2020年09月六级第1套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) Brains, brains, brains. People are fascinated by brain research. And yet it can be hard to point to places where our education system is really making use of the latest neuroscience (神经科学) findings. But there is one happy link where research is meeting practice: bilingual (双语的) education. "In the last 20 years or so, there's been a virtual explosion of research on bilingualism," says Judith Kroll, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

大脑，大脑，大脑。人们对大脑研究很着迷。然而，很难指出我们的教育系统在哪些地方真正利用了最新的神经科学发现。但有一个令人欣喜的联系，那就是研究正在与实践结合：双语教育。“在过去20年左右的时间里，关于双语的研究几乎出现了爆炸性增长，”加州大学河滨分校的教授Judith Kroll说。

B) Again and again, researchers have found, "bilingualism is an experience that shapes our brain for life," in the words of Gigi Luk, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. At the same time, one of the hottest trends in public schooling is what's often called dual-language or two-way immersion programs.

研究人员一再发现，“双语是一种塑造我们大脑终生的经历，”用哈佛大学教育研究生院的副教授Gigi Luk的话来说。与此同时，公立学校中最热门的趋势之一是通常所说的双语或双向沉浸式项目。

C) Traditional programs for English-language learners, or ELLs, focus on assimilating students into English as quickly as possible. Dual-language classrooms, by contrast, provide instruction across subjects to both English natives and English learners, in both English and a target language. The goal is functional bilingualism and biliteracy for all students by middle school. New York City, North Carolina, Delaware, Utah, Oregon and Washington state are among the places expanding dual language classrooms.

针对英语学习者（或ELLs）的传统项目侧重于让学生尽快融入英语。相比之下，双语课堂为英语母语者和英语学习者提供跨学科的教学，使用英语和一种目标语言。目标是到中学时所有学生都能实现功能性双语和双文能力。纽约市、北卡罗来纳州、特拉华州、犹他州、俄勒冈州和华盛顿州等地正在扩大双语课堂。

D) The trend flies in the face of some of the culture wars of two decades ago, when advocates insisted on "English first" education. Most famously, California passed Proposition 227 in 1998. It was intended to sharply reduce the amount of time that English-language learners spent in bilingual settings. Proposition 58, passed by California voters on November 8, largely reversed that decision, paving the way for a huge expansion of bilingual education in the state that has the largest population of English-language learners.

这一趋势与二十年前的一些文化战争背道而驰，当时倡导者坚持“英语优先”教育。最著名的是，加利福尼亚州在1998年通过了227号提案。该提案旨在大幅减少英语学习者在双语环境中花费的时间。11月8日加利福尼亚州选民通过的58号提案在很大程度上推翻了这一决定，为该州拥有最大英语学习者人口的双语教育的巨大扩张铺平了道路。

E) Some of the insistence on English-first was founded on research produced decades ago, in which bilingual students underperformed monolingual (单语的) English speakers and had lower IQ scores. Today's scholars, like Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, say that research was "deeply flawed." "Earlier research looked at socially disadvantaged groups," agrees Antonella Sorace at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "This has been completely contradicted by recent research" that compares groups more similar to each other.

一些坚持英语优先的观点基于几十年前的研究，该研究显示双语学生表现不如单语英语使用者，并且智商分数较低。今天的学者，如多伦多约克大学的Ellen Bialystok，说这项研究“存在严重缺陷”。“早期研究关注社会弱势群体，”苏格兰爱丁堡大学的Antonella Sorace同意道。“这已被最近的研究完全反驳”，这些研究比较了更相似的群体。

F) So what does recent research say about the potential benefits of bilingual education? It turns out that, in many ways, the real trick to speaking two languages consists in managing not to speak one of those languages at a given moment — which is fundamentally a feat of paying attention. Saying "Goodbye" to mom and then "Guten tag" to your teacher, or managing to ask for a crayola roja instead of a red crayon (蜡笔), requires skills called "inhibition" and "task switching." These skills are a subset of an ability called executive function.

