雅思12 The Benefits of Being Bilingual 译文词句B段

The Benefits of Being Bilingual

B段

Research shows that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active at the same time.

研究表明，当操双语的人说一种语言的时候，另外一种语言也同时被激活。

When we hear a word, we don't hear the entire word all at once: the sounds arrive in sequential order.

听词的时候不可能一次听到全部音节，发声有先后。

Long before the word is finished, the brain's language system begins to guess what that word might be.

听完一个词语的全部音节之前，语言系统就开始推测这个词有可能是哪个。

If you hear “can” you will likely activate words like ‘candy’ and ‘candle’ as well, at least during the earlier stages of word recognition.

如果听到“can”，在听完后面的音节之前，至少“candy”，“candle”之类的单词会浮现。

For bilingual people, this activation is not limited to a single language; auditory input activates corresponding words regardless of the language to which they belong.

对双语者而言，这种唤醒机制不受语言限制，随机输入的信息能唤起不同语言里的词。

Some of the most compelling evidence for this phenomenon, called ‘language co-activation’，comes from studying eye movements.

眼睛语言同现反应的研究，是此结论最有力的证据。

A Russian-English bilingual asked to ‘pick up a marker’ from a set of objects would look more at a stamp than someone who doesn’t know Russian, because the Russian word for 'stamp1, marka, sounds like the English word he or she heard, ‘marker’.

让一个操俄英双语的人从一堆物品中挑出书签，他瞅邮票的时间会比不会俄语的人花的时间长，因为俄语里的单词邮票是“marka”，与他听到的英语单词maker很像。

In cases like this，language co-activation occurs because what the listener hears could map onto words in either language.

这个例证里，由于听到的词能标示出任何一种语言里的单词，所以一个单词激活了两张语言。