词汇大师-- Web Site Offers an Earful of Accents

　　AA:   I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: a collection of life stories told in just six words.
RS:    But first, we have a report on a linguist¹ in Virginia who collects accents from across America, and across the world, and posts them on a Web site. Reporter Nancy King spoke² with him.
STEVE WEINBERGER: "Everybody has an accent. And if we simply listen to people, we get an immediate³ impression of them. We compute⁴ their sounds. And we make judgments⁵ about them."
NK: That's Steve Weinberger, a linguist at George Mason University. He believes we are taught early on in our lives to make biased⁶ social judgments about people based on their speech patterns. While this is normal human behavior, the results are frequently flawed.
STEVE WEINBERGER: "This will give you an example of how we judge accents. Let's listen to this Brooklyn speaker:
SPEAKER: "Please call Stella, ask her to bring those things with her from the store."
STEVE WEINBERGER: "It's a very, very distinct accent, and people might be startled to learn that she is a PhD and a professor of French at a major university."
NK: So much for the abused "Working Girl" stereotype⁷. How and when do we learn our accent? Well, surprisingly, Weinberger says, it's not from our family.
STEVE WEINBERGER: "We get them from our peers, most linguists⁸ believe. Somewhere between ages two and five we develop our native language. And we typically get it from our playmates. If we got our accents from our parents, then we'd all speak like immigrants."
NK: Steve Weinberger runs the Speech Accent Archive, an online collection of nearly nine hundred examples of accents - from both native and non-native English speakers.
The site is used by linguists, researchers and the occasional actor who needs to master an accent. But Weinberger says that's one tough job.
STEVE WEINBERGER: "I'm sure these actors sound perfectly⁹ legitimate¹⁰ to listeners who aren't native. So, for example, maybe Dick Van Dyke¹¹ sounds OK to us."
(MOVIE SOUND)
"That cockney accent goes over quite well for young American children who watch 'Mary Poppins.' But for any Londoner, it's just simply horrible."
NK: You can find the Speech Accent Archive at accent.gmu.edu. I'm Nancy King.
AA: That report came to us from the radio program "With Good Reason," produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
RS:    Now, on to those six-word memoirs¹³. Earlier this year on WORDMASTER, our colleague Adam Phillips told you about a book called "Not Quite What I Was Planning." It's a collection of more than eight hundred memoirs all six words long. For example: "Found true love. Married someone else." "Young, skinny: ridiculed¹⁴. Old, skinny: envied."
They were chosen from among more than fifteen thousand six-word memoirs submitted to Smith Magazine, an online journal devoted¹⁵ to storytelling.
AA:   The editors of the book, Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith, offered WORDMASTER listeners five slots in their next volume. Well, here's a bonus: we're going to read you seven of them.
RS:    Grace Liu in Taiwan writes: "Unexpected, surprised, change, I love challenge!" Grace explains her six-word memoir¹² this way: "Everything in my life is always full of the unexpected. I have to accept the world around me, but these challenges could inspire me to overcome!"
AA:    Ki-Hong Park from South Korea writes: "I'm interested in learning English though I don't have any chances to use it. Anyway, here is my six-word memoir: Out of Here, but Still Here."
RS:   A listener named Austin Garruba sent us this one: "Baptized: Conformed: Revolted: Disillusioned¹⁶: Born ... Again!"
AA:   From India, Karma Lhamo writes: "Was born confused, will die confused!"
RS:   W. K. Eranda from Sri Lanka sent us this six-word memoir: "Listen to your mom unless deaf."
AA:    Ali Almasi is a medical products engineer in the American state of Pennsylvania. He sent us a six-word memoir -- plus a title: "3T's law: Trust heart. Think seriously. Take actions."
RS:   And Carmen McGee is a clinical supervisor¹⁷ in Texas at the University of Houston speech, language and hearing clinic. Her six-word memoir? "Master of none; okay with that."
AA:   And that's WORDMASTER for this week. To find Adam's original story, go to our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

4 compute   

v./n.计算，估计

参考例句：

• I compute my losses at 500 dollars.我估计我的损失有五百元。
• The losses caused by the floods were beyond compute.洪水造成的损失难以估量。

5 judgments   

判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判

参考例句：

• A peculiar austerity marked his judgments of modern life. 他对现代生活的批评带着一种特殊的苛刻。
• He is swift with his judgments. 他判断迅速。

6 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

7 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

8 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

9 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

10 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

11 dyke   

n.堤，水坝，排水沟

参考例句：

• If one sheep leap over the dyke,all the rest will follow.一只羊跳过沟，其余的羊也跟着跳。
• One ant-hole may cause the collapse of a thousand-li dyke.千里长堤，溃于蚁穴。

12 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

13 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 ridiculed   

v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Biosphere 2 was ultimately ridiculed as a research debade, as exfravagant pseudoscience. 生物圈2号最终被讥讽为科研上的大失败，代价是昂贵的伪科学。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ridiculed his insatiable greed. 她嘲笑他的贪得无厌。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

16 disillusioned   

a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的

参考例句：

• I soon became disillusioned with the job. 我不久便对这个工作不再抱幻想了。
• Many people who are disillusioned in reality assimilate life to a dream. 许多对现实失望的人把人生比作一场梦。

17 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。