
before
sleep.
On
especially bad
days, it is the first sound to be heard in the
morning. It is the sound of the only lasting
disagreement in a household
that is
otherwise peaceful. My daughter is hooked on the
Internet and I think that it is mad, bad and
dangerous.
母亲恨死了网虫
卡罗尔·萨尔勒
嗒嗒，嗒嗒，嗒
-
嗒。这是入睡前最后听到的声音。遇到特别糟糕的日子，早上一醒来就听到这种声音 。
这是一个原本安宁的
家庭中唯一持续不去的不和谐音
。女儿沉迷于互联网，我觉得这是一种疯狂的不端行为，而且凶险四伏。
She is
in
every
other
respect a sensible young woman.
She graduated
in the summer,
she goes
to work
each day, she and
her
friends are on the
phone all evening and she goes out with them at
weekends. But on top of that she has lately
started spending
some two hours in
intense communication with a computer. And I hate
it.
她在别的哪个方面都不失为一个明事理的姑娘。她是夏天毕业的，天天上班，晚
上和朋友们在电话里聊天，周末和他们一起外
出玩耍。但除此之外，近来她每天花两个小
时光景与电脑厮守在一起。对此我深恶痛绝。
This is not
just fear of new course, there is value in
instant access to information banks worldwide and,
of course,
email is revolutionizing the
way we correspond with each other.
My mistrust is based on the fact that this use of the Internet is
such
a
pale
copy
of
the
time-honoured
way
in
which
people
communicate
with
each
other.
It
leads
to
intimacy
before
acquaintance; it scatters
secrets outwards, not inwards; and, most worrying
of all, it is a vehicle for liars.
这不完全
是对新科技的恐惧。当然，能随时获取全世界信息库中的信息是很有价值的，电子邮件正在完全改变人们相互间通
信
联系的方式。我的不信任感是基于这样一个事实：使用互联网通讯与人们传统的相互交
流方式相比实在大为逊色。它使人们还
未相识就已亲近；它不能保守秘密反而扩散秘密；
而最令人担心的是，它是撒谎人传播谎言的工具。
What
frightens me is that my daughter rejects all this.
The denial is there in the language she uses.
she says,
didn't,<
/p>
最令我心惊胆战的是女儿对我的一切规劝都拒之不理。这在她的言谈间流露无遗。
“我是一月份‘遇见’珍妮特的，
”她说，
“那
以
后我们就成了‘朋友’
。
”有时，她又说“前几天我和亚历克斯‘聊天’
，他‘说’……
”
“不对，他没有说，
”我争辩道；
< p>只有当你亲眼见过一个人之后，只有在那个时候，朋友才成其为朋友。她只是朝上翻了翻白眼。
Imagine this. When I was planning
to go away for a few days last month, this
intelligent 22-year-old announced a plan for a
party,
the guests to include a variety
of Internuts who, coming as they would from all
corners, would need to stay overnight.
你想像得到吗，上个月我正打算外出数日的时候，这位聪明的
22
岁的姑娘宣布打 算举行一次聚会，客人包括各色网虫，他们来
自各地，还要在我家过夜。
Overnight? In my home, my home that
contains everything I care about,
rather high on the list being my daughter herself.
在我家里过夜？在这个有我珍爱的一切的家里，而女儿本身就是我的
最珍爱的宝贝之一。
She said:
had
trying
to
be
reasonable
but
not
altogether
succeeding,
that
in
and
among
the
things
they
each
other
on
the
tap-tap,
a
tendency to murder might just
have been overlooked, might it not?
她说，
“别傻。
”她说不会有事的，因为她准备邀请的那些人都是“认识”了至少有一年 的，而且她“了解”他们，就像了解我
总的来说比较喜欢的她的其他朋友一样。我说，他
们啪哒啪哒“讲”给互相听的事情中，杀人的倾向或许就被忽略了，难道这
不可能吗？我
说这话时尽量想做到通情达理，但不完全成功。