19972010 年英语专业 8 级统考题中英译汉试题评析【1997 年 8 级测试英译汉】Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable.1 But expensive things are not inevitably the province of the rich unless we abdicate societys power of choice. 2 We can choose to make opera, and other expensive forms of culture, accessible to those who cannot individually pay for it. 3 The question is: why should we? Nobody denies the imperatives of food, shelter, defense, health and education. 4 But even in a prehistoric cave, mankind stretched out a hand not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. 5 The impulse towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation is fundamental. 6 In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones7 for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire; they carry the most profound messages that can be sent from one human to another.8【参考译文】聆听歌剧，无疑昂贵至极。但是，昂贵的东西并不是非富人莫属，除非我们放弃社会的选择权。我们可以做出选择，使歌剧和其他形式的高消费文化也能让那些作为个体消费不起的人们所享受。但问题是，有必要这么做吗？食物、居所、防护、健康与教育缺一不可，这一点人人认可。即便史前，住在洞穴中的人类伸出手来，不仅为了吃饭、喝水或搏杀，也为了作画。对于文化的冲动，对于通过形象思维和再现手段来表达并探索世界的欲望，这是人的本性。在欧洲，这一欲望反映在音乐、绘画、文学和戏剧之类的艺术杰作之中。这些杰作是我们全部成果的试金石，是人类思想和想象力可及程度的试金石。它们承载着最深刻的信息，使之在人类成员之间传播。 【1998 年 8 级测试英译汉】I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phrase1 their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive over-phrase of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. 2 But then, the English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. 3 Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminente. g. in painting and musicthey too alternate between boasting of native products and copying those of the Continent. How many English paintings try to look as though they were done in Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really represent an “English tradition” after all.To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step4. At any given moment5 the traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex6 the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own and which is yet a foreign country.7 There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend. 8【参考译文】在一定程度上，我赞同这位虚构的英国读者的观点。美国的文学史工作者也许惯于过分狭隘地看待本国文坛，误将显著当独特。他们的确过分渲染本国文学，至少对二流的作家肯定会吹捧。美国人确实也走极端，要么咄咄逼人，对本国文学大肆渲染，要么亦步亦趋，对别国文学顶礼膜拜。这两种做法同样的不幸。话又说回来，英国人自己在文学鉴赏方面也显得有些孤陋寡闻。而且，在诸如绘画音乐这些本国没有杰出成就的领域里，他们也走极端，要么吹嘘本国的作品，要么模仿大陆上的作品。试想，有多少幅英国画试图做得让人看上去像是在巴黎绘的；我们又有多少次读到他们的作品真正代表着一种“英国式的传统”呢？说到美国文学，并非意欲断言，它与欧洲文学全然不同。广而言之，美国与欧洲一直步伐一致。任何时刻，旅行者在两地均能看到同样的建筑，款式相同的服饰，相同的书籍。思想如同人员与货物往来一样，自由地横跨大西洋，不过有时会稍微慢一些。当我说美国习惯、美国思想等时，我只想在这一词汇前加上某种修饰语，因为，欧美（尤其是英美）之间的差异往往只是程度上的差异，而且有时候微乎其微。差异的多少至精至细，很容易使英国人对美国迷惑不解。他所看的那个国家，从某些重要的意义上来说，脱胎于他自己的国家，并在某些方面与他自己的国家相差无几然而，它却实实在在是一个异邦。两个国家，既有重叠，也有陌生，重叠使人颇感奇怪，陌生令人觉着突如其来：亲戚一下子变做陌生路人。犹如我们向马路对面的某个行人打招呼，结果出乎意料，那人表情漠然，原来，我们误把陌路当友人。【1999 年 8 级测试英译汉】In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons1: to extend the family line or the family name2, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioning of religious rituals involving the family3. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category4, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife5, to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way6. The point is underlined by its converse7: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce. 8Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself.9 To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper familythey need children to enr