In 1966 Allen and Beatrice Gardner, two psychologists at the University of Nevada in Reno, had a bright idea. They were interested in the evolution of language and the linguistic capabilities of great apes. Previous attempts to teach chimpanzees to talk had ended in failure and the matter was considered by most people to be closed. But the Gardners realised that speech and language are not the same thing. Many deaf people, for example, are unable to speak but are perfectly able to communicate by gestures that have all the attributes and sophistication of spoken language. Given the very different anatomies of the human and chimpanzee larynx, the Gardners suspected that previous experiments had failed because chimps are physically incapable of speech.

   They therefore decided to try teaching a chimpanzee to sign in the way that deaf people do. And their chosen subject, a female chimp named Washoe after the county in which the university campus is located, proved an adept pupil. Though there is still debate about whether what Washoe learned was really equivalent to human language, there is no doubt that she learned a lot of words. She now has a vocabulary of about 200. All of this, however, raises a second question. If Washoe and her successors can learn a complex and arbitrary vocabulary of gestures from people, do they have such vocabularies naturally? To examine that possibility Amy Pollick and Frans de Waal, of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, have looked at gestures and expressions in chimpanzees and their cousins, bonobos.

   Signalling by facial and vocal expression is ubiquitous among primates. Signalling by gesture is confined to the great apes. The researchers' hypothesis was that the meaning of expressions has been hard-wired by evolution whereas the meaning of gestures is learnt and, at least to some extent, is arbitrary. If that were true, particular sorts of facial and vocal expression would occur only in particular contexts, and that this would be consistent across groups and even species. The same gestures, by contrast, would be used in different contexts.

   The researchers found exactly what they expected. Expressions (“silent bared teeth”, “relaxed open mouth”, “pant hoot” and so on) almost always occurred in the same contexts in different groups and different species. Gestures (“hard touch”, “reach outside”, “slap ground” etc) did not. Half of the gestures Dr Pollick and Dr de Waal regularly observed seemed to have completely different meanings in the two species. Moreover, even within a single group, the meaning of a gesture could vary with context, almost as tone of voice can vary the meaning of a human's spoken word.

   It is also worth remembering that gesture is still a crucial part of human language, even for those with normal hearing. The old joke that the way to render an Italian speechless is to tie his hands together has a kernel of truth in it. Evolution does not come up with complicated structures in a single leap. They are built up step by step. This study suggests that the step of speech may have been built on mental attributes that were acquired millions of years ago when the ancestors of apes and men began to wave meaningfully at each other.

   注（1）：本文選自Economist, 03/03/2007

   注（2）：本文習(xí)題命題模仿對象為2002年真題Text 4。

   1． From the first paragraph, we learn that _______.

    [A] chimpanzees have no sense of language at all.

    [B] the Gardners found a new idea to develop the chimpanzee experiment.

    [C] previous experiments failed because they didn’t have clever cimpanzees.

    [D] chimpanzees can use gestures like blind people

   2． Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?

    [A] Washoes failed to use signs and gestures.

    [B] The vocabulary Washoe learnt is not similar to human language.

    [C] The Washoe experiment has enlighted further research.

    [D] The Gardners found that Washoe naturally knew how to use gestures.

   3． According to the author, gestures are different from facial and vocal expressions in that _______.

    [A] gestures are more complicated

    [B] gestures are limited to a certain type of species

    [C] facial and vocal experessions are more complicated

    [D] there is no difference

   4． Which of the following best defines the word “hard-wired” (Line 3, Paragraph 3)?

    [A] fixed

    [B] changed

    [C] taught

    [D] made

   5． The Pollick and de Waa research probably indicates that _______.

    [A] the apes are the closest species to human being

    [B] normal people do not really need the help of gestures

    [C] the great apes naturally have the ability to use gestures

    [D] human language may develop from signs and gestures

   篇章剖析

    本文是一片關(guān)于大猩猩語言能力研究的說明文。第一、二段介紹了卡德勒夫婦的研究成果并引出后兩位學(xué)者對倭黑猩猩的研究；第三段和第四段分別介紹了研究的假設(shè)和結(jié)果；比較后一段進一步闡述了手勢對于人類腦力思考進化的影響。

   詞匯注釋

   psychologist [psai`kClEdVist] n.心理學(xué)家        bonobo [`bEunE9bEu] n. 倭黑猩猩

   chimpanzee [`tFimpEn`zi:] n. 黑猩猩           ubiquitous [ju:`bikwitEs] adj.到處存在,普遍

   attribute [E`tribjut] n. 屬性, 品質(zhì), 特征        primate [`praimit] n. 靈長類的動物

   sophistication [sE9fisti`keiFEn] n. 復(fù)雜，精致   hard-wired adj. 天生的

   anatomy [E`nAtEmi] n. 分解，解剖           pant [pAnt] n. 氣喘

   larynx [`lAriNks] n.[解] 喉                   hoot [hu:t] vi. 大聲叫囂, 鳴響

   adept [E`dept] adj. 熟練的, 拿手的            render [`rendE] vt. 致使

   successor [sEk`sesE] n. 繼承者, 接任者

   難句突破

   The researchers' hypothesis was that the meaning of expressions has been hard-wired by evolution whereas the meaning of gestures is learnt and, at least to some extent, is arbitrary.

