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Упражнение на сравнительный перевод и его обсуждение.
Прочитайте текст на английском языке, а затем его перевод на русский. Сравните эти тексты. Ответьте на вопросы преподавателя. Перескажите текст по-английски. Приведите примеры непонимания между русскими и иностранцами, а также между людьми, говорящими на одном языке.
А.Оригинальный текст
I Know What You Think... Tell the Truth
| Communication can be a jungle. An impenetrable web ofmessages, perceptions and interpretations. Sometimes you can gel lost. But there is a simple way out: enough confidence to say what you mean. | The best — and by no means most recent — solution to the problem of better communication was suggested by Ferdinand Lassalle, one of the founding fathers of modern communications theory: "the most revolutionary thing to do is to say the truth." This makes diplomatic rhetoric, which talks without saying anything, a linguistic farce which we can well do without.A disturbing factor which only disruptswithout contributing anything. |
If more people were to use the "naive honest language of children," there would be a good deal (ewer misunderstandings and less linguistic helplessness. With adults, non-verbal communication as well asthe spoken word frequently falls victim toour own interpretation. The recipientof such a message sees himself as the measure of all reality. This is a problem which children do not have as interpretation is foreign to them.It is only through the influence of schools, education anduniversity that "overeducated" adults become lost in their search for unambiguouscommunication. Because there is no such thing, they become entangled intheir own constructions of reality.
How People Can Interact
It ishighly interesting to look at two people interactingonly on the level of their own interpretations. One example illustrates this particularly well: a trappergoes into a forest to fell a tree.Hesees an Indian busily choppingwood in front of his wigwam. He thinks (and this is where his assumptionsabout reality commence) that the Indian is particularly sensitive to natural events and interprets the hitter's behavior as meaning that the coming winter is likely to be very cold. Just to be on the safe side, he cuts two trees which he drags past the Indian on his way back. The Indian now thinks to himself "normally, the trapper drags only one tree. Today, he has two. That must mean that the winter is going to be very cold." This results in an awful lot of wood being cut.
Behavior is not explained; it is merely interpreted, with interpretations being mistaken for reality. Why? When two people meet and one says something to the other, an internal image forms in that person's head as to what the other one means and what sort of person he is.
This also applies the other way around, of course. The reason is simple: everything we do or say passes through a type ofperceptive filteron the part of the other person. This also applies to us as well, of course. This filter is our own experience of life.When it is considered that individual people's experience varies a great deal, unambiguous communication is almost a fluke.But people don't like complicated things and tend to reduce complexity. This forces them to resort to "hard facts." But we have all experienced the situation when someone who appeared to agree to something said on the next day that this was not what he had meant. This is annoying but mainly because we sensed from the tone of his voice that his "yes" wasn't really one at all.
Problems and Solutions
An interesting proposal was once made at an international conference: problems should not be discussed until each side is able to describe the other's stanceto the first party's satisfaction. This involves effort and requires trust, of course. But trust is something imust give before I get it back. The reward for this effort is clarity,which makes it easier for us to accept that various people behave, give and talk differently. In this way, people can understand each other more clearly and arc therefore more satisfied with each other.