評論
打印
Man’s best friend
人類最好的朋友
I feel your pain
我能體會你的痛楚
Dogs quickly become part of the family. Tales abound of dogs celebrating joy in a household or commiserating when tragedy strikes. This may not seem surprising after 15,000 years of co-evolution. But what hard evidence is there of dogs’ empathy with humans? A new experiment suggests that behind all the waggy tails there really is something deeper going on.
狗會很快成為家庭中的一員，有關它們慶祝家庭喜事，憐憫悲劇發生的故事屢見不鮮。在與人類共同進化了一萬五千年之后，這點或許并不稀奇。但有沒有確鑿的證據能夠證明狗能體會人類的感受呢？最近一項新的實驗表明，狗狗擺動的尾巴后面的確隱藏著更深的含義。
empathy: Empathy is the ability to share another person's feelings and emotions as if they were your own. 同感能力
commiserating ：If you commiserate with someone, you show them pity or sympathy when something unpleasant has happened to them. 同情; 憐憫 When I lost, he commiserated with me.我失敗時，他同情我。
Past experiments have hinted that animals can feel sympathy. Rats and monkeys had been found to forgo food to avoid delivering electric shocks to relatives. Similarly, apes have recently been documented consoling one another after conflicts. However, all these experiments and observations were demonstrating an animal’s sensitivity to distress in other members of the same species. Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer of Goldsmiths College, London, set out to see if dogs could detect the emotional state of humans.
以往的一些實驗已經表明動物們也具有同情心。科學家發現，老鼠和猴子會放棄食物，以防自己受到電擊而危害同伴。類似的還有大猩猩，實驗表明，它們會在發生爭斗后彼此安慰。然而這些實驗和觀察都只能證明同物種的動物相互之間擁有感受痛楚的能力。倫敦金史密斯大學的黛博拉•科斯坦斯與詹妮弗•梅耶正在著手研究狗，看它們能否察覺人類的情緒狀態。
To do this, Dr Custance and Ms Mayer conducted an experiment to study the response of dogs when a nearby human suddenly began to cry. The researchers knew that interpreting responses would be difficult, since dogs tend to whine, nuzzle, lick, lay their heads in laps and fetch toys for people in distress. Although such actions hint at a dog wishing to offer comfort, they could also be signs of curiosity, or suggest that a dog is simply distressed by seeing its master upset.
為了研究這個問題，科斯坦斯博士與梅耶女士進行了一項試驗。他們將狗安排在一個人身邊，觀察狗在此人突然開始哭泣時的反應。他們深知想要解讀狗的反應是十分困難的，因為狗在這種條件下經常會發出嗚嗚聲，把鼻子貼在人的大腿上并蹭蹭舔舔，還會在人類悲傷時叼來玩具哄人開心。盡管這樣的行為暗示著它們想要給主人提供安慰，但同時也可能僅僅代表了它們的好奇心，又或者它們只是看到主人懊惱感到憂慮罷了。
To work round this, the researchers presented 18 dogs of various breeds with four separate 20-second conditions. They included their owner crying, a stranger crying and both taking it in turns to hum “Mary had a little lamb”. All four of these conditions were preceded by two minutes of mundane conversation between Ms Mayer, who filled the role of the stranger, and the dog’s owner.
為了能夠正確解讀狗的反應，研究者在實驗中采用了18條不同品種的狗并將它們分別置于時長均為20秒的四種不同的情境中，分別為主人在一旁哭泣、陌生人在一旁哭泣、主人與陌生人輪流對狗狗哼唱《瑪麗有只小羊羔》。在每種情境開始前，梅耶女士都會充當陌生人的角色與狗的主人進行時長兩分鐘的常規交談。
breed：A breed of a pet animal or farm animal is a particular type of it. For example, terriers are a breed of dog. (動物的) 品種
Dr Custance and Ms Mayer suspected that if exposure to crying led dogs to feel distress, then regardless of who was crying, the dog would go to their master to seek comfort. They also theorised that if curiosity, rather than empathy, was the driving force, then the humming would cause dogs to engage with people.
科斯坦斯博士與梅耶女士猜想如果狗看到人類哭泣會感到悲傷的話，無論是其主人還是陌生人，狗都會去主人那里尋求安慰。他們還建立了一個理論，如果使狗接近人類的是它們好奇心而非感情上的共鳴，那么哼唱小曲同樣會使狗跟人類進行互動。
As they report in Animal Cognition, “person-oriented behaviour” did sometimes take place when either the stranger or the owner hummed, but it was more than twice as likely to occur if someone was crying. This indicated that dogs were differentiating between odd behaviour and crying. And of the 15 dogs in the experiment that showed person-oriented responses when the stranger cried, all of them directed their attention towards the stranger rather than their owner.
正如他們在《動物的認知》中描述的一樣，不管是陌生人還是狗的主人哼唱小曲兒，有時狗狗的確會對這些行為作出類似人類的反應，但哭泣的人吸引到狗注意的概率比唱歌的人要高出兩倍以上。這表明狗能區分哭泣與其他一些奇怪的行為。在此次實驗中有15條狗在看到陌生人哭泣時表現出了人類似的回應，這些狗都把注意力轉向了哭泣的陌生人而非它們的主人。
These discoveries suggest that dogs do have the ability to express empathetic concern. But although the results are clear enough, Dr Custance argues that more work needs to be done to be sure that such behaviour is true empathy. It is possible, she points out, that the dogs were drawing on previous experiences in which they were rewarded for approaching distressed human companions. Dog-owners, however, are unlikely to need any more convincing.
這些發現表明狗的確有表達同感的能力。科斯坦斯博士說，盡管結論已經十分明確，我們仍需要做更多工作，來確定它們的行為是否真的是同感。她指出，狗可能是出于以往獲得的經驗即靠近它們的人類同伴能獲得獎勵進而表現出這種行為。而這些對于點狗的主人來說，已經毫無意義了。
最后一句話表達的意思是：對于科學家來說，狗狗是否具有同感能力還尚待研究；然而對于那些愛狗狗的主人們來說，能不能證明什么——其實是毫無意義的。
補充：確定主語,調整語序。
英語為主語顯著的語言,主語突出,除省略句以外,一般情況下每個句子都有主語;句法重形合,要求句子各成分特別清楚,以免結構混亂,影響句意。
而漢語則是主題顯著的語言,主題突出,主語不突出;句法重意合,指代關系在形式上不明顯。在篇章中,某些句子的主語常常可以省略,有時必須省略;有些主語難以一眼看清,需要讀者用心識別。因而在英譯漢過程中,確定主語,調整句序往往是一個需要動腦筋的問題。例如:
(1) Nightfall found him many miles short of his appointed preaching place.
這句話按原文的語序,Nightfall (夜幕) 作主語,按原語序照樣翻譯下去,譯文會顯得別扭,不自然。按照漢語的語言習慣,應選用“他”作主語,因而正確的翻譯是:夜幕降臨時,他離預定的布道地點還有好多英里路。又如:
(2)As is known to all ,2003 saw the successful launching ofChina’s first manned spaceship.
這句話可譯為:眾所周知,中國在2003 年成功地發射了第一艘載人宇宙飛船。
