研究生英语阅读教程(基础级2版)课文01及其翻译(11)

研究生英语阅读教程(基础级2版)课文及翻译

14. Ndebele: a language sometimes considered a dialect of Zulu.

15. Setswana: a dialect spoken by the Tswana people in Botswana

16. lingua franca: a language used between people whose main languages are different

17. yin and yang: two basic contrary forces in ancient Chinese thought "阴" 和"阳".

READING SELECTION B

Jumble of Conflicting Language Taboos

By Timothy Kiefer

[1] The northwestern U.S. state of Washington made headlines in the early 2002 when it passed a law prohibiting the use of the word "Oriental' in official contexts. Instead, the word "Asian" must be employed. The new law only bans the use of the word "Oriental" when the reference is to human beings. Therefore, one law which defines "minority group" to include "Orientals" will be changed to refer to "Asians", but another law which refers to "Oriental medicine" will be left unchanged. According to the law's sponsor, Korean-American state senator Paul Shin, the law was passed because the term "Oriental" is "pejorative terminology" and "offensive".

[2] "Oriental" derives from the Latin word orient, meaning "the rising sun" or "east". Because Asia is east of Europe, "Oriental" took on the meaning of "Asian". "The Orient", the "Far East" and "East Asia" are all noun phrases referring to the eastern section of the Asian continent. Ironically, the eastern part of Russia is usually excluded from the definitions of the Orient and East Asia, even though Russia extends farther to the east than any other country on the Eurasian landmass.

[3] According to Mr. Shin and other critics of the word Oriental, the word is offensive to Asians because it implies a Europe-centered view of the world. From the Pacific coast of the United States, where the state of Washington is located, the so-called "Orient" is to the west, not the east.

[4] The problem with this argument is that many commonly accepted geographic terms derive from outdated worldviews of this sort. My home state of Wisconsin is part of a region known as the "Middle West" or the "Midwest", yet I live in the eastern half of the United States. The term was invented because the United States was settled from east to west. For the settlers starting out from the Atlantic coast in the late 18th and early 19th century, everything west of the Appalachian Mountains was considered "the west".

[5] Not long ago the "Near East" was the accepted name for the area stretching from Egypt to Iran among Europeans and Americans; in recent decades it has been ousted by the "Middle East". Like "Far East" or "Orient", either term makes sense only if one takes Europe as the point of reference.

[6] And other languages are no better than English in this regard (aspect). The Arab world divides itself into the Maghrib (the West) and the Mashriq (the East) with the Sinai Peninsula as the border. Ironically, the division of the ancient world into Asia and Europe was probably borrowed by the Greeks from the Phoenicians, the ancestors of today's Lebanese; indeed, Europe and the Arabic Maghrib may well be derived from the same Semitic root, referring to the setting of the sun. And what can we say about a civilization like China, which unabashedly proclaims itself the "central country"?

[7] Perhaps it is too much to expect precision in such language issues. Whether or not there are good grounds (reasons) for considering "Oriental" offensive, over the past few decades the term has gradually fallen out of favor as a word to describe the people of Asia or Americans of Asian

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