2025年考研英语一阅读 Text 1 原文翻译及答案解析

The grammar school boy from Stratford-upon-Avon has landed a scholarly punch after ground-breaking research showed that Shakespeare does benefit children's literacy and emotional development. But only if you act him out.

来自埃文河畔斯特拉特福的文法学校男孩在开创性研究证明莎士比亚确实有益于儿童读写能力和情感发展后，打出了学术重拳。但前提是你必须将他表演出来。

A study found that a “rehearsal room” approach to teaching Shakespeare broadened children's vocabulary and the complexity of their writing as well as their emotional literacy. “The research shows that the way actors work makes a big difference to the way children use language and also how they think about themselves,” Jacqui O'Hanlon of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), which commissioned the study, said.

研究发现，一种“排练室”式的莎士比亚教学法拓宽了儿童的词汇量、提高了他们写作的复杂性以及情感素养。“研究表明，演员的工作方式对儿童使用语言的方式以及他们如何思考自己产生了重大影响，”委托进行该研究的皇家莎士比亚剧团（RSC）的杰基·奥汉隆说。

The randomised control trial involved hundreds of year 5 pupils—aged nine and ten—at 45 state primary schools that had not been “previously exposed to RSC pedagogy”. They were split into target and control groups and asked to write, for example, a message in a bottle as Ferdinand after the shipwreck in The Tempest. The target group was given a 30-minute drama-based activity to accompany the passage.

这项随机对照试验涉及45所公立小学的数百名五年级学生（年龄九至十岁），这些学校此前从未接触过RSC的教学法。他们被分为目标组和对照组，并被要求例如在《暴风雨》中船只失事后以费迪南德的身份写一封漂流瓶信。目标组则通过30分钟的戏剧活动来配合这段文字。

The peer-reviewed results showed that the target group of pupils drew on a wider vocabulary, used words “classed as more sophisticated or rarer”, and wrote at greater length. They also “appear to be more comfortable writing in role...while [control] group imagine how they themselves would react to being shipwrecked, [target] group put themselves in the shoes of a literary character and express that character's emotion”.

同行评审结果显示，目标组学生使用了更广泛的词汇，使用了“被归类为更复杂或更罕见”的词汇，并且写作篇幅更长。他们“似乎在角色写作中更自如……而[对照组]想象自己遇到海难时的反应，[目标组]则设身处地地站在一个文学人物的角度，表达该人物的情感”。

The Time to Act study also found that while control pupils relied on “desert island clichés” such as palm trees, target pupils were “more expansive [giving] a broader picture of the sky, the sea and the atmospheric conditions”.

“及时行动”研究还发现，虽然对照组学生依赖“荒岛陈词滥调”，如棕榈树，但目标组学生“更富有想象力，描绘了更广阔的天空、海洋和大气条件”。

O'Hanlon said she had been most surprised by the “emotional literacy that was evident in the [target] children's writing” and that they were “more resilient in their writing, more hopeful”. She added: “The emotional understanding was very evident and it is probably related to the [rehearsal room process] where you are used to trying to imagine your way through. They were comfortable in describing different emotional states and part of what you do in drama is put yourself in different shoes.” The study showed the importance of embedding the arts in education, she said.

奥汉隆说，她最惊讶的是“[目标组]儿童写作中表现出的情感素养”，以及他们“在写作中更有韧性、更充满希望”。她补充道：“情感理解非常明显，这可能与[排练室过程]有关，在那里你习惯于尝试想象和体会。他们能够自如地描述不同的情感状态，而戏剧的一部分就是设身处地。”她说，这项研究显示了将艺术融入教育的重要性。

But could the results be replicated with any old dramatist? O'Hanlon said more research would be needed but suggested that Shakespeare's use of 20,000 words, compared with the everyday 2,000 words, gave a “massive expansion of language into children's lives”, which was combined with children “using their whole bodies to bring words to life”.

但这些结果能否在其他任何剧作家身上重现？奥汉隆表示需要更多研究，但指出莎士比亚使用了20,000个词汇，而日常用语只有2,000个词汇，这为“儿童的生活带来了语言的大规模扩展”，再加上儿童“用整个身体让词语活起来”。