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  3. When fathers appear in children’s picture books, they’re angling for laughs,

When fathers appear in children’s picture books, they’re angling for laughs,

游客2023-12-28  23
问题     When fathers appear in children’s picture books, they’re angling for laughs, taking their sons on adventures or modeling physical strength or stoic independence. There is the rare exception in children’s books where a father baldly demonstrates—without symbolic gestures—his love for his son. Just as women’s studies classes have long examined the ways that gendered language undermines women and girls, a growing body of research shows that stereotypical messages are similarly damaging to boys.
    A study in Pediatrics found that mothers interacted vocally more often with their infant daughters than they did their infant sons. In a different study, a team of British researchers found that Spanish mothers were more likely to use emotional words and emotional topics when speaking with their 4-year-old daughters than with their 4-year-old sons. Interestingly, the same study revealed that daughters were more likely than sons to speak about their emotions with their fathers when talking about past experiences. And during these reminiscing conversations, fathers used more emotion-laden words with their 4-year-old daughters than with their 4-year-old sons.
    What’s more, a study led by Emory University researchers discovered, among other things, that fathers also sing and smile more to their daughters, and they use language that is more "analytical" and that acknowledges their sadness far more than they do with their sons. The words they use with sons are more focused on achievement—such as "win" and "proud." Researchers believe that these discrepancies in fathers’ language may contribute to "the consistent findings that girls outperform boys in school achievement outcomes."
    Judy Chu, a human biologist, conducted a two-year study of 4- and 5-year-old boys and found that they were as astute as girls at reading other people’s emotions and at cultivating close, meaningful friendships. In her book "When Boys Become Boys" she maintains that by the time the boys reached first grade, sometimes earlier, they traded their innate empathy for a learned stoicism and greater emotional distance from friends. interestingly, they adopted this new behavior in public, exclusively, but not at home or when their parents were around.
    Why do we limit the emotional vocabulary of boys?
    We tell ourselves we are preparing our sons to fight (literally and figuratively), to compete in a world and economy that’s brutish and callous. The sooner we can groom them for this dystopian future, the better off they’ll be. But the Harvard psychologist Susan David insists the opposite is true: "Research shows that people who suppress emotions have lower-level resilience and emotional health."
    How can we change this? We can start, says Dr. David, by letting boys experience their emotions, all of them, without judgment—or by offering them solutions. This means helping them learn the crucial lessons that "Emotions aren’t good or bad" and that "their emotions aren’t bigger than they are. They aren’t something to fear."
    Say to boys: "I can see that you’re upset, " or ask them, "What are you feeling?" or "What’s going on for you right now?" There doesn’t have to be any grand plan beyond this, she says. "Just show up for them. Get them talking. Show that you want to hear what they’re saying."
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答案     当父亲出现在儿童绘本中，他们要么试图引人发笑，要么带领儿子去冒险，要么展示力量或坚强独立的性格。在儿童读物中，很少有父亲以不带任何象征性姿态来直接表达对儿子的爱。长期以来，关于女性的课题研究探讨语言中的性别差异如何给她们带来不利影响，同时也有越来越多的研究表明，性别刻板印象所传达的信息对男孩同样有害。
    《儿科学》期刊发布的一项研究表明，与男婴相比，母亲与女婴讲话的频率要更高。在另一项研究中，英国研究人员发现，相较于与4岁的儿子交谈，西班牙裔的母亲与4岁的女儿沟通时更倾向于使用情绪化词汇和谈论情感话题。有趣的是，同一研究发现，在谈论过去经历时，女儿比儿子更可能与父亲分享自己的情感。在这些回忆性的谈话中，父亲对他们4岁的女儿使用的带有感情色彩的词语也比对他们4岁的儿子多。
    而且，埃默里大学(Emory University)研究人员开展的一项研究发现，父亲们也更多地对女儿唱歌和微笑，并且更常使用更具“分析性”的语言以及表达自己的悲伤，但他们却很少对儿子如此。
    他们用在儿子身上的词更注重成就，例如“成功”和“骄傲”。研究人员认为父亲语言上的差异可能是“研究一致发现女孩在学业成绩上优于男孩”的原因。
    人类生物学家朱迪.朱(Judy chu)对4到5岁的男孩进行了为期2年的研究，她发现他们和女孩一样善于解读他人的情绪，培养亲密而有意义的友谊。在她的书《当男孩成为男孩》中，她认为，当男孩上到一年级或更早的时候，他们会牺牲自己与生俱来的同理心以换取后天习得的冷静沉默和与朋友们更大的情感距离。有趣的是，他们只在公共场合采用这种新的行为准则，而不是在家里或当父母在场的时候。
    为什么我们要限制男孩的情感词汇呢?我们告诉自己，我们正在帮助儿子们备战(从字面或比喻义层面理解均是如此)，在这个残酷无情的社会和经济中竞争。我们越早训练他们适应这种反乌托邦式的未来，他们就越能够成功，但哈佛大学的心理学家苏珊.戴维(8usan David)坚持认为，事实恰恰相反，“研究表明，压抑情感的人具有较弱的适应能力和较低层次的心理健康水平。”
    我们怎样才能改变这种状况呢?大卫博士说，我们可以从让男孩体验他们所有的情绪并不加以评论开始，或者为他们提供解决方法。这意味着要帮助他们学会重要的一课，那就是“情绪并没有好坏”以及“情绪并不比他们自身强大，他们不需要恐惧这些情感。”对男孩们说：“我看得出你很难过。”或者问他们“你现在感觉怎么样?”或“你现在怎样了?”父母并不需要有什么大的计划，戴维博士说，“只需要出现在他们身边，让他们谈论自己的感觉，告诉他们你想听他们在说什么。”
解析     1.第1段第一句angle for为固定搭配，意为“试图谋取”，故are angling for laughs可译作“试图引人发笑”。
    2.第1段第一句modeling physical strength，在翻译时可增加范畴词“……的性格”，译为“坚强独立的性格”，使译文更加流畅。
    3.第1段第三句stereotypical messages与前文gendered language呼应，意为性别刻板印象导致的语言差异，故可增译作“性别刻板印象所传达的信息”。
    4.第3段第一句far more than they do with their soils。意为父亲们很少向儿子使用具有“分析性”的语言以及表达自己的悲伤，因此，在翻译时可将其作为分句处理，译为“但他们却很少对儿子如此”，使得译文简洁明了。
    5.第3段第三句contribute to为固定搭配，意为“捐献”“有助于”“……的原因”等。根据本文语境，此处指父亲的语言策略差异可能足以解释女孩学业成绩优于男孩这一现象，故译为“……的原因”更为合适。
    6.第6段第一句literally and figuratively意为“字面意义和象征意义上”，在翻译时应将意思补全，即“从字面或比喻义层面理解均是如此”。
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