《经济学人》双语：敏感词汇如何替换?

原文标题：
Johnson
By any other name
When stigma is the problem, using different words for things may not always help
约翰逊专栏
其他名称
用不同的词来代替贬义词有时也不起作用

New terms can take on the pejorative undertones of the ones they replace
新词取代原词后依然带有贬义

[Paragraph 1]
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) style book’s Twitter feed is not often a source of hilarity.
美联社的推特简讯通常不走搞笑路线。

But the wire service recently tweeted: “We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanising ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated.”
但它最近在推特上发文：“我们建议避免给人贴上普遍性的、没人性的标签，如穷人、脑残、法国佬、残疾人、受过大学教育的人。”

After the tweet went viral, the AP deleted it and apologised for dehumanising “the French”.
随后这条推特被疯传，美联社将其删除，并为“法国佬”一词道歉。

[Paragraph 2]
Despite the mockery, the AP advice has solid reasoning behind it: that of “people-centred” language.
尽管有人嘲笑，美联社的建议言之有理：体现语言要“以人为本”。

English (like many other languages) allows the use of an adjective as a noun: the good, the bad, the ugly.
英语（和许多其他语言一样）允许用形容词作为名词：好人、坏人、丑人。

But in contrast to some other languages, it is increasingly considered essentialising to refer to “the poor” or “the disabled”, as though they are nothing else. This especially applies to characteristics that might be considered unfortunate.
但与某些语言相比，越来越多的人认为提到“穷人”或“残疾人”是必不可少的，就是客观的词。这尤其适用于描述那些不幸人的特征。

The AP did not apologise to “the college-educated” as it did to the French, but it did not need to; nobody really minds being lumped in either group.
美联社没有为“受过大学教育的人”一词道歉，但它也不必为“法国佬”一词道歉；没有人会真正介意。

The issue is essentialising combined with stigma.
这是一个兼具本质属性和污名化贬义的问题。

[Paragraph 3]
Some people are also troubled by bare group nouns such as “blacks”, “gays” and “Jews”, though these too seem to be on the decline.
尽管“黑人”、“同性恋”和“犹太人”等这些简单群体名词的使用频率在下降，但一些人还是受其困扰。

Fortunately, it is not hard to add another word without clunking up your prose—either “people” or, even better, something descriptive as in “black veterans”, “gay activists” or “Jewish voters”.
幸运的是，再加一个词不会使你的文章生涩难懂--要么加一个词“人”，或者加一个更好的词，如“黑人老兵”、“同性恋活动人士”、“犹太选民”。

These make these phrases a bit more three-dimensional, like the people they point to.
这个方法使这些词更立体，就像他们所特指的人一样。

[Paragraph 4]
These are far from the only ideas flowing into journalists’ inboxes today.
如今记者们有更多的替代方法。

Suggestions abound: replace “slaves” with “enslaved people”; “minorities” with “minoritised people” or “racialised people”; “addicts” with “drug users” or “people with a substance-abuse problem”; “obese people” with “people with obesity”; “convicts” or “inmates” with “those who are incarcerated”. And so on.
例子数不胜数：用“被奴役的人”代替“奴隶”；用“少数民族人民”或“种族人民”代替“少数派”；用“吸毒者”或“药物滥用者”代替“瘾君子”；用“肥胖者”代替“肥子”；用“被监禁者”代替“罪犯”或“囚犯”等等。

[Paragraph 5]
In each instance, the target is a term that is, or can be seen as, pejorative. The alternative is meant to be less so.
每个例子都带有贬义，或者可能被视为贬义词。找个替代词也没那么容易。

But those who encourage these lexical replacements face several problems.
但是鼓励词汇替换会面临着几个问题。

[Paragraph 6]
One is that though a case can be made for each individual change, adopting every one will quickly make a piece of writing lumbering, since every new option is longer than the one it is supposed to replace.
问题之一是，尽管人们可以改单个词，但每个词都改会使写作变得很慢，因为想一个新词要比使用原词的时间长。

It will also make prose seem more unnatural, since the entire point is to replace words in common use with phrases that are not.
用不常用的词代替常用词，这也会让文章不自然。

Good journalism is ideally conversational and accessible, calling for a brisk and compelling style.
好的新闻写法是口语化的、通俗易懂的、干净利索的、扣人心弦的。

[Paragraph 7]
Changing the world is hard; changing the language is a lot easier, which is why linguistic engineering can tempt people who may feel they have no other tools at hand apart from their keyboards.
改变世界很难；改变语言要容易得多，这就是为什么“语言工程”可以吸引“键盘侠”（指那些除了键盘之外，不用其他工具就能改变世界的人）的原因。

But it does not seem to work out as hoped. Replacing a stigmatised word often merely results in the stigma attaching to the new word.
但效果不及预期。替换一个贬义词通常也会使新词含有贬义。

“Retarded” was once a polite way of saying “feeble-minded”; it was in long-standing clinical use before becoming a playground insult and, ultimately, deeply offensive.
“反应迟钝”曾经是“弱智”的一种礼貌说法；它曾长期用于临床医学，后来带有侮辱的意味，最终变成一种深深的冒犯。

