2015年考研英语二阅读 Text 3 原文翻译及答案解析

Even in traditional offices, “the lingua franca of corporate America has gotten much more emotional and much more right-brained than it was 20 years ago,” said Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn. She started spinning off examples. “If you and I parachuted back to Fortune 500 companies in 1990, we would see much less frequent use of terms like journey, mission, passion. There were goals, there were strategies, there were objectives, but we didn't talk about energy; we didn't talk about passion.”

即使在传统办公室，“美国企业界的通用语言已经比20年前变得更加情感化和更偏向右脑思维，”哈佛商学院教授南希·科恩说。她开始列举例子。“如果你和我空降到1990年的财富500强公司，我们会看到像旅程、使命、激情这样的术语使用频率要低得多。那时候有目标、有战略、有目的，但我们不谈论能量；我们不谈论激情。”

Koehn pointed out that this new era of corporate vocabulary is very “team”-oriented – and not by coincidence. “Let's not forget sports – in male-dominated corporate America, it's still a big deal. It's not explicitly conscious; it's the idea that I'm a coach, and you're my team, and we're in this together. There are lots and lots of CEOs in very different companies, but most think of themselves as coaches and this is their team and they want to win.”

科恩指出，这个企业词汇的新时代非常“团队”导向——这并非巧合。“别忘了体育——在男性主导的美国企业界，它仍然是个大问题。这不是显意识的；而是这样一种理念：我是教练，你是我的团队，我们是一起的。有很多来自不同公司的CEO，但大多数人认为自己是教练，这是他们的团队，他们想要赢。”

These terms are also intended to infuse work with meaning – and, as Rakesh Khurana, another professor, points out, increase allegiance to the firm. “You have the importation of terminology that historically used to be associated with non-profit organizations and religious organizations: terms like vision, values, passion, and purpose,” said Khurana.

这些术语也旨在为工作注入意义——而且，正如另一位教授拉凯什·库拉纳指出的，增加对公司的忠诚度。“有这样一个术语的引入，这些术语历史上与非营利组织和宗教组织相关：如愿景、价值观、激情和目的，”库拉纳说。

This new focus on personal fulfillment can help keep employees motivated amid increasingly loud debates over work-life balance. The “mommy wars” of the 1990s are still going on today, prompting arguments about why women still can't have it all and books like Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, whose title has become a buzzword in its own right. Terms like unplug, offline, life-hack, bandwidth, and capacity are all about setting boundaries between the office and the home. But if your work is your “passion,” you'll be more likely to devote yourself to it, even if that means going home for dinner and then working long after the kids are in bed.

这种对个人满足的新关注可以帮助在日益激烈的工作与生活平衡辩论中保持员工动力。1990年代的“妈咪战争”今天仍在继续，引发了关于为何女性仍不能拥有一切的争论，以及像谢丽尔·桑德伯格的《向前一步》这样的书，其书名本身已成为一个流行词。像断开连接、离线、生活黑客、带宽和容量这样的术语都是关于在办公室和家庭之间设定界限。但如果你的工作是你的“激情”，你更可能投入其中，即使这意味着回家吃晚饭，然后在孩子们上床后长时间工作。

But this seems to be the irony of office speak: Everyone makes fun of it, but managers love it, companies depend on it, and regular people willingly absorb it. As a linguist once said, “You can get people to think it's nonsense at the same time that you buy into it.” In a workplace that's fundamentally indifferent to your life and its meaning, office speak can help you figure out how you relate to your work – and how your work defines who you are.

但这似乎是办公室用语的讽刺之处：每个人都取笑它，但经理们喜欢它，公司依赖它，普通人也心甘情愿地接受它。正如一位语言学家曾经说过的：“你可以让人们认为它是胡言乱语，同时你自己却深信不疑。”在一个对你的生活及其意义根本不关心的工作场所，办公室用语可以帮助你弄清楚你与工作的关系——以及你的工作如何定义你是谁。