【英语时差8,16】失真的电话沟通

when speaking on the telephone we often run into trouble with particular words that, in face-to-face conversation, aren't troublesome at all.   

Words such as "feeling" and "ceiling" seem especially hard to get across the line -- or to understand when listening to someone else. Is there a reason for this?

 

In fact, there are several reasons, the major one being that telephones completely remove any visual cues from the process of communication. Not only do we read emotional content off the posture¹ of a speaker's body and face, but language comprehension is aided by a subtle form of lip reading. This has nothing to do with speech or hearing impairments: everyone lip-reads for cues during face-to-face conversation, such as the shape of the lips in producing the "f" sound and not the "s" sound.

 

A second reason f and s are so troublesome in phone conversation is that they occur at slightly higher frequencies than telephones are built to transmit. That means the phone simply cuts off the high end of the sound you are trying to produce, making it that much harder to distinguish.

 

In a sense, telephones replicate² the hearing loss that comes naturally with age. Older people also experience an increasing inability to distinguish the high end of frequencies, making it harder and harder as the years go by to understand other folks' words. So there may be a beneficial side to all this: a young person on the phone can get at least some sense of the frustration³ an older person may experience every day.  

1 posture   

n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势

参考例句：

• The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
• He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣，摆出一副打架的架势。

2 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

3 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。