原文賞析

①To parse this problem, the research team, which included psychologist Steven Pinker, collected data on a person’s current age, language proficiency and time studying English. ②The investigatorscalculated they needed more than half a million people to make a fair estimate of when the “critical period” for achieving the highest levels of grammatical fluency ends. ③So they turned to the world’s greatestexperimental subject pool: the internet.

④They created a short online grammar quiz called Which English? that tested noun–verb agreement, pronouns, prepositionsand relative clauses, among other linguistic elements. ⑤From the responses, an algorithm predicted the tester’s native language and which dialect of English (that is, Canadian, Irish, Australian) they spoke. ⑥For example, some of the questions included phrases aChicagoan would deem grammatically incorrect but a Manitobanwould think is perfectly acceptable English.

單詞實記

investigator 調查者

experimental 實驗的

proposition 介詞

relative clause 關係從句

algorithm 算法，規則系統

deem 認為

Chicagoan 芝加哥人

Manitoban 馬尼托巴人（加拿大省）

熟詞僻義

parse 本意是“分析句子”，這裡表示“解決”；

subject 常見意思是“主語，主題，遭受，符合”；這裡作名詞，意思是“調查對象”；

pool 本意是“池塘”，這裡意為“一群，集合”；

難句剖析

1.To parse this problem, the research team, which included psychologist Steven Pinker, collected data on a person’s current age, language proficiency and time studying English.

此句主幹是“the research team collected data”；前面的“To parse this problem”是介詞短語作目的狀語；“which included psychologist Steven Pinker”是定語從句作插入語；最後面的“on a person’s…”是介詞短語作定語修飾前面的data；

2.The investigators calculated they needed more than half a million people to make a fair estimate of when the “critical period” for achieving the highest levels of grammatical fluency ends.

此句主幹為“The investigators calculated + 賓語從句”；“they needed more than half a million people”是賓語從句，裡面的“to make a fair estimate”是不定式作目的狀語；後面的“when the…”從句是estimate的邏輯賓語從句。該賓語從句主幹是“when the‘critical period’ ends”，中間的for achieving …作定語。

全文翻譯

為了解決這個問題，包括心理學家Steven Pinker在內的研究團隊蒐集了每個人的年齡、語言熟練度與學英語的時間。調查者們推算，要想得出可靠的估算，需要測算至少五十萬人的“關鍵期”是何時結束，並達到他們語法的最高水平的。所以他們求助於世上最大的調查對象聚集地——網絡。

他們開發了一個在線語法小測驗，叫做“哪種英語？”，用以從諸多語法要素中，檢測主謂一致、代詞、介詞、關係從句。他們用一種算法，從答卷中來預判受試者的母語是什麼，他們說的是哪種英語變體（比如，加拿大英語、愛爾蘭英語或澳大利亞英語）。比如，芝加哥人會覺得一些問題中的短語有語法錯誤，但是馬尼托巴人會覺得完全正確。