真正的英语是什么
真正的英语是什么深圳大学 赖小琪
今天在文科楼交了签证的材料后遇到一个英国的留学生，他问我国际会义厅在哪里。我刚好回宿舍要经过那里，就和他同行。一路上我们聊起天来。聊不到两句，他微微地笑了笑，对我说：“Your English is American English.” 我听了一怔，好一会才回过神来。
其实我也不知道我讲的究竟是美式英语还是英式英语，或者说是两者的混合体。那位留学生的话让我想起这几年来教学和做翻译的经历。在这些经历中，我在一定程度上感受到了英式英语和美式英语的文化中的差异，在这里我想和各位读者分享一下。
随着美国好莱坞电影闪电般的风行，美语也迅速占领全球。可以说，百分之九十以上的英语学习者（母语非英语的人）学习的都是美语。我们不断地模仿电影中的句子对白，不断模仿美国人的发音。英语水平高，有一定听力功底的人很容易辩认英式英语和美式英语。在我个人看来，英式英语的音调一般比较低沉，而且吐字干脆利落，但对介词或者别的虚词会发音很轻，甚至部分词的尾音也被轻轻一带而过；而美式发音则刚好相反，音调一般比较高扬，而且语调连绵不绝，听起来相当顺口流利。部分音标的英式发音和美式发音不同，因此我也可以根据这个标准来判断英式英语和美式英语。
然而发音的区别仅仅是英国文化和美国文化差异的最浅层面的表现。曾经美国英语和英国英语水火不容。英国人觉得，美国人讲话相当高调随便，而且经常言过其实，显得相当浮夸，这让他们感到无法接受。英国人讲话则是非常彬彬有礼的。他们一般都比较谦虚谨慎，发表观点时都显得比较保守，言谈之前显示出绅士的风度。举个例子，当我们和美国人聊天时，经常会听到他们说“Fantastic”(棒极了！)，哪怕只是一件小小的事情，他们也会这样说。然而英国人一般不会如此,他们只会微微点头，轻轻说一声“Good”。如果某一天你听到英国人说“Fantastic”，那说明他已经是相当相当的惊喜了！再举一个例子，struggle 是一个常用的词，有时我们会这样造句：John took part in the English speaking competition and it was not easy for him to struggle into the final round. 在这里struggle 形容John 一路上不停地“奋战”，最后才得以“杀入”决赛。这句话在很多美国人听来是很正常的，然而有一次我福田培训中心和一个英国老师这样说时，他却很惊讶地和我说：“Why do you use ‘struggle’?” 他后面和我解释时，这个词一般是用来形容生活或者命运相当艰辛，有种在垂死挣扎的情况下才用的，他们很少用这个词来表示“奋斗”。由此可见，英国人讲话是多么的实事求是以及保守。
另外从美剧中我们可以看出，美国人讲话往往不注重语法，他们力求精简，觉得只要把意思表达出来就行了。这样的趋势随着全球化的发展以及美国电影的普及愈演愈烈，让不少在国内英语学得相当厉害的人一到了美国不得不怀疑自己的英语水平究竟有多高。这我感同身受。经常在外面做完口译后和美国人吃饭聊天时，我经常对他们的一些句子感到莫名其妙，但当时的场合不好进一步提问，所以也就只能陪笑。而英国人则相反。英国人相当注重语法，觉得语法是保持语言洁净的最佳“侍卫”。曾经看过一个报导，说英国广播电台的主播压力很大，因为他们的句子一旦出现了语法毛病，就会有观众写信去评批纠正。然而到了现在，同样的由于美国经济全球霸主地位的确立以及美国电影的风靡，很多英国的年轻人和小孩也深受美语的影响，经常使用美式句式和语法结构，这让英国的父母以及老人们感到相当震惊与不满，觉得自己的文化被“荼毒”了。过去英国人曾一直认为自己的英语才是最正宗的，因此对美国英语会有鄙视情绪，这或者可以被称为文化鄙视。
在英语国家中，还有一个国家我们是不能忽视的，那就是澳大利亚。澳大利亚的英语可谓是美式英语和美式英语的结合体，但又不完全是。澳音的发音风格和英音相近，和美音相差甚远，但是澳式英语也不太讲究语法，有时几乎全盘抛弃语法，这一点又和美国相像。在发音上，澳大利亚的发音相比较于英音和美音而言，则是更难理解。这主要是因为他们有相当多单词的发音和我们学的完全不用，没有一定经验的人一开始往往对他们的一些句子感到相当迷惑。就连美国人和英国人，很多时候也会听不懂澳洲人的英语。
所以，有时我会想，我们正在学的英语是真正的英语吗？什么才是真正的英语？如果说真正的英语是各国都可以接受而且都可以听得读的语言，那么我们的英语其实只是一个小小的分支。
Study on Measures of Transportation Safety in Mountainous Areas
In recent years, with the implementation of our Western Development Strategy, economy in mountainous areas has been increasing all the time and people’s living standards has been greatly elevated. The need for transportation in these areas has been increasing and the road transportation has been flourishing. However, the road conditions in these areas has been slowly improved, and not sufficient transportation safety facilities have been established, which results in the growing transportation accidents and the deterioration of transportation safety. This article raises some precautions that can prevent accidents and further studies how to better achieve this goal based on the features and causes of these accidents.
