剑桥雅思4 test 1-test 4 阅读文章和翻译

Tropical Rainforests

Adults and children are frequently confronted with statements about the alarming rate of loss of tropical rainforests. For example, one graphic illustration to which children might readily relate is the estimate that rainforests are being destroyed at a rate equivalent to one thousand football fields every forty minutes - about the duration of a normal classroom period. In the face of the frequent and often vivid media coverage, it is likely that children will have formed ideas about rainforests - what and where they are, why they are important, what endangers them - independent of any formal tuition. It is also possible that some of these ideas will be mistaken.

Many studies have shown that children harbour misconceptions about ?pure' curriculum science. These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted, but organised, conceptual framework, making it and the component ideas, some of which are erroneous，more robust but also accessible to modification. These ideas may be developed by children absorbing ideas through the popular media. Sometimes this information may be erroneous. It seems schools may not be providing an opportunity for children to re-express their ideas and so have them tested and refined by teachers and their peers.

Despite the extensive coverage in the popular media of the destruction of rainforests, little formal information is available about children‘s ideas in this area. The aim of the present study is to start to provide such information, to help teachers design their educational strategies to build upon correct ideas and to displace misconceptions and to plan programmes in environmental studies in their schools.The study surveys children‘s scientific knowledge and attitudes to rainforests. Secondary school children were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open-form questions. The most frequent responses to the first question were descriptions which are self-evident from the term \Some children described them as damp, wet or hot. The second question concerned the geographical location of rainforests. The commonest responses were continents or countries：Africa (given by 43% of children), South America (30%), Brazil (25%). Some children also gave more general locations, such as being near the Equator.

Responses to question three concerned the importance of rainforests. The dominant idea, raised by 64% of the pupils, was that rainforests provide animals with habitats. Fewer students responded chat rainforests provide plant habitats, and even fewer mentioned the indigenous populations of rainforests. More girls (70%) than boys (60%) raised die idea of rainforest as animal habitats.Similarly, but at a lower level, more girls (13%) than boys (5%) said that rainforests provided human habitats. These observations are generally consistent with our previous studies of pupils‘ views about the use and conservation of rainforests, in which girls were shown to be more sympathetic to animals and expressed views which seem to place an intrinsic value on non-human animal life.

The fourth question concerned the causes of the destruction of rainforests. Perhaps encouragingly, more than half of the pupils (59%) identified chat it is human activities

which are destroying rainforests, some personalising the responsibility by the use of terms such as \

One misconception, expressed by some 10% of the pupils, was chat acid rain is responsible for rainforest destruction； A similar proportion said chat pollution is destroying rainforests. Here, children are confusing rainforest destruction with damage to the forests of Western Europe by these factors. While two fifths of the students provided the information that the rainforests provide oxygen, in some cases this response also embraced. The misconception that rainforest destruction would reduce atmospheric oxygen, making the atmosphere incompatible with human life on Earth.

In answer to the final question about the importance of rainforest conservation, the majority of children simply said that we need rainforests to survive. Only a few of the pupils (6%) mentioned that rainforest destruction may contribute to global warming. This is surprising considering the high level of media coverage on this issue. Some children expressed the idea that the conservation of rainforests is not important.The results of this study suggest that certain ideas predominate in the thinking of children about rainforests. Pupils‘ responses indicate some misconceptions in basic scientific knowledge of rain forests‘ ecosystems such as their ideas about rainforests as habitats for animals, plants and humans and the relationship between climatic change and destruction of rainforests.

Pupils did not volunteer ideas that suggested that they appreciated the complexity of causes of rainforest destruction. In other words, they gave no indication of an appreciation of either the range of ways in which rainforests are important or the complex social, economic and political factors which drive the activities which are destroying the rainforests. One encouragement is that the results of similar studies about other environmental issues suggest that older children seem to acquire the ability to appreciate, value and evaluate conflicting views. Environmental education offers an arena in which these skills can be developed, which is essential for these children as future decision-makers.

