Being a good parent is harder now that it has ever been before. In pressurized modern lives, demands to be a fulfilled individua

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问题     Being a good parent is harder now that it has ever been before. In pressurized modern lives, demands to be a fulfilled individual, and a good partner and a good worker, take no account of being a good parent. (46)We haven’t left space for the nurturing parents to care for their children and provide the kind of care that their children need, resulting in the fact that many families in the western world just don’t work.
    Most of us have a bit of yearning for a table full of children descending neatly in size, the older ones helping the younger ones. Let’s control our nostalgia: that" traditional family" had many faults, not least in the roles it imposed on females. (47)The problem is that in the last generation or so we’ve come to assume that women should be able and want to do everything that both men and women have done by tradition. And it’s just not possible. Indeed since adopting a male agenda in life is probably only another form of the traditional ethics that men are superior to women, quite a number of highly educated and economically privileged women are now opting to take career breaks so as to be at home with their children for longer than the 18 weeks.
    Having children—especially the first child—puts a bigger strain on a couple’s relationship than anything else they ever do. (48)Facing the ever-enormous stress caused by the kids, some who stay together emerge stronger and richer, but numerous couples never recover from the strain. Parents are often divided at many aspects of child nurturing, such as early education and habit forming. (49)So a future of smaller families and more people choosing not to have children at all could well leave couples closer than they are today; for many, the purpose of being together would be solely to pleasure and support each other—an interesting prospect. Let’s hope people in the future will only have children if they really want them. And that should mean something that is seen as a much more positive commitment than it is now, and that parents are socially supported, and admired for doing a good job.
    (50)The whole point of marriage is that it imposes clear obligations, not just the right to pursue your own happiness, the main part of which is to provide both emotional and practical nurture for children. Children demand sacrifice and altruism, a long-term investment of parental time and money. Of course, the highest reward that parents expect is to see their children develop and become useful talents for the society.

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答案父母根本无暇顾及小孩,不能给予孩子所需的照料;因此,西方国家的很多家庭根本就不像家庭。

解析 此题目结构比较复杂,不仅主句较长,而且还有一个结构较复杂的结果状语从句。首先看第一句话中we,space,the nurturing parents的翻译。从上下文看,代词we在这里并不实指"我们",而名词 space也不实指"空间",不能直译为"我们没有给父母空间去…"。从语义看,we和space都是虚指,we指代整个社会环境,space指代时间或精力,即在现代生活压力增大(中社会环境中),父母没有时间或精力照顾小孩。另外,nurturing parents不能照字面直译为"抚养孩子的父母",译为"父母"即可。因此,第一句话可以省去多余的信息,直接义译为"父母根本无暇顾及小孩…"。结果状语从句resulting in the fact that...中动词短语don’t work也不能直译为"不起作用/不工作"。这个动词短语的意思是"许多家庭根本不正常运转",我们依照其语义,译为"许多家庭根本就不像家庭"。考查点:根据上下文理解代词和名词所指;代词和名词的虚指的判断和翻译;英语句子中多余信息的处理方法。
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