TED演讲： 你存钱的能力跟你用的语言有关?(4)

 　　For example, most other Germanic language speakers 例如，说日尔曼语系的人

　　feel completely comfortable talking about rain tomorrow by saying, "Morgen regnet es," 会很自然的用以下的话表达明天下雨：“Morgen regnet es”

　　quite literally¹ to an English ear, "It rain tomorrow." 说英语的人听了就类似“It rain tomorrow.”

　　This led me, as a behavioral economist², to an intriguing³ hypothesis. 这让我，作为一个行为经济学家，想到一个有趣的假设。

　　Could how you speak about time, could how your language forces you to think about time, 你描述时间的方式，你的语言迫使你思考时间的方式，

　　affect your propensity⁴ to behave across time? 是否会影响到你对不同时间段的偏好？

　　You speak English, a futured language. 你们说的是英语，区分将来时态的。

　　And what that means is that every time you discuss the future, or any kind of a future event, 这意味着每次你谈论到未来的时间，或者未来要发生的事情时，

　　grammatically you're forced to cleave⁵ that from the present 你需要在语法层面将未来和现在分来，

　　and treat it as if it's something viscerally different. 就像是两者之间有本质不同一样。

　　Now suppose that that visceral difference makes you subtly dissociate the future from the present every time you speak. 现在假设这种语言上的差别让你每次说话的时候都意识到当下和未来细微差别。

　　If that's true and it makes the future feel like something more distant and more different from the present, 如果这个假设成立，会导致“未来”看起来跟“现在”更加遥远一些，

　　that's going to make it harder to save. 要你存钱就会困难一些。

　　If, on the other hand, you speak a futureless language, the present and the future, you speak about them identically. 另一方面，如果你的语言没有区分将来时态，你说现在和未来的句式是一样的。

　　If that subtly nudges you to feel about them identically, that's going to make it easier to save. 这点细微的差别会让你觉得他们是一样的，会让你更倾向于存钱。

　　Now this is a fanciful theory. I'm a professor, I get paid to have fanciful theories. 现在我有了一套奇特的理论。我是教授，教授就是生产奇思怪想的。

　　But how would you actually go about testing such a theory? 但是你怎么检验这样一套理论呢？

　　Well, what I did with that was to access the linguistics⁶ literature. 我阅读了大量的语言学文献作为调研。

　　And interestingly enough, there are pockets of futureless language speakers situated⁷ all over the world. 有意思的是，没有将来时态的语言，全球各地都有。

　　This is a pocket of futureless language speakers in Northern Europe. 欧洲北部也有一些语言没有将来时态。

1 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

2 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

3 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 propensity   

n.倾向；习性

参考例句：

• He has a propensity for drinking too much alcohol.他有酗酒的倾向。
• She hasn't reckoned on his propensity for violence.她不曾料到他有暴力倾向。

5 cleave   

v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋

参考例句：

• It examines how the decision to quit gold or to cleave to it affected trade policies.论文分析了放弃或坚持金本位是如何影响贸易政策的。
• Those who cleave to the latter view include many conservative American politicians.坚持后一种观点的大多是美国的保守派政客。

6 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

7 situated   

adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的

参考例句：

• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。
• She is awkwardly situated.她的处境困难。