无论大人还是孩子都经常会遇到这样的报道，那就是热带雨林正在以惊人的速度消失。 打个比方，孩子们很容易就能理解这样一个图例，即平均每四十分钟，也就是一节课的时间内，世界上就会有相当于一千个足球场大小的热带雨林进到破坏。面对媒体频繁且生动的报道，也许不需要任何正规的教育，孩子们就能够形成一系列有关热带雨林的观点：比如说雨林是什么，位置在哪里，为什么如此重要，又是什么在威胁它们等等。当然，这些观点也很有可能是错的。

许多研究表明孩子们对于在学校里学到的科学知识心存误解。这些误解不是孤立存在的， 而是组成了一个尽管多层面却十分有条理的概念体系，这一点使得该体系本身及其所有的组成观点更加难以攻破，有些观点本身甚至就是错误的，但是也正是这样，它们反而更容易被改动。这些错误观点正是由于孩子们从大众煤体上吸收了信息而形成的。有时连这些信息本身都是错误的。学校似乎也没能够给们提供一个再度阐述自己观点的机会，因此老师及其他学生也不能帮助其检验及纠正这种错误观点。

尽管媒体对于热带雨林所遭受的破坏做了大量的报道，何是有关孩子相关观点的信息却少之又少。所以，目前这项研究的目的就是要给教师提供这样的信息来帮助他们设计自己的教学策略，以便帮助学生构筑正

确的观点，置换他们的错误概念，并在学校中展开环保研究项目。

该项研究调查了孩子有关热带雨林的科学知识以及态度。研究要求一些中学生填写一份包含了五个简答题的调查表。对于第一个问题.最常见的解答就来自―热带雨林‖这一名称 所附带的不言自明的含义。有些孩子把雨林描述成一个又潮又湿或闷热的地方。第二个问题是关于雨林的地理位置的，大多数答案都提到了国名或洲名：百分之四十三的孩子写了非洲， 百分之三十写了美洲，还有百分之二十五的人认为热带雨林主要分布在巴西。有些孩子给出 了如―赤道附近‖这样更为宽泛的答案。

第三道题目问及了热带雨林的重要性。百分之六十四的学生认为雨林为动物提供了栖身之所。较少的学生回答说雨林是植物的生长地。更少的学生提到了雨林中的土著居民。其中， 有百分之七十的女孩子认为雨林是动物的家，而男孩子中只有百分之六十的人执此观点。

相似的是，有百分之十三的女生认为热带雨林为人类提供了居所，而男生中有此想法的人只占百分之五。这些观点与先前就学生对热带雨林的开发及保护状况所做的研究的结果基本一致，该结果表项女生更容易表现出对小动物的同情，其观点也更容易将内在价值观基于动物而非人类生命上。

第四个问题问到了热带雨林遭到破坏的原因。值得庆幸的是，过半的学生(百分之五十九) 都认为是人类的行为导致了这一破坏，有人甚至用―我们‖这样的字眼将问题与自身联系起来。大概有百分之十八的学生将这一破坏归咎干滥砍滥伐。

百分之十的学生错误地认为是酸雨导致了雨林的破坏，.还有百分之十的学生觉得污染才是罪魁祸首。看来学生们是将热带雨林所受的破坏与上述因素对西欧森林的毁坏混为一谈了。 百分之四十的学生认为热带雨林为人们提供了氧气，在某种程度上，这样的答案也包含着一个误解，那就是认为热带雨林的消失会减少大气中氧气的含量，最终导致地球上的大气不再适合人类呼吸。

在被问及雨林保护的重要性时，大部分学生只是认为人类离开雨林就无法生存。只有寥寥百分之六的人提到热带雨林的消失会导致全球变暖。鉴于媒体对这个问题长篇累牍的报道， 这样的结果真是有点出人意料。还有些学生认为保不保护雨林根本无关紧要。

研究结果表明，在学生们对雨林的观点中，某些观点明显占上风。在有些问题上，比如说热带雨林是植物、动物及人类的栖息地以及天气变化与雨林破坏之间的关系等，学生们的回答又表明了他们在一些基本科学知识上的误区。

学生们给出的答案并不能够表明他们了解热带雨林所遭受破坏的原因的复杂性。换言之，没有任何迹象表明他们了解热带雨林对人类来讲到底如何重要以及那些破坏行为背后所潜藏 的复杂社会、经济及政治因素。然而，值得欣慰的是，其他类似环保研究的结果表明，大孩子们已经具备了鉴赏、理解以及评价矛盾观点的能力。而环保教育正是为这些能力的养成提供舞台，这一点对于孩子们成为未来的政策制定者是至关重要的。

What Do Whales Feel

Some of the senses that we and other terrestrial mammals take for granted are either reduced or absent in cetaceans or fail to function well in water. For example, it appears from their brain structure that toothed species are unable to smell. Baleen species, on the other hand, appear to have some related brain structures but it is not known whether these are functional. It has been speculated that, as the blowholes evolved and migrated

to the top of the head, the neural pathways serving sense of smell may have been nearly all sacrificed. Similarly, although at least some cetaceans have taste buds, the nerves serving these have degenerated or are rudimentary.