那么，最近的研究对双语教育的潜在益处说了什么？事实证明，在许多方面，说两种语言的真正诀窍在于在特定时刻管理不说其中一种语言——这本质上是一种注意力的壮举。对妈妈说“再见”，然后对老师说“Guten tag”，或者设法要一支crayola roja而不是一支红色蜡笔，需要称为“抑制”和“任务切换”的技能。这些技能是称为执行功能的一种能力的子集。

G) People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function. "Bilinguals can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in the ability to switch from one task to another," says Sorace.

会说两种语言的人在执行功能的总体测量上通常优于单语者。“双语者能够集中注意力而不分心，并且也提高了从一个任务切换到另一个任务的能力，”Sorace说。

H) Do these same advantages benefit a child who begins learning a second language in kindergarten instead of as a baby? We don't yet know. Patterns of language learning and language use are complex. But Gigi Luk at Harvard cites at least one brain-imaging study on adolescents that shows similar changes in brain structure when compared with those who are bilingual from birth, even when they didn't begin practicing a second language in earnest before late childhood.

这些同样的优势是否惠及那些在幼儿园而不是婴儿时期开始学习第二语言的儿童？我们还不知道。语言学习和语言使用的模式很复杂。但哈佛大学的Gigi Luk引用了至少一项对青少年的脑成像研究，该研究显示，与那些从出生起就是双语者相比，大脑结构有类似的变化，即使他们在童年晚期之前没有认真开始练习第二语言。

I) Young children being raised bilingual have to follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting. As a result, says Sorace, bilingual children as young as age 3 have demonstrated a head start on tests of perspective-taking and theory of mind-both of which are fundamental social and emotional skills.

被抚养为双语的幼儿必须遵循社交线索来确定与哪个人在什么场合使用哪种语言。因此，Sorace说，年仅3岁的双语儿童在观点采择和心智理论测试中表现出领先，这两者都是基本的社交和情感技能。

J) About 10 percent of students in the Portland, Oregon public schools are assigned by lottery to dual language classrooms that offer instruction in Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin, alongside English. Jennifer Steele at American University conducted a four-year, randomized trial and found that these dual-language students outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full school-year's worth of learning by the end of middle school. Because the effects are found in reading, not in math or science where there were few differences, Steele suggests that learning two languages makes students more aware of how language works in general.

在俄勒冈州波特兰市的公立学校中，大约10%的学生通过抽签被分配到提供西班牙语、日语或普通话教学以及英语的双语课堂。美利坚大学的Jennifer Steele进行了一项为期四年的随机试验，发现这些双语学生在中学结束时，在英语阅读技能上比同龄人领先整整一个学年的学习量。由于效果出现在阅读方面，而在数学或科学方面差异不大，Steele认为学习两种语言使学生更了解语言的一般运作方式。

K) The research of Gigi Luk at Harvard offers a slightly different explanation. She has recently done a small study looking at a group of 100 fourth-graders in Massachusetts who had similar reading scores on a standard test, but very different language experiences. Some were foreign-language dominant and others were English natives. Here's what's interesting. The students who were dominant in a foreign language weren't yet comfortably bilingual; they were just starting to learn English. Therefore, by definition, they had a much weaker English vocabulary than the native speakers. Yet they were just as good at interpreting a text. "This is very surprising," Luk says. "You would expect the reading comprehension performance to mirror the vocabulary--it's a cornerstone of comprehension."

哈佛大学Gigi Luk的研究提供了一个略有不同的解释。她最近进行了一项小型研究，观察了马萨诸塞州100名四年级学生，他们在标准测试中的阅读分数相似，但语言经历非常不同。一些是外语主导，另一些是英语母语者。有趣的是，那些以一门外语为主导的学生还不太舒适地使用双语；他们刚开始学习英语。因此，从定义上讲，他们的英语词汇量远弱于母语使用者。然而，他们在解释文本方面同样出色。“这非常令人惊讶，”Luk说。“你可能会期望阅读理解表现与词汇量一致——它是理解的基石。

L) How did the foreign-language dominant speakers manage this feat? Well, Luk found, they also scored higher on tests of executive functioning. So, even though they didn't have huge mental dictionaries to draw on, they may have been great puzzle-solvers, taking into account higher-level concepts such as whether a single sentence made sense within an overall story line. They got the same results as the monolinguals, by a different path.

