VOA慢速英语2015 词汇典故—homeland

词汇典故—homeland

Now the VOA Learning English program Words and their Stories.

这里是美国之音慢速英语词汇典故。

The word homeland is getting new attention in the United States.

homeland一词重新在美国得到关注。

Soon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush appointed a director of the Office of Homeland Security in the White House. The next year, the U.S. Congress approved a new executive-level department called the Department of Homeland Security. This department took responsibility for parts of the country's borders, transportation system, ports and other important structures.

在2001年911袭击案后不久，乔治·W·布什总统任命国土安全办公室的负责人，第二年，美国国会批准了国土安全部这一新的行政部门，该部门负责该国的部分边界、交通系统、港口等重要设施。

The dictionary tells us that a current definition of homeland refers to the country were someone was born or grew up, or a large area where a group of people can live.

在词典中，homeland一词目前的含义是指一个人出生或成长的国家，或者一群人所生活的大片土地。

Historically, the Old English word hamland meant "enclosed pasture" — a protected field for animals. The word homeland first appeared in Modern English in the 1660s. It combined the nouns "home" and "land."

在历史上，古英语词汇hamland的意思是“围起来的牧场”，也就是保护起来的牧场。homeland一词最早出现在17世纪60年代的现代英语中，结合了名词home和land。

But a deeper look at how the word homeland was used outside of the U.S. shows why some people are not comfortable with it. The government of South Africa used the word homeland for areas it created for only African peoples during the period of apartheid. These "homelands" separated the Africans from white citizens.

但深入了解homeland一词在美国之外的用法，就可以明白为何一些人对这个词感到不舒服。南非政府使用homeland一词指隔离时期转为非洲人设立的区域，该词将非洲人与白人分开来。

Friederike Eigler is a professor of German at Georgetown University. She said that in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people used a similar word to homeland – heimat – to express intense national pride.

弗里德里克·艾格勒是乔治城大学的一名的德语教授，她说在19世纪晚期到20世纪早期的德国，人们使用与homeland类似的heimat来表达强烈的民族自豪感。

"It became more and more a political term because it was sort of meshed¹ up with ideas of the nation and nationalism. And then that kind of came to a head during World War II. It became very much tied up very much with notions of the German race, and the nation, nationality or national socialism, and so in that sense it got very discredited² as a result in the postwar period."

“因为这个词融入了国家和民族的概念，所以越来越成为政治词汇，在二战期间达到顶点，同德国种族、国家、民族或国家社会主义的概念非常紧密地联系起来，所以从这个意义上，它在战后非常声名狼藉。”

In the early 2000s, when the U.S. government created the Department of Homeland Security, some objected to the name. Peggy Noonan writes for the Wall Street Journal. She thought the Bush administration should change the name. She said homeland "isn't really an American word."

在21世纪初，当美国政府设立国土安全部时，一些人反对使用这个名字。佩吉·努南为华尔街日报撰稿，她认为布什政府应该修改这个名字，她说homeland一词“并不是美国词汇”。

James A. Bartlett blogs for The Ethical³ Spectacle. He thinks the problem is that the word homeland has to do with the idea of being a native. He quotes the second Merriam Webster definition of homeland: "a state or area set aside to be a state for a people of a particular national, cultural, or racial origin."

詹姆斯·A·巴特利特为《Ethical Spectacle》撰写博客。他认为问题在于homeland这个词跟本土化这种观念有关。他引用了韦氏词典对homeland的第二种定义：为具有特定国家、文化和种族起源的人群划拨的一个国家或地区。

Mr. Bartlett believes the word homeland does not describe the United States well. The U.S. is a diverse country of immigrants. Are those immigrants also able to call the U.S. their homeland?

巴特利特认为homeland一词也无法描述美国，美国是个多元化的移民国家，这些移民能称美国为自己的homeland吗？

Yet an increasing number of Americans seem to like the word. Some people are proposing it as the name for the group of people born between 2005 and 2030. For instance, many voters in a 2005 web poll wanted to call the group the "Homeland Generation." The White House used the term in an October 2014 report.

然而越来越多的美国人似乎喜欢上这个词，一些人反对用它来称出生在2005到2030年间的群体。比如，在2005年的网络民调中很多选民希望称这个群体为“Homeland一代”，白宫在2014年10月的报告中使用了这个词。

Professor Eigler at Georgetown University observed that today's generation is growing up with the war on terror.

乔治城大学的艾格勒教授注意到这代人伴随着反恐战成长。

"My sense is, the larger context again is, with that term, is the importance of issues of national security in the context of the global war on terror and that larger context that is very much part of our contemporary life, and has been for quite some time. And of course, they grew up with that. It wasn't something new, but it was part of, or is part of their lives from the very beginning."

“我的感觉是，这个词是全球反恐战争背景下国家安全问题重要性的体现，这种背景是我们当代生活的重要组成部分，它延续了很长一段时间，并且伴随着他们长大。这不是什么新事物，而是同他们与生俱来的一部分。”

Writer Anne Boysen even titled her book about today's children "Homelanders." But she is not certain the term will stay with this generation.

作家安妮·伯森甚至将她有关当代儿童的书命名为《Homelanders》，但她不确定这个词是否将伴随这代人下去。

1 meshed   

有孔的，有孔眼的，啮合的

参考例句：

• The wheels meshed well. 机轮啮合良好。
• Their senses of humor meshed perfectly. 他们的幽默感配合得天衣无缝。

2 discredited   

不足信的，不名誉的

参考例句：

• The reactionary authorities are between two fires and have been discredited. 反动当局弄得进退维谷，不得人心。
• Her honour was discredited in the newspapers. 她的名声被报纸败坏了。

3 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。