The sense of touch has sometimes been described as weak too, but this view is probably mistaken. Trainers of captive dolphins and small whales often remark on their animals‘ responsiveness to being touched or rubbed, and both captive and free ranging cetacean individuals of all species (particularly adults and calves, or members of the same subgroup) appear to make frequent contact. This contact may help to maintain order within a group, and stroking or touching are part of the courtship ritual in most species. The area around the blowhole is also particularly sensitive and captive animals often object strongly to being touched there.

The sense of vision is developed to different degrees in different species. Baleen species studied at close quarters underwater –specifically a grey whale calf in captivity for a year, and free-ranging right whales and humpback whales studied and filmed off Argentina and Hawaii – have obviously tracked objects with vision underwater, and they can apparently see moderately well both in water and in air. However, the position of the eyes so restricts the field of vision in baleen whales that they probably do not have stereoscopic vision.

On the other hand, the position of the eyes in most dolphins and porpoises suggests that they have stereoscopic vision forward and downward. Eye position in freshwater dolphins, which often swim on their side or upside down while feeding, suggests that what vision they have is stereoscopic forward and upward. By comparison, the bottlenose dolphin has extremely keen vision in water. Judging from the way it watches and tracks airborne flying fish, it can apparently see fairly well through the air–water interface as well. And although preliminary experimental evidence suggests that their in-air vision is poor, the accuracy with which dolphins leap high to take small fish out of a trainer‘s hand provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

Such variation can no doubt be explained with reference to the habitats in which individual species have developed. For example, vision is obviously more useful to species inhabiting clear open waters than to those living in turbid rivers and flooded plains. The South American boutu and Chinese beiji, for instance, appear to have very limited vision, and the Indian susus are blind, their eyes reduced to slits that probably allow them to sense only the direction and intensity of light.

Although the senses of taste and smell appear to have deteriorated, and vision in water appears to be uncertain, such weaknesses are more than compensated for by cetaceans‘ well-developed acoustic sense. Most species are highly vocal, although they vary in the range of sounds they produce, and many forage for food using echolocation. Large baleen whales primarily use the lower frequencies and are often limited in their repertoire. Notable exceptions are the nearly song-like choruses of bowhead whales in summer and the complex, haunting utterances of the humpback whales. Toothed species in general

employ more of the frequency spectrum, and produce a wider variety of sounds, than baleen species (though the sperm whale apparently produces a monotonous series of high-energy clicks and little else). Some of the more complicated sounds are clearly communicative, although what role they may play in the social life and ?culture‘ of cetaceans has been more the subject of wild speculation than of solid science.

鲸鱼的感官

对我们人类以及其他的陆地哺乳动物来说，有些感官是与生俱来的，然而对于鲸鱼来讲， 这些功能要么已经衰退或彻底消失，要么就无法在水中正常发挥作用。比如说从齿鲸的大脑结构来看，它们是嗅不到气味的；而须鲸虽然有与嗅觉相关的脑部结构，可是我们却无法判断这些结构是否起作用。据推测，由于鲸鱼的气孔进化并最终移到了头部的正中所以掌管 嗅觉的神经纤维几乎全部不见了。同样，尽管有些鲸鱼也有味蕾，但这些味觉器官要么已经退化，要么就根本没有发育。

有人认为鲸鱼的触觉也不发达，不过这个观点很可能是错误的。训练人工饲养海豚和小鲸鱼的人常常会评论他们的小动物对于触碰和抚摩的敏感度。而无论是人工饲养还是放养， 几乎所有种类的鲸鱼个体之间都会进行频繁的接触，特别是在成年鲸鱼和幼鲸之间或同一亚群的成员之间。这种接触有助于维护同一种群内部的秩序，而且对大多数鲸鱼而言，抚摸和触碰也是求偶仪式的一部分。气孔周围的部分尤其敏感，一旦被触碰，人工饲养的鲸鱼就会有激烈的反应。

不同种类的鲸鱼，视觉发达程度也各不相同。通过研究一只被人工饲养了一年的小灰鲸，以及通过对阿根廷和夏威夷沿海所放养的露脊鲸和座头鲸的研究及拍摄，人们发现在封闭水 域中的须鲸显然可以利用视觉来追踪水下的物体，而且它们无论在水中或空气中视力都相当好。但是眼睛的位置如此严重地限制了须鲸的视野，以致于它们可能不具备立体视觉。