外语主导的说话者如何实现这一壮举？嗯，Luk发现，他们在执行功能测试中也得分更高。所以，即使他们没有庞大的心理词典可供利用，他们可能是优秀的解题者，考虑到更高层次的概念，比如一个句子在整个故事情节中是否有意义。他们通过不同的路径得到了与单语者相同的结果。

M) American public school classrooms as a whole are becoming more segregated by race and class. Dual-language programs can be an exception. Because they are composed of native English speakers deliberately placed together with recent immigrants, they tend to be more ethnically and economically balanced. And there is some evidence that this helps kids of all backgrounds gain comfort with diversity and different cultures.

美国公立学校课堂整体上正变得更加按种族和阶级隔离。双语项目可能是一个例外。因为它们由英语母语者与最近移民有意组合在一起，所以往往在民族和经济上更加平衡。并且有证据表明，这有助于所有背景的孩子对多样性和不同文化感到舒适。

N) Several of the researchers also pointed out that, in bilingual education, non-English-dominant students and their families tend to feel that their home language is heard and valued, compared with a classroom where the home language is left at the door in favor of English. This can improve students' sense of belonging and increase parents' involvement in their children's education, including behaviors like reading to children. "Many parents fear their language is an obstacle, a problem, and if they abandon it their child will integrate better," says Antonella Sorace of the University of Edinburgh. "We tell them they're not doing their child a favor by giving up their language."

几位研究人员还指出，在双语教育中，非英语主导的学生及其家庭往往感到他们的母语被倾听和重视，相比之下，在课堂上母语被留在门外以英语为主。这可以提高学生的归属感，并增加父母参与孩子教育的程度，包括为孩子阅读等行为。“许多父母担心他们的语言是一种障碍，一个问题，如果他们放弃它，他们的孩子会更好地融入，”爱丁堡大学的Antonella Sorace说。“我们告诉他们，放弃语言并不是在帮孩子忙。

O) One theme that was striking in speaking to all these researchers was just how strongly they advocated for dual-language classrooms. Thomas and Collier have advised many school systems on how to expand their dual-language programs, and Sorace runs "Bilingualism Matters," an international network of researchers who promote bilingual education projects. This type of advocacy among scientists is unusual; even more so because the "bilingual advantage hypothesis" is being challenged once again.

在与所有这些研究人员交谈时，一个突出的主题是他们如此强烈地倡导双语课堂。Thomas和Collier在许多学校系统就如何扩大双语项目提供建议，Sorace运营着“Bilingualism Matters”，这是一个促进双语教育项目的国际研究人员网络。科学家中的这种倡导是不寻常的；更不寻常的是因为“双语优势假说”再次受到挑战。

P) A review of studies published last year found that cognitive advantages failed to appear in 83 percent of published studies, though in a separate analysis, the sum of effects was still significantly positive. One potential explanation offered by the researchers is that advantages that are measurable in the very young and very old tend to fade when testing young adults at the peak of their cognitive powers. And, they countered that no negative effects of bilingual education have been found. So, even if the advantages are small, they are still worth it. Not to mention one obvious, outstanding fact: "Bilingual children can speak two languages!"

去年发表的一项研究综述发现，在已发表的研究中，有83%的研究未能显示出认知优势，尽管在一项单独的分析中，效果总和仍然显著为正。研究人员提出的一个潜在解释是，在非常年幼和年老的人群中可测量的优势，在测试认知能力处于巅峰的年轻人时往往会消失。并且，他们反驳说，没有发现双语教育的负面效应。所以，即使优势很小，它们仍然值得。更不用说一个明显、突出的事实：“双语儿童会说两种语言！”