“Special needs” came next, but now “special” is a mean-spirited taunt too.
另一个例子是“特殊需求”，但现在的“特殊”也变成一个嘲讽“心胸狭窄”的词。

[Paragraph 8]
In the same vein “handicapped” was a kinder replacement for “crippled”, and “homeless” for “vagrant”. Now “handicapped” is out and “disabled” is in (or, better yet, “person with a disability”). “Unhoused” is gaining ground over “homeless”.
同样，“残疾人”是“瘸子”的替代词，“无家可归者”是“乞丐”的替代词。现在，“残疾人”也被“残障人士”替代了（或者，更好的说法是“残疾人士”）。“无家可归者”也正在被“无房者”替代。

This “euphemism treadmill” has been observed since at least the 1970s. Nevertheless, people still hope to remake the world through language.
语言学家至少在20世纪70年代就观察到了“委婉语轮转”现象。尽管如此，人们仍然希望通过用语言来重塑世界。

[Paragraph 9]
Some groups have taken another tack, and reclaimed older terms.
一些小组采取了另一种策略，重新启用旧术语。

“African-American” had a 30-year heyday, but now “black” is back, and even given a capital B by many.
“非裔美国人”一词用了30年，但现在“黑人”一词又回来了，许多人甚至在写“黑人Black”时，大写了字母B。

Though “hearing-impaired” is still in medical parlance, many “Deaf” people proudly refer to themselves as such, also with a capital D.
尽管“听障”仍然是医学术语，但许多“聋子”都自豪地称自己为“聋子Deaf”，并且大写了字母D。

Other activists have decided there is nothing wrong with being “fat”, and have wholeheartedly embraced the term.
其他活动人士认为“胖”没有什么问题，于是全身心地接受这个词。

As with reclaiming slurs, the idea seems to be that showing pride is likely to be more effective than swapping words.
重新启用贬义词与这种心理一致，即表达自豪感可能比换词更有效。

[Paragraph 10]
As for writers, good work should humanise whatever it is about, which is why stories often begin with a named person before going into causation and abstraction.
对于作家来说，好的作品应该是人性化的，这就是为什么在进入因果关系和抽象概念之前，故事都是从有名有姓的人开始写起。

If such writing is sharply as well as humanely done, it will be compelling to readers, and may even be of benefit to its subjects.
如果这样的作品一针见血又很人性化，它将会吸引读者，甚至可能对深化主题有帮助。

To that end, the language of everyday conversation is likely to be at least as useful as the latest terminology recommended by activists.
为达到这个目的，常用词至少与活动人士推荐的最新词一样有用。

People-centred writing is indeed a good thing—but there is more than one way of putting people at its heart.
“以人为本”的写作方式确实是一件好事，但”以人为本“的方法不止一种。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量759左右）
原文出自：2023年2月18日《The Economist》Culture版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
美国联合通讯社（简称美联社，英文：The Associated Press，缩写AP）是美国最大的通讯社，1846年在芝加哥成立，1893年成为联营公司，1990年将总部迁到纽约。合作伙伴有1700多家报纸，5000多家电视和广播电台；全球有243家新闻分社，在120个国家设有办事处。合众国际社是美国第二大通讯社，1958年由前合众社和国际新闻社合并组成，总部设在佛罗里达州。国外有80多个分社，拥有一个世界范围的图片网。

“委婉语轮转”（Euphemism Treadmill），是社会语言学上专门的术语，指的是人们会倾向于用一种字面上相对委婉、没有那么直接的形式来表示一个贬义的词义，然而字面上的修饰并不能真正代表词义上发生改变，很多时候就是一种掩饰罢了，该贬义的还是贬义。只是很多时候这会带来一种心理安慰，觉得既然形式上没有那么直接，那也就但说无妨了。

例如，如果你年纪够大，你可能会注意到某些指代被情绪化的主体（如少数族裔、残障人士等）的词汇曾经只是普普通通的词，甚至被认为是科学或礼貌的，现在却成为了侮辱中伤的用法，并不得不被新的委婉语取代。因为人们对少数族裔和残障人士的负面态度也会被附加在新的委婉语上，每个新词和旧词的命运如出一辙，委婉语的变迁就和车轮一样不停转动。新词并不能改变人们的态度，即使我们每隔一两代人就替换一轮词汇，态度总是不变的。

【重点句子】（3 个）
These make these phrases a bit more three-dimensional, like the people they point to.
这个方法使这些词更立体，就像他们所特指的人一样。

Good journalism is ideally conversational and accessible, calling for a brisk and compelling style.
好的新闻写法是口语化的、通俗易懂的、干净利索的、扣人心弦的。

This “euphemism treadmill” has been observed since at least the 1970s. Nevertheless, people still hope to remake the world through language.
语言学家至少在20世纪70年代就观察到了“委婉语轮转”现象。尽管如此，人们仍然希望通过语言来重塑世界。