从另一方面来看，大多数海豚和江豚眼睛的位置表明它们是拥有向前及向下的立体视觉的。淡水海豚经常则游，或是在吃东西的时候肚皮朝上游泳，这就表明眼睛的位置使它们拥 有向前及向上的立体视觉。相反的是，宽吻海豚在水中视力就很敏锐，而从它观察及追踪空 中飞鱼的方式来看，它在水天交界面的视力也相当好。尽管之前的实验证据表明，海豚在露 天环境中可能是睁眼瞎，然而，它们能够从水中跃起很髙，并且能够准确地吃到训练员手中的小鱼，这就有趣地证明了上述观点是错误的。

当然，这些变异可以通过这些品种所生长的环境来解释。比如说，对于宽广清澈水域中的鲸鱼来说，视觉显然就有用的多；而对于那些住在混浊的河流或水淹的平原上的品种来说， 视力显然就没什么大用。比如，南美洲亚马逊河中的江豚以及中国的白鳍啄视力都相当有限， 而印度河中的江豚根本看不见东西，它们的眼睛已经退化成了两条窄缝，除了感知上下方向和光的强度几乎没什么作用。

尽管鲸鱼们的味觉和嗅觉严重衰退，在水中的视觉又不那么确定，然而这些缺陷完全可以被它们那高度发迖的听觉系统所弥补。尽管鲸鱼们音域不同，但是大多数鲸鱼都很会―唱 歌‖，而且还能用回声定位法来觅食。大个子须鲸只能用低频发声，除此之外就黔―鲸‖计穷 了。当然也有些著名的例外：比如夏天里北极露脊鲸歌曲般的合唱，还有座头鲸那复杂的。 令人难以忘怀的低语。与须鲸相比，齿鲸们可以更多地利用频谱，发出多种声音，当然，抹香鲸只会发出一系列单调激烈的喀哒声。有些复杂的声音显然具有交流作用，然而想要搞淸 楚它们在鲸鱼的社会生活及文化中到底起何作用，与其说是严谨科学研究的对象，不如说是丰富想象力的结果。

Visual Symbols and the Blind

Part 1

From a number of recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives to describe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations. This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle (Fig. 1). I was taken aback. Lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration. Indeed, as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, used virtually no motion lines in his popular figures until about 1877.

When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever rendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel‘s spokes as curved lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines – or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were apt ways of showing movement or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.

To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.

All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel‘s perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.

In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.

Part 2

We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well. One

blind woman drew a picture of a child inside a heart – choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surrounded the child. With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from China, I have begun exploring how well blind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly represent their meaning.

We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair the term that best related to a circle and the term that best related to a square. For example, we asked: What goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?

All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard. A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle, instead of sad. But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak to strong, respectively. And only 51% linked deep to circle and shallow to square. (See Fig. 2.) When we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closely resembled those made by the sighted subjects. One man, who had been blind since birth, scored extremely well. He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ?far‘ to square and ?near‘ to circle. In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects – 53% – had paired far and near to the opposite partners. Thus, we concluded that the blind interpret abstract shapes as sighted people do.

盲人与视觉符号

第一部分

最近的几次研究表明，盲人可以理解用轮廓线和透视法来描述物体排列及空间平面的方法。 但是，图画不只是表面意思的体现。在研究中，一名盲人女性自发地画出了一个转动的车轮， 这就引起了我对上述事实的极大关注。为了展示这样一个动作，她在圆圈中画了一条曲线（见 图1)。我大吃一惊。像她所使用的这种运动线是插图史上最近的发明。实际上，正如艺术学 者David Kunzle指出的那样，Wilhelm Busch,—名引领潮流的19世纪卡通画家，直到1877 年才开始在其最流行的人物身上使用运动线。

当我要其他接受研究的盲人对象画出转动中的车轮时，一种特别聪明的画法反复出现了：几个人把车条画成了曲线。当被问到为什么要用曲线的时候，他们都说这是喑示运动的一种带有隐喻意味的方法。多数原则会认为从某种角度来讲，这个图案充分地表示了运动。但是就此而言，曲线是不是比，比如说虚线，波浪线或者其他任何一种线条，更能说明问题呢？答 案是不确定的。所以我决定测试一下，不同的运动线是否就是表现运动的恰当方式，而或它们只是一些特殊的符号而已。进一步而言，我还想找出盲人和普通人在诠释运动线时的不同之处。