1. Features of Road in Mountainous Areas, Mountainous Environment and Transportation Accidents. Though fewer accidents happen on roads in mountainous areas, the death rate is much higher than that on roads in plain areas and cities. Accroding to Chart one, the number of accidents in plain areas acounts for 75% of the total while in mountainous areas 9%. But in terms of the death toll, in mountainous areas there are average 24 deaths in 100 accidents while 17.5 in hilly regions and 12.3 in plain areas(half the number in mountainous areas). This indicates a severer consequence of the traffic accidents in mountainous areas, which are closely related to the road conditions and natural environment in those areas.
1.1 Features of Roads and Environment in Mountainous areas
Compared with roads in cities and plain regions, roads in mountainous areas have some potential drawbacks. Their features are as follows:
1) lower teachnology. Those roads were mostly built in mountains or cliffs and their paths are greatly changeable and have a lot of ups and downs, twists and turns. Some twists and turns are abrupt and followed by a stiff slope. Moreover, the road is very narrow and drivers generally cannot see clearly.
2) Complex hydrology and climates. Hydrology and climates have a huge impact on roads. Torrents and debris flows will bring great destruction to road facilities. In a high-altitude area, climate tends to be far more changeable. Sometimes it is sunny, but sometimes it is thundering, which may drastically lower the road adhesion coefficient and visibility. It will bring hazards to running cars or buses. In winter, a thick fog, a big rain and a big snow can last for a long time, which may cause snow and ice frozen on road and affects skid resistance and visibility.
3) Imperfect safety facilities. Most of the traffic marks are shown on pillars. The quatity and diversity are very small. Most of the marks have been destroyed and are not clear at all. In some particularly dangerous areas there are even no traffic marks and reliable protections facilities. Some bridges and fences are too simple, only being able to remind passers-by and drivers of the danger. All the marks established are in a mass and not formal without considering the whole layout.
1.2 Features of accidents in Mountainous Areas
Features of accidents in mountainous areas are mainly as follows: ① The possibility of great accident is very high. Though the number of accidents in mountainous areas is relatively small, its hazard is far higher. The great accident that involves a great casualty may often happen to passenger vehicles. ②Accidents often occur in places with complex landscapes, such as some stiffly twisting roads, some crossings or bridges. ③ The death toll is high. At least 90% of the accidents happened in the form of face-to-face collision, rear-end collision, overturn or fall into cliff or abyss. ④ Many drivers violate traffic rules such as overtaking, overloading and reverse driving, etc.
2. Factors Influencing the Safety of Traffic in Mountainous Areas
2.1 Human Factors
Human beings are the controller and beneficiaries of road transportation. They are actually a mobile factor. Most of the accidents were caused by human beings. From chart 2 we can see that the death tolls caused by human beings accounts for 88.98%. Among these, about 78.56% were casued by drivers of motor vehicles. Therefore, drivers of motor vehicles are the key in traffic accidents. So our study mainly focuses on these drivers.
No matter motor vehicle drivers, non-motor vehicle drivers, pedestrians, the reasons behind their causes of accidents are basically similar, because they all react according to the outside information in the course of traffic activities. It may lead to a behavioral deviation and then a traffic accident as long as any of the three links( perception, judgement and reaction)goes wrong. American Indian University drew conclusion from 2258 accidents that about 48.1% of the accidents resulted from dull reaction, 36.0% from wrong judgement, 7.9% from wrong operation, 0.9% from doze, and 7.1% from other factors.
2.2 Vehicle Factors
Accidents caused by vehicle problems account for a great proportion. On the one hand, if the vehicle is not safe itself, it will cause accidents due to its defects. One the other hand, if the structure and function of the vehicle are not perfect, it will easily lead to accidents due to the driver’s mis-operation. At least 20% of the accidents are related to the condition of vehicles. The landscapes in mountainous areas are complex, which calls for a higher standards ofvehicles. But the backward economic conditions set barriers for the improvement of technology. A lot of outdated and unqualified vehicles flood into mountainous areas and bring about more potential dangers, such as overloading, defective brakes and so on. Moreover, due to a large number of passengers on the bus, once accident occurs, it will probably cause a great casualty.
