DAY 103 Is music a language, as Stevie Wonder sang?

Stevie Wonder??

史提夫·汪達(dá)（Stevie Wonder），1950年5月13日出生于美國密歇根州，盲人，美國黑人歌手、作曲家、音樂制作人、社會活動家。

史提夫·汪達(dá)擅長多種樂器，如電子琴，鋼琴等鍵盤樂器，口琴，鼓，吉他，是一位唱樂皆精的全能藝人。?

sang??[s??]

A comparison between the two illuminates what is special about both

comparison/k?m?p?r?sn/??
[u]?the process of comparing two or more people or things

illuminate?/??lu?m?ne?t/? ? 照亮;照明;照射? ? ? ?? 闡釋;說明
?(formal)?to shine light on something?

1 One of the liveliest debates in linguistics is over whether all languages share fundamental properties. If so, perhaps language is a universal feature of evolution. To find out, scholars have looked to other universal features, and one in particular: no society on Earth lacks music. The comparison illuminates what is special about both.

liveliest? lively? /?la?vli/??
full of life and energy; active and enthusiastic? = animated,?vivacious
（事件、討論等）熱鬧的，熱烈的，激烈的A?lively?event or a?lively?discussion, for example, has lots of interesting and exciting things happening or being said in it.

linguistics? [l???ɡw?st?k]? ?n??? 語言學(xué)?
Linguistics?is the study of the way in which language works.

language?? /?l??ɡw?d?/??

property /?pr?p?ti/? n?? 特性；性質(zhì)；性能；屬性
?[countable, usually plural]?(formal)?a quality or characteristic that something has

universal [?ju?n??v??sl]? 普遍的；全體的

evolution?? /?i?v??lu??n/??
[uncountable, countable]?the slow steady development of something

find out
to get some information about something/somebody by asking, reading, etc.

look to something?
(formal)?to consider something and think about how to make it better
朝（某物）看去;?面對[面朝]（某物）;?留神[照看]（某人或某物）;?依靠[指望]（某人或某事）;

in particular??? /p??t?kj?l?(r)/
especially or particularly

2 Music and language seem intimately linked, but how? Did language start with song, as Darwin believed? Or is music “auditory cheesecake” that developed from language and other useful faculties, as Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, has said? Is music itself a language, as Stevie Wonder intoned? Might the two be fundamentally the same?

intimately? ['?nt?m?tl?]
?in a very close and friendly way

auditory /???d?tri/? ?a
connected with hearing

faculty? 官能；能力
1> Your?faculties?are your physical and mental abilities.
? or? any of the physical or mental abilities that a person is born with
2>? [c]?a department or group of related departments in a college or university

psychologist? /sa??k?l?d??st/??n
a scientist who studies and is trained in psychology

intone /?n?t??n/? v? 緩慢莊重地說;(以單一的音調(diào))吟詠，吟誦
to say something in a slow and serious voice without much expression

3 Some similarities are obvious. Both can utilise the unique human vocal tract. Both have a kind of beat. Both can express emotion. Both can be either carefully composed or spontaneously improvised. And both are highly social. Although the origin of music is unclear, it seems likely to have involved celebration, communal worship or martial inspiration and co-ordination.

?vocal?tract? 聲道

carefully composed or spontaneously?improvised.? 精心創(chuàng)作 即興表演

improvise /??mpr?va?z/? v
1>? ?to make or do something using whatever is available, usually because you do not have what you really need?? 臨時做;臨時湊成??
2>? to invent music, the words in a play, a statement, etc. while you are playing or speaking, instead of planning it in advance?? 即興表演;即興演奏;即興創(chuàng)作

communal?worship? 集體崇拜

martial?inspiration? ?軍事鼓舞

4 At a structural level the parallels are striking, too. With a finite set of notes or words, and a finite set of rules, an inexhaustible variety of novel melodies or sentences can be created. This “discrete infinity” is often said to be the hallmark of human language. Animal communication, by contrast, is only able to convey a limited number of thoughts (the location of a source of food, for example, or the presence of a predator).

striking? [?stra?k??]? a? 引人注目的;異乎尋常的;顯著的
Something that is?striking?is very noticeable or unusual.

finite? 有限的

inexhaustible? [??n?g?z?:st?bl]???
so much of it that it cannot all be used up.
?or?? ?that cannot be?exhausted?(= finished); very great

discrete?infinity? 離散無限性
目前的認(rèn)識是人類的語言能力具有的discrete infinity（離散無限性）的特點。
discrete? /d??skri?t/?? a? ?
independent of other things of the same type
<反> separate

hallmark? ? /?h??lmɑ?k/? 特性
a feature or quality that is typical of somebody/something

predator?? /?pred?t?(r)/??
an animal that kills and eats other animals

5 Aniruddh Patel of Tufts University has argued that music and language, rather than being essentially the same, rely on the same bit of the brain. In an experiment he presented his subjects with a sentence that contained a grammatical trick (“The scientist confirmed the hypothesis was being studied in his lab”), revealing one word at a time. The subjects were to press a button