为了找出答案，我用凸起线条做出了五幅有关轮子的画，车条被画成大曲线，小曲线，波浪 线，虚线以及超出车轮的直线。然后，我让18名盲人志愿者抚摩这些轮子，并且将它们分别 与下列运动中的一个搭配：不稳定地转动1飞速转动，稳定地转动，颠簸和刹车。参照组则是由来自于多伦多大学的18名普通大学生组成的。

除了一个人，其他所有的盲人都将具体的动作与车轮搭配了起来。大多数人猜测被画成大曲 线的车条表示车轮正在稳定地转动；而他们认为波浪线车条表示车轮在不稳定地转动，小曲 线则被认为是车轮正在颠簸的象征。受试者推测，超出车轮边缘的车条代表车轮正处在刹车状态，而虚线车条则说明车轮正在飞快地旋转。

另外，在每种情况下，普通人喜爱的表达与盲人喜爱的基本一致。更有甚者，盲人之间的共识几乎与普通人的一样高。因为言人不熟悉运动装置，因此这个任务对他们而言相当困难。 然而，很明显，盲人不仅能够搞清楚每种运动线所代表的意义，而且作为一个团队，他们达 成共识的频率也不比普通人低。 第二部分

我们还发现盲人同样可以理解其他的视觉隐喻。有个盲人女性在心形中画了个小孩儿一一她 说选择心形是为了表示这个孩子周围充满了爱。于是，我和刘长虹，一名来自中国的博士生， 开始探索盲人对如心形这样含义不直白的图形的象征意义，到底理解到了何种程度。

我们给普通受试者一张有二十对词的单子，并且要求他们从每一对词当中挑一个最能代表圆 形的词以及一个最能代表方形的词。举个例子，我们会问：―哪个形状和柔软有关？圆形还是 方形？哪个形状表示坚硬？ ‖

所有的受试者都认为圆形代表柔软，方形代表坚硬。高达94%的人将快乐归给了圆形，而没有选悲伤。但是在其他词组上，不同意见就出现了： 79%的人分别认为圆是快的而方是慢的， 圆是弱的而方是强的。只有51%的人将深与圆形相连，将浅与方形相连(见图2)。当我们用同样的单子去测试四个完全失明的人时，他们的选择几乎与普通受试者的一模一样，有个先天失明的人做得极好。他的选择只有一个与众不同，那就是把―远‖与方形联系起来而把―近‖ 同圆形联系起来。实际上，也只有刚刚过半53%的普通受试者认为圆形代表远，而方形代表 近。因此，我们可以得出结论，盲人同普通人一样能够理解抽象的图形。 T2

Lost for words

In the Native American Navajo nation which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-age or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street sign, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations - that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. “At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world”, says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. “It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the lost is difficult to know.

Isolation breeds linguistic diversity as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 language have more than a million speaker, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers, but how old they

are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairblanks.

Why do people reject the language of their parent? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community find itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture’ he say. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old tradition.’

The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in school, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics Department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socioeconomic pressures’ he say. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English\But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

Language is also intimately bond up with culture, so it may be difficult to reserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something' Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world’ say Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in brain. ‘Your brain and mine are difference from the brain of someone, who speaks French, for instance’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children

have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produce about 8000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer 'apprentices' pair up with one of the last living speakers of Native American tongue to learn traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using every day. ‘Preserving a language is more likely preserving fruits in a jar’ he says.

However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by latter generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.无言以对

对于美洲土著纳瓦霍人（其居住在美国西南四州）而言，他们的土著语正遭受灭顶之灾。讲土著语的大都是中年或老年人。尽管很多学生仍然在学校中学习纳瓦霍语，但是学校的官方语言却是英语。路牌、超市商品、甚至他们自己的报纸都是使用英语的。不足为奇的是，语言学家已经开始猜测一百年后到底还会不会有讲纳瓦霍语的土著人存在。

并非只有纳瓦霍语才如此。全世界6800种语言当中，有一半很可能在两代人之后彻底消失，这相当于每十年就有一种语言消亡。世界语言多样性的萎缩速度从未如此之快。―当前，我们正进入一个由3-4种语言主导的世界‖，雷丁大学的生物进化学家M. P.这样说道，―这是一场大规模的消亡，而且我们人类是否能从中恢复过来还不得而知。‖

