VOA慢速英语 2007 1128b

VOICE ONE:

I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.   We continue our series of reports about efforts to keep alive some traditional ways of doing things.  Today we tell about preserving stories, experiences and beliefs of everyday people.

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VOICE ONE:

In the largest library in the world is a collection of voices.  Voices of people telling the stories about important events in their lives. Singing songs they sang as children. Explaining the ceremonies and celebrations of their families and communities.  This unusual collection is in the American Folklife Center, which is part of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 

 
American Indian dancers Corina Drum and Mary Snowball take part in the Grand Entry at the Omaha Indian Powwow in 1983
The Folklife Center was created to collect and preserve the traditional knowledge that is passed on to others by spoken word and custom.  The folklife collections include the folklore², cultural activities, traditional arts and personal histories of everyday people from the end of the nineteenth century to the present.

Peggy Bulger is the director of the American Folklife Center.  She says the songs people sing, the stories they tell, the things they make are an important part of history.  So the Folklife Center contains a historical record of a people told in their own voices, not described by political leaders, professors or writers.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen seventy-six, the United States Congress passed a law that created the American Folklife Center to preserve and present the history of American folklife.  The materials in the Center are available to researchers at the Library of Congress and at the library’s Web site.  It also provides recordings⁴, live performances, exhibits and publications.  And it trains people to do the collecting. 

More than four million objects are now in the collections of the American Folklife Center.  Most of them are in the biggest and oldest part of the Center, which is the Archive of Folk Culture.  It was established at the Library of Congress almost eighty years ago and was known for years as the Archive of American Folk Song.

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VOICE ONE: 
Sociologist⁵ Lewis Wade⁶ Jones, left, of Fisk University recording³ a group of singers at the Fort¹ Valley State College Folk Festival

In nineteen twenty-eight, the head of the Library of Congress decided⁷ that the library should collect American folk songs sung by people as they worked and played.  Robert Gordon was chosen to lead this project.  He had already decided his goal in life was to collect every American folk song.  He traveled around the country, recording people in their homes or communities.  The recordings were made on wax cylinders⁸, a device that Thomas Edison invented in eighteen seventy-seven.

When John and Alan Lomax took over the job in nineteen thirty-two, they began collecting more than music and song.  They recorded and documented personal histories.  These included what people cooked, the crafts they made, and the jokes and stories passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth.  This is the kind of information about everyday life that often disappears through the years. 

VOICE TWO:

Peggy Bulger says experts in folklore, music, or culture travel around the country and the world to record folklife.  They work either as private individuals or for the Library of Congress or other federal and state agencies.  Many of them use equipment lent to them by the Library of Congress.  In return, the collectors give their sound and video recordings, research notes, papers, and photographs to the library’s collection. 

Through the years, the folklife collections have grown to include traditions and culture from every area of the United States.  You can find almost anything in the collections, including Native American song and dance music, ancient English story songs and cowboy poetry.  You can listen to the memories of ex-slaves, experiences of Italian-American wine makers⁹ and memories of boat makers in the state of Maine. 

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VOICE ONE:

Peggy Bulger says the materials in the Archive of Folk Culture are from almost every place in the world.  People who come from other countries to settle in the United States bring their folklore with them.  So the folklore and traditions of the immigrants become part of the collections ‿ including those from Sudan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bosnia and Latin America.  Miz Bulger says the collections document the culture of the world as it exists today in the United States. 

VOICE TWO:

The Archive of Folk Culture continues to grow.  Individuals who have made a career of collecting folklore material want their collections to go to the Library of Congress when they retire.  They want the materials to be preserved and made available to researchers in the future.  For example, Miz Bulger says that next year a folklorist¹⁰ who documented women’s traditions in Afghanistan in the nineteen sixties is giving his collection to the Folklife Center.

VOICE ONE:

Peggy Bulger is excited about helping¹¹ native groups record and save their own traditions and folklore.  Two members of the Masai tribe¹² of Kenya will spend a week getting training at the Folklife Center.  Miz Bulger says the Masai do not want outsiders coming in to document their sacred ceremonies and songs.  The Masai want to learn how to record and film themselves so they can be sure their traditions survive for future generations.  And they want to have control over the use of the recordings, keeping ceremonial traditions secret, but making other information available to outsiders.  

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VOICE TWO:

Bob Patrick is head of the Veterans History Project.   The idea for the project began when United States Representative Ron Kind of Wisconsin was at a family gathering¹³.  His father and his uncle started talking about their experiences in war.  Representative Kind decided to do a video recording of them telling their stories to save for his children when they were older.  He decided then that the memories of all men and women who served in wars are important to record and preserve.

In the year two thousand, Representative Kind introduced a bill in Congress to establish the Veterans History Project.  The bill passed with no opposition¹⁴ and was signed into law.  The main purpose of the project is to collect and preserve the remembrances of people who served in all wars.

Bob Patrick says the project now has more than fifty thousand individual stories, including recordings or videos of veterans telling their stories about war.  The collections also include photographs, letters, and other personal materials. All the materials are kept in the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress.  Some of them are available through the Web site.

VOICE ONE:

Mister Patrick says many organizations and individuals volunteer to make the recordings.  Retirement¹⁵ communities, veterans‿organizations, historical societies, libraries, high school and college students are part of the project.  The most important volunteers are family members and friends who talk to the veterans about their lives and record their memories.  Mister Patrick says that today’s technology makes that easy to do.  The Veterans History project Web site has suggestions to help people who do the recordings.

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VOICE TWO:

Most new recordings in the American Folklife Center are in digital form, especially those made for the Veterans History Project and StoryCorps.  People being recorded now are asked to give permission for their information to be shared with others through the World Wide Web at www.loc.gov/folklife.  Peggy Bulger hopes that in the future more older materials will be available to researchers around the world.  

Miz Bulger says efforts by the Library of Congress to record and preserve dances, songs and stories help support traditional cultures.  It helps young people realize the knowledge of older people is valuable.  Every year, she says, more people recognize that folklife is an important part of the historical record.

VOICE ONE:

Peggy Bulger says the recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture prove that voices are very powerful.  Listening to someone talk about his or her life gives you so much more information, she says, than just reading about it.  The growing collections of voices that are part of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress are a lasting¹⁶ record of social and cultural life.  They are a record that is truly of, by and for the people.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Dana Demange.  I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Steve Ember.  Listen again next month to EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English for another program about keeping traditions alive.

1 fort   

n.要塞，堡垒，碉堡

参考例句：

• The fort can not be defended against an air attack.这座要塞遭到空袭时无法防御。
• No one can get into the fort without a pass.没有通行证，任何人不得进入要塞。

2 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。

3 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

4 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

5 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

6 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 folklorist   

民俗学研究者

参考例句：

11 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

12 tribe   

n.部落，种族，一伙人

参考例句：

• This is a subject tribe.这是个受他人统治的部落。
• Many of the tribe's customs and rituals are as old as the hills.这部落的许多风俗、仪式都极其古老。

13 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

14 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

15 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

16 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。