2.3 Road conditions and Environmental Factors
A huge amount of accidents indicate that road conditions have a great impact on traffic safety.The irregular shape of the road can cause traffic accidents. For example, if a curved road has a very small diameter and a lot of twists and turns, or the slope is too steep and too long, or the traffic signs are too small and unclear, it will influence the traffic safety negatively.
The roadside environment will also has some influence on the safety. It includes natural environment and social environment. Natural environment has some impacts on vehicles by affecting drivers’ vision, skid resistance and drivers’ attention. In terms of social environment, some locals may dry their farm products on the road ,which will bring about sliding accidents.
3. strategies on Traffic Safety
3.1 Strengthen safety awareness
In recent years, mountainous areas’ economy has developed a lot and many locals go out more frequently. But people do not have a good awareness of traffic safety, which in some way triggers the accident. Therefore, it is necessary to promote education and publicity of traffic safety. In terms of publicity, we need to make full use of magazines, broadcast, movies and television and meantime go hand in hand with education organizations to implement safety education. We should also intensify educational degree and scope. The content should be easy-understanding and accepted by local people. Then they will learn to abide by the traffic rules and regulations.
3.2 Constantly Perfect the Transportation System
Among all the severe accidents in mountainous areas, a large proportion of them were dealing with illegal vehicles such as scrapped vehicles or some lorries that carry passengers illegally. It also reflects the inconvenient travel for some people residing in mountainous areas. As there are few passengers in those areas, and the distance is too long, the cost of normal vehicles for some transportation companies is very high and the profit is very low. Therefore, some companies are forced to withdraw from the market. People have to use motorbikes, farm-used vehicles, lorries, even tractors instead of waking on foot. Taking non-passenger vehicles is of low cost and they can carry a large quantity of goods. So people prefer to choose them, which will burry some potential dangers. In order to change this situation radically, the central and local goverments should subsidize normal transportation companies and reduce their taxes so as to lower their operational costs and draw more companies extend their business into mountainous areas. For one thing, it can guarantee the normal profits of the transportation companies and prevent them from retreating from the market. For another, it can give more advantages in price and safety to normal passenger vehicles than illegal vehicles, which can render them lose their market totally and eradicate all potential dangers.
3.3 Implement Accountability System
Our country has benefited a lot from accountability system established in engineering construction. It raises people’s awareness of safety responsibility and secures the quality of the infrastructure construction. In western mountainous areas, the traffic accidents with great casualty are hazardous and have a great negative impact on society. Hence, for such kind of accidents, we need to adopt accountability system. If the main reason lies in the the driver, he should be responsible. If the main reason lies in vehicles, the manufacturer or the repairing shops or even the examining shops should be responsible. If the main reason lies in the the road, then its designer or regulators should be responsible; If the main reason lies in the misdeeds of the administration, the administrative staff should be responsible.
3.4 Establish and Perfect Emergency System
In order to strengthen traffic safety in mountainous areas, we should not only take some measures to prevent accidents, but also take some measures to minimize the loss after accidents. There are three intensive periods in which death may occur. The first period lies in the moment of the collision, accounting for about 5% of the total loss; the second period lies in one or two hours after the the accident, accounting for about 15% of the loss. In countries with advanced rescueing conditions, the death toll will account for about 35%. The third period lies in the 30 days after the victims are sent to hospital. In countries with advanced motorization, about 15% of the deaths occur in this time. It is hard to lower the death toll with medical methods in the first period of time, but effetive to lower that of the second and third periods. To practice immediate rescue in the accident venue is an effective measure to lower the death toll. Germany’s and Japan’s emergency systems are more perfect, thanks to which Japan’s death toll rate fell from 14.2% in 1950 to 1.1% in 1995 while Germany’s death toll rate fell from 3.61% in 1970 to 1.696% in 1997.
3.5 Establish an Database
A database of accidents is helpful to the safety regulation of transportation in mountainous areas. It should include detailed road and environmental information, such as the roadside environment, traffic saturation, skid resistance and so on. The data base had better accumulate some quantified information like diameters, slope degree and so forth. It should contain specific description about the event. On top of that, it should also have a detailed record on the accidents’ causes, situation, the vehicle’s type, death toll, etc. Through studying the information in the database, we can master the mechanism of the accidents, which contributes to a higher safety regulation level in mountainous areas and reducing the possibility of traffic accidents.
4. Conclusion
It is our central government and communist party’s great strategy of developing and promoting economy of western areas to implement road building and tackle the traffic problems in these regions. Accidents are caused mainly by the disorder of human, vehicle , road and environment. Landscapes in western areas are very complex and have an inferior traffic condition, so the possibility of accidents is pretty high. Therefore, we need to intensify the study on traffic accidents in those areas. I hope this article can provide some pertinent reference to building a sound and safe road safety system for mountainous areas.
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