与外界的隔绝带来了语言的多样性，这导致世界上有很多语言只有很少数量的人会讲。使用者超过一百万的语言只有250种，而使用者不超过2500人的语言却至少有3000种。但不是语种小才导致其消失---纳瓦霍语拥有15万的使用者，但仍然被认为是濒危语种。导致语种濒临灭亡的不仅仅是其使用者的多少，还包括使用者的年龄。如果这种语言的使用者很年轻，那么该语言也相对安全。那些只有老年人才会讲的语言则已接近灭亡边缘。来自ANLC的M.K.给出了以上提法。

为什么会有人抛弃父辈的语言呢？这种情况始于自信的缺乏。来自BFEL的N.O.说，当一个小群体发现他们紧邻一个庞大的富有群体时，―小群体中的人们就会对自己的文化失去信心，当新一代人到了十几岁的时候，他们可能已经不想再接受老的传统。‖

这种变化并不总是自发的。政府经常通过在公共场所或学校内禁止使用这些语言来试图扼杀少数民族语言，这些做法都是为了提升国家的凝聚力。例如，美国早前的一项政策要求在印第安保留地学校以英语授课，这种做法最终导致纳瓦霍语濒临灭亡。但是S.M.（UC大学语言学系主任）提出，最致命的威胁并不是政府政策，而是经济全球化。―土著美国人并没失去对自己语言的自豪感，但是他们不得不强迫自己适应社会经济压力。如果大部分商业行为都使用英语，他们也就只能使用英语。―但是语言值得我们去挽救吗？至少，对于语言及其进化的研究而言，我们的数据变少了，因为这种研究依赖于语言间的对比，不论这种语言是否已经消亡。当一种没有文字或者没有录音的语言消失时，我们就永远无法再去研究它了。

ideas of reciprocity and the use of specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights everything up,’ he says. By allowing link-ups between brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other, play may enhance creativity.

【I】What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?玩耍是件严肃事

玩耍会帮助大脑发育的更大更完善吗？B.F.就此进行了研究。

A．玩耍是件严肃的事。孩子沉溺于假想的世界里、小狐狸整日嬉闹、小猫玩弄线球，这些都不只是为了取乐。在成年后的辛苦工作到来之前，玩耍看起来似乎是一种无忧无虑又丰富多彩的消磨时光的方法，但是事实远不止于此。首先，玩耍可能会让动物送命。幼年海狮的夭折有80%是因为它们在玩耍时忽略了捕猎者的靠近。玩耍是极度耗费体能的。顽皮的动物幼崽会把2-3%的体能消耗于跑跑跳跳，对于儿童而言，这个数字可能高达15%。―2-3%已经是很高的比例了‖，I大学的J.B.说，―你从来不会看到动物们用这种方法消耗能量‖。一定有原因促使他们这样做。

B．但是，如果玩耍不是像生物学家一度认为的那样仅仅是成长中的小插曲的话，玩耍为什么还会发展呢？最新的观点认为，玩耍的不断发展是为了促进大脑的生长。换言之，玩耍使人更聪明。贪玩似乎在哺乳动物中非常普遍，而且某些大脑比较大的鸟类也是如此。玩耍中的动物会用一些独特的行为（比如说，狗会摇尾巴）来表明这些看似成年动物行为的活动只是一种玩耍。一个比较流行的关于玩耍的解释是，它可以帮助幼年动物学会成年后捕猎、交配以及社交活动所需的技能。另一种解释是，玩耍提高了动物呼吸系统的耐力，这可以使幼年动物在体力上适应成年后的需要。这两种观点在近年来都受到了质疑。

C．比如锻炼理论。如果玩耍是用来增长肌肉或者作为某种耐力训练方式的话，那么这种效果应该是长久的。但是B指出，运动带来的好处在训练停止后很快就会消失，所以年少时的玩耍所带来的耐力上的提高不会保持到成年。―如果玩耍的功能只是为了锻炼身体的话‖，B说，―那么玩耍的最佳时机就要看对某种幼年动物而言，到底什么时候锻炼身体好处最大。但事实并非如此。‖对于任何动物而言，玩耍都会在哺乳期达到顶峰，而后逐渐下滑。

D．还有一个观点是训练技能假说。乍一看来，玩耍的动物确实好像在练习那些它们在成年后需要的复杂的技能。但是仔细考虑一下，不难发现这种解释过于简化。在一项研究中，行为生态学家T.C.（来自加利福尼亚大学）观察了幼猫捕猎般的玩耍行为以及成年猫的捕猎行为。他发现，幼猫的玩耍对其成年后的捕猎过程没有什么重要的影响。

