英譯漢
The line of demarcation between the adult and the child world is drawn in many ways. For instance, many American parents may be totally divorced from the church, or entertain grave doubts about the existence of God, but they send their children to Sunday school and help them to pray. American parents struggle in a competitive world where sheer cunning and falsehood are often rewarded and respected, but they feed their children with nursery tales in which the morally good is pitted against the bad, and in the end the good inevitably is successful and the bad inevitably punished. When American parents are in serious domestic trouble, they maintain a front of sweetness and light before their children. Even if American parents suffer a major business or personal catastrophe, they feel obliged to turn to their children and say, “Honey, everything is going to be all right.” This American desire to keep the children’s world separate from that of the adult is exemplified also by the practice of delaying transmission of the news to children when their parents have been killed in an accident. Thus, in summary, American parents face a world of reality while many of their children live in a near-ideal unreal realm where the rules of the parental world do not apply, are watered down, or are even reversed.
【參考譯文】
成人世界和兒童世界在許多方面涇渭分明。比如說，許多美國人可能從來不去教堂，或者對上帝是否存在十分懷疑，但是他們卻會把孩子送到主日學校，教會他們祈禱。美國人生存的社會充滿競爭，爾虞我詐才能名利雙收，但是在他們教育孩子的幼兒故事里，在好人與壞人的斗爭中最終卻總是善有善報，惡有惡報。如果美國人出現(xiàn)嚴重的家庭危機，在孩子們面前，他們表面上卻仍然是溫柔可親。即使工作、生活遭遇重大挫折，他們也認為有必要對孩子說：“寶貝兒，一切都會好起來的?！比绻笕嗽庥鍪鹿噬硗?，不會立刻把噩耗告訴孩子，這種做法也可以說明美國人希望讓孩子的世界和成人的世界分離開來。因此，總的說來，美國人生活在現(xiàn)實的世界中，孩子則生活在一個幾乎完美的天地里，這里成人世界的規(guī)則不適用，淡化了，甚至完全相反。
The line of demarcation between the adult and the child world is drawn in many ways. For instance, many American parents may be totally divorced from the church, or entertain grave doubts about the existence of God, but they send their children to Sunday school and help them to pray. American parents struggle in a competitive world where sheer cunning and falsehood are often rewarded and respected, but they feed their children with nursery tales in which the morally good is pitted against the bad, and in the end the good inevitably is successful and the bad inevitably punished. When American parents are in serious domestic trouble, they maintain a front of sweetness and light before their children. Even if American parents suffer a major business or personal catastrophe, they feel obliged to turn to their children and say, “Honey, everything is going to be all right.” This American desire to keep the children’s world separate from that of the adult is exemplified also by the practice of delaying transmission of the news to children when their parents have been killed in an accident. Thus, in summary, American parents face a world of reality while many of their children live in a near-ideal unreal realm where the rules of the parental world do not apply, are watered down, or are even reversed.
【參考譯文】
成人世界和兒童世界在許多方面涇渭分明。比如說，許多美國人可能從來不去教堂，或者對上帝是否存在十分懷疑，但是他們卻會把孩子送到主日學校，教會他們祈禱。美國人生存的社會充滿競爭，爾虞我詐才能名利雙收，但是在他們教育孩子的幼兒故事里，在好人與壞人的斗爭中最終卻總是善有善報，惡有惡報。如果美國人出現(xiàn)嚴重的家庭危機，在孩子們面前，他們表面上卻仍然是溫柔可親。即使工作、生活遭遇重大挫折，他們也認為有必要對孩子說：“寶貝兒，一切都會好起來的?！比绻笕嗽庥鍪鹿噬硗?，不會立刻把噩耗告訴孩子，這種做法也可以說明美國人希望讓孩子的世界和成人的世界分離開來。因此，總的說來，美國人生活在現(xiàn)實的世界中，孩子則生活在一個幾乎完美的天地里，這里成人世界的規(guī)則不適用，淡化了，甚至完全相反。