   主體句式  The researchers' hypothesis was that…

   結(jié)構(gòu)分析  這個句子的難點在于that之后的這個賓語從句。從句以whereas為界可以分為兩個部分，其中后半個句子由whereas引導(dǎo)與前半個句子為并列結(jié)構(gòu)，此外at least to some extent是一個插入語，一定程度上干擾和混淆了is learnt 和is arbitrary這兩個結(jié)構(gòu)的并列關(guān)系。

   句子譯文  研究者的假設(shè)是，表情的意義在長期的進化過程中已經(jīng)成為一種天生的能力，而手勢的意義是后天學(xué)成的，至少在一定程度上是任意的。

   題目分析

   1．B. 細節(jié)題。文章第一段的主要內(nèi)容就是講述卡德勒夫婦對于黑猩猩語言能力試驗的新想法，因此答案顯而易見。

   2．C. 細節(jié)題。文章第二段中指出，Washoe的成就使科學(xué)家們提出了新的問題，并進行了進一步的研究，因此C選項正確。

   3．B. 細節(jié)題。文章第三段第一句話指出，“通過表情和聲音來發(fā)送信號的現(xiàn)象在靈長類動物中是普遍存在的。但只有大猩猩才能用手勢發(fā)送信號”，并不存在兩者那個更加復(fù)雜的說法。

   4．A. 語義題。從該詞所在句子的上下文中，可以推出表情具有固定的意義，成為了動物一種天生的能力。

   5．D. 推理題。文章比較后一段的比較后一句話指出，人類祖先在使用手勢的時候很可能促使了腦部的發(fā)展，從而漸漸產(chǎn)生了語言能力，因此答案為D。

   參考譯文

   1966年，內(nèi)華達大學(xué)雷諾分校的兩名心理學(xué)家阿倫與比特里斯·卡德勒夫婦產(chǎn)生了一個聰明的想法。他們對于大猩猩的說話和語言的進化能力非常感興趣。前人研究曾試圖教黑猩猩如何說話，但那些努力比較終都以失敗告終，很多人認為這個領(lǐng)域已經(jīng)沒有什么可以研究的了。但是卡德勒夫婦意識到說話和語言并不是一件事情。比如說，許多聾啞人不能說話，但是他們卻能夠用手勢進行充分的交流，這些手勢都包含了人類語言的那些特點和精細度。由于人類和黑猩猩喉嚨的結(jié)構(gòu)不同，卡德勒夫婦認為前人研究的失敗是因為黑猩猩生理上就無法說話。

    因此，他們決定試著教一只黑猩猩如何使用聾啞人的手勢。他們選擇的研究對象是一個名為Washoe的雌性黑猩猩，研究地點就在該大學(xué)的校園里，實驗將她培養(yǎng)成了一個能熟練使用手勢的學(xué)生。盡管人們?nèi)栽跔幷揥ashoe學(xué)會的到底能不能算人類語言，但是毫無疑問她學(xué)會了很多詞匯。她現(xiàn)在的詞匯量約為200個單詞。所有這些都使人們提出了第二個問題。如果Washoe和她的繼任者們能夠從人類那里學(xué)會復(fù)雜和任意的詞匯，那么他們是不是天生就擁有這些詞匯呢？為了驗證這種可能性，亞特蘭大埃默里大學(xué)的愛米·波利克和弗朗斯·德瓦爾對一些黑猩猩和他們的近親倭黑猩猩的手勢和表情進行了研究。

    通過表情和聲音來發(fā)送信號的現(xiàn)象在靈長類動物中是普遍存在的。但只有大猩猩才能用手勢發(fā)送信號。研究者的假設(shè)是，表情的意義在長期的進化過程中已經(jīng)成為一種天生的能力，而手勢的意義是后天學(xué)成的，至少在一定程度上是任意的。如果這個假設(shè)成立的話，那么各種特別的臉部表情和聲音就只會在特殊的情境下才能發(fā)生，而且在物種群甚至是物種之間都是一致的。相反，同樣的手勢卻能夠在不同的情境下使用。

    研究結(jié)果正如預(yù)期。不同的物種群以及物種之間都會在相同的情境下使用一些表情（“不出聲地張嘴露齒”、“放松地張嘴”、“高聲氣促”等），而卻不會用相同的手勢（“硬碰”、“向外伸手”、“互相打擊”等）。波利克和德瓦爾博士規(guī)律性地觀察到的近半手勢在兩種動物之間的意義幾乎都是完全不同的。此外，即使是在一種動物內(nèi)部，一個手勢的意義可能在不同的情境下有所變化，就像人類說話時用不同的聲調(diào)可以表示不同的意義那樣。

    我們應(yīng)該記得手勢仍然是人類語言中一個至關(guān)重要的組成部分，即使是對那些沒有正常聽力的人來說。有一個老笑話說，如果要讓一個意大利人閉嘴，那就把他的手綁起來，這個笑話有其道理所在。進化的過程不會一步就達到復(fù)雜的結(jié)構(gòu)，而是一步一步演化過來的。該研究間接地說明了，當我們的猿人和人類祖先開始有意義地向彼此揮手的時候，這種腦力思考的特點就在一步步地向語言能力發(fā)展。