E．今年年初，加拿大L.大学的S.P.发表论文说，从总体上看，哺乳动物的玩耍和大脑的尺寸有着明确的正比关系。他和他的团队在对比了十五种哺乳动物的数据后发现，动物玩耍的越多，其大脑就越大（相对一定的身体尺寸而言），反之亦然。D大学的R.B.认为，因为相对于比较小的大脑而言，比较大的大脑对于发育的刺激更加敏感，所以动物们需要用玩耍来帮助大脑发育到成年期。―我的结论是，玩耍与学习以及发育过程中环境资料的重要性有关。‖

F．B.说，动物幼崽玩耍阶段到来的时机清晰表明了一些要素。如果我们用图表观察在整个发育过程中动物幼崽每天用于玩耍的时间，不难发现一种与―敏感期‖有关的模式，这是一个短暂的发育窗口期，在这期间，大脑会受到某种方式的影响，而这种影响在动物生命中的其他时间是不可能发生的。例如，小孩子（不是婴儿，也不是成人）学习语言时，的确表现的相对容易些。其他研究人员发现，猫、田鼠和家鼠的玩耍行为也恰好是在这个―机会窗口期‖达到峰值时显得最密集。

G．―人们对于玩耍给大脑带来的刺激，还注意的不够‖，C大学的M.B.说。他在研究了玩耍中的小土狼后发现，其中包含的行为类型要比成年土狼的更加多变和不可预期。他推断，这样的行为可以刺激大脑的不同部位。B把这种玩耍比作行为的万花筒，玩耍中的动物在各种活动之间快速的跳跃着。―它们会做出各种环境下所需的动作，如捕猎，进攻，繁殖等，使得其成长中的大脑得到各种刺激。‖

H．大脑与玩耍之间的关系比我们想象的更加紧密，除此之外，玩耍似乎也激活了更高层次的认知过程。―在玩耍中有很多涉及认知方面的内容‖，B.说。他指出，玩耍经常牵扯到对于玩伴的复杂评价、互惠性的考虑，还要使用专门的信号和规则。他认为，玩耍创造出的大脑有着更好的行为灵活性，以及未来生活中更高的学习潜能。这一观点得到了G学院S.S.论文的支持。S.S.对各种玩耍如何影响大脑的某种化学物质的分泌水平进行了研究，这种化学物质与神经细胞的刺激和生长有关。玩耍把某些正常情况下无法相互关联的大脑区域联系起来，从而提高了创造力。

I．关于当今社会中抚养孩子的方法，进一步的实验会为我们带来什么建议呢？我们已经知道，没有机会玩耍的小白鼠，大脑结构发育的也比较小，而且在与其他小白鼠接触时无法应用某些社会规则。随着入学年龄的提前以及应试教育越来越严重，玩耍可能会变得更加令人不屑一顾。谁知道这样做会带来怎样的结果呢？ T3

Micro-enterprise credit for street youth

Introduction

Although small-scale business training and credit programs have become more common throughout the world in the 1990s, relatively little attention has been paid to the need to direct such opportunities to young people. Even less attention has been paid to youth living on the street or in difficult circumstances. This was vividly demonstrated at the Micro-Credit Summit held in Washington in February last year. Much was said about the importance of extending small loans to poor women as a way of addressing world poverty, and incredible success stories were shared. However, the plenary statements, the conference documentation, and the declarations the delegates were asked to sign mentioned nothing about directing such programs to youth.

Yet, in many developing countries, youth under the age of 18 represent at least half of the

population. Significant numbers of this age group do not live in the context of a typical family structure. Many do not have access to the formal structures of education which would provide them with the credentials for achieving a better future. The reality for the majority of these youth is that they have to earn money to support themselves, and often to support their families.

Over the past nine years, Street Kids International (SKI) has been working with partner organizations in Africa, Latin America and India to support the economic lives of street youth. The approaches have taken different forms: from apprenticeships to collectives to the promotion of individual businesses. There have also been various levels of success. The purpose of this paper is not to promote the adoption of any particular model, but to share some of the lessons SKI and our partners have learned. We view this is as a work in progress: we hope to contribute to a continuing dialogue amongst those interested in facilitating opportunities for street youth to meet their economic needs in healthy and sustainable ways.

Background

The \problems which are becoming better recognized and understood. Typically, children do not end up on the streets due to a single cause, but to a combination of factors: a dearth of adequately funded schools, the demand for income at home, the AIDS pandemic, family breakdown and violence. The street may be attractive to children as a place to find adventurous play and money. However, it is also a place where children are exposed, with little or no protection, to exploitive employment, drugs, urban crime, abuse, and unsafe sexual activity.

