词汇大师(Wordmaster)--'The Language Police,' Part 1

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": May 1, 2003

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER we discuss a new book: "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn."

RS: The author is Diane Ravitch, a historian of education and a professor at New York University. She was appointed assistant secretary of education for research in 1991 when George W. Bush's father was president. Then Bill Clinton appointed her to an agency that supervises national testing.

AA: Through her work, Diane Ravitch learned that publishers develop what are known as "bias¹ and sensitivity guidelines.鈥?Her position is that publishers use these guidelines to censor² and sanitize tests and textbooks.

RAVITCH: "I had trouble obtaining many of those that I eventually obtained. And I ended up with something like, oh, 32 single-spaced pages of words that you're not supposed to use. So, for example, you're not supposed to use the word 'cult³' or 'fanatic⁴' or 'extremist' or 'dogma.' These are all considered ethnocentric words. You're not supposed to use the expression 'The Founding Fathers.' This is considered a sexist statement. Any word that has the word 'man' or the three letters M-A-N, whether it's 'manpower' or 'businessman,' these are banned words. Two of the publishers say that you mustn't say 'the elderly,' so you replace that with 'older persons.'"

AA: "I read from your book that 'slave' is no longer an acceptable word."

RAVITCH: "Right, the word 'slave' is supposed to be replaced by the expression 'enslaved person.' And I had a discussion the other day with an African American talk show host, and we agreed that this is what you would call a distinction without a difference, because neither of these is a voluntary condition. No one chooses to be a slave, just as no one chooses to be an enslaved person, and it's really a linguistic⁵ nonsense issue, as far as I'm concerned."

AA: "I've heard it said that conservatives get upset about ideas and liberals get upset about words."

RAVITCH: "That's exactly the divide that I found, that conservatives were eager to ban certain topics. For instance, the mention of divorce or the separation of family. They also objected to stories about disobedient children or they objected to stories about crime that goes unpunished, whereas liberals were concerned about any words that reflected on women as being in let's say a wifely role or appearing as a nurse or a secretary or a teacher or in a role that they just didn't want women portrayed⁶ in. The irony⁷ is all of this to me is that language does change, language does evolve, and many of the terms that are in this glossary⁸ of banned words have disappeared just through the natural evolution of language.

"Our language, the English language and particularly American English, is very dynamic in the sense that words enter our language that are new, they come about through technological⁹ change and social change, and then other words, older words simply disappear."

RS: "If a student of English as a foreign language were to read a history or a literature textbook written for an American audience, what kind of impression would he or she come out with?"

RAVITCH: "If they were reading a textbook that was prepared for high school, it would be extremely, I don't know, mixed up in terms of genre¹⁰. There would be items about science, about global warming, about social studies, and at a certain point you would not get any sense of what is the American literary tradition. You would not know who are considered the greatest American writers because there would be no distinction made between, let's say, an essay written by a 16-year-old somewhere, a piece of a television script from a recent TV program, some sort of encyclopedia-type article, and then maybe some classics mixed in."

RS: "Is this because we can't sell textbooks or we can't make tests that can be approved by a committee?"

RAVITCH: "This whole situation has come about because we have this practice across the country of statewide textbook adoptions¹¹. So if a publisher wants to sell textbooks in today's marketplace, they must attempt to sell in California and Texas, which are the two biggest states, they have the largest number of students, and so the worst thing for a textbook publisher is controversy¹². And so they remove whatever might be offensive to people who might have strong views, either on the right or on the left. The result of this situation is that there has been enormous concentration in the textbook industry. We now have four huge corporations that dominate about eighty percent of the textbook market."

AA: Historian Diane Ravitch. Her latest book is "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn." And that's Wordmaster for this week.

RS: Our e-mail address is [email protected] and our programs are on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

2 censor   

n./vt.审查，审查员；删改

参考例句：

• The film has not been viewed by the censor.这部影片还未经审查人员审查。
• The play was banned by the censor.该剧本被查禁了。

3 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

4 fanatic   

n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的

参考例句：

• Alexander is a football fanatic.亚历山大是个足球迷。
• I am not a religious fanatic but I am a Christian.我不是宗教狂热分子，但我是基督徒。

5 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

6 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

8 glossary   

n.注释词表；术语汇编

参考例句：

• The text is supplemented by an adequate glossary.正文附有一个详细的词汇表。
• For convenience,we have also provided a glossary in an appendix.为了方便，我们在附录中也提供了术语表。

9 technological   

adj.技术的；工艺的

参考例句：

• A successful company must keep up with the pace of technological change.一家成功的公司必须得跟上技术变革的步伐。
• Today,the pace of life is increasing with technological advancements.当今， 随着科技进步，生活节奏不断增快。

10 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

11 adoptions   

n.采用，收养( adoption的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Adoption agencies are always so open to alternative family adoptions. 领养中介机构永远都对领养家庭敞开。 来自电影对白
• The number of adoptions has grown in the past year. 去年，收养子女的数字增加了。 来自互联网

12 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。