介绍:
In 1770, Captain Cook's ship Endeavour ran aground on the coast of Queensland, Australia. While some
of his men made repairs, Cook led an exploration party and met the aboriginal people. One of the sailors
pointed to the animals that hopped around with their young riding in pouches, and asked an aborigine
what they were called. The aborigine replied, “Kanguru.” From then on Cook and his sailors referred to the
animals by this word. It wasn't until later that they learned it meant “What did you say?”
I tell that story in my introductory course every year. It's almost certainly untrue, and I explain that
afterwards, but it's a classic anecdote. Of course, the anecdotes my undergraduates will really want to
hear are ones featuring the heptapods; for the rest of my teaching career, that'll be the reason many of
them sign up for my courses. So I'll show them the old videotapes of my sessions at the looking glass, and
the sessions that the other linguists conducted; the tapes are instructive, and they'll be useful if we're ever
visited by aliens again, but they don't generate many good anecdotes.
When it comes to language-learning anecdotes, my favorite source is child language acquisition. I
remember one afternoon when you are five years old, after you have come home from kindergarten. You'll
be coloring with your crayons while I grade papers.
“Mom,” you'll say, using the carefully casual tone reserved for requesting a favor, “can I ask you
something?”
“Sure, sweetie. Go ahead.”
“Can I be, um, honored?”
I'll look up from the paper I'm grading. “What do you mean?”
“At school Sharon said she got to be honored.”
“Really? Did she tell you what for?”
“It was when her big sister got married. She said only one person could be, um, honored, and she was it.”
“Ah, I see. You mean Sharon was maid of honor?”“Yeah, that's it. Can I be made of honor?”
感谢收听，期待你对本期节目的评论留言哦~
大家还在听