Children who work on the streets are generally involved in unskilled, labour intensive and low-capital tasks which require long hours, such as shining shoes, carrying goods, guarding or washing cars, and informal trading. Some may also earn income through begging, theft, sex work or drug trafficking.

At the same time, there are street youth who take pride in supporting themselves and their families and who often enjoy their work. Many children may choose entrepreneurship because it allows them a degree of independence, is less exploitive than many forms of paid employment, and is flexible enough to allow them to participate in other activities such as education and domestic tasks.

In the absence of a structured learning environment at school or significant involvement

with their families at home, children learn life and business skills on the street. The street is both a positive and a negative socializing environment. In public places, work can quickly foster independence as youth become adept at asserting and defending

themselves. In public places, work can also intersect with play and social interaction. Thus, there are opportunities for fun and a sense of belonging, as well as opportunities to organize into groups and to engage in collective activities. In many countries, particularly in Central America, groups of working children have successfully mobilized to defend their rights and interests.

However, there are common frustrations that street and working youth encounter across continents. They are concerned about the low social value that is generally placed on adolescents and youth. They tire of their self-respect being diminished through criticisms of their way of life and their values. They are resentful about the lack of opportunities for training which would allow entry into the labour force. They also feel that they face additional risks because they are young, including harassment by police, and a greater chance of having their money and assets stolen by strangers and by family members.

Street Business Partnerships

In the context of these conditions, common wherever urban poverty exists, SKI is convinced that services for street children must: ? respect the choices of the children; ? help them to reject exploitation and abuse;

? provide them with appropriate opportunities for learning; and ? recognize their economic lives.

SKI has worked with partner organizations in Latin America, Africa and India to develop innovative opportunities for street youth to earn income. Several of these joint initiatives, called 'Street Business Partnerships', have specifically involved credit:

? The SKI bicycle courier service first started in the Sudan. Participants in this enterprise were required to gradually pay for their bicycles from their wages. A similar program was taken up in Bangalore, India, in conjunction with the Ragpickers' Education & Development Scheme (REDS);

? the shoe shine collective was a partnership program with the YWCA of Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Participants in this small business collective were provided with loans to purchase shoe-shine boxes, coffee thermoses and candy display trays. They were also given a safe place to store their equipment, sources to purchase materials and supplies at discount rates, and facilities for individual savings plans;

? the youth skills enterprise initiative in Zambia is a joint program with the Zambia Red

Cross Society and the YWCA of Zambia. Street youth are supported to start their own small businesses through business training, life skills training and access to credit. The young entrepreneurs also receive ongoing technical support from the program staff; ? a candy wholesale business is currently being developed by MANTHOC in Peru. This program will train street youth in a variety of business, management and life skills. Loans will be available for purchasing products to sell.

Profile of children involved in SKI micro-business programs

Although there are variations among the partner agencies, in general these programs are directed towards marginalized youth, female and male, who:

? are between the ages of 12 and 18;

? are socially and/or economically disadvantaged;

? are currently out-of-school or are in the process of leaving or abandoning school altogether;

? lack access to economic resources and to pre-vocational training; and ? live in sub-standard or unsafe living conditions.

Conclusion

There is a need to recognize the importance of access to credit for impoverished young people seeking to fulfill economic needs. The provision of small loans to support the entrepreneurial dreams and ambitions of youth can be an effective means to help them change their lives. However, we believe that credit must be extended in association with other types of support that help participants develop critical life skills as well as productive businesses.街头儿童的小型企业贷款

引言

尽管小规模的商业培训和贷款项目已经在全世界越来越普及，但是年轻人在如何迎接机遇的问题上是需要指导的，在这方面我们给予的关注还较少。而对于露宿街头或者境遇困难的孩子而言，我们给予的关注就更少了。

在过去的九年中，S.K.I.与非洲、拉美和印度的合作组织携手为流浪儿童的经济生活提供支持。本文的目的是想分享一下S.K.I.以及我们的合作组织所获得的一些经验教训。 背景

通常，儿童露宿街头不会只出于一种原因，而是多种因素联合作用的结果：比如学校资金不足、家庭需要收入、家庭破裂或者暴力因素。街头对孩子们产生吸引的原因可能是，在街头他们可以找到一些刺激的游戏和赚钱机会。然而，街头的孩子们也暴露于剥削性强的工作、城市犯罪以及虐待之下，而且很少或者根本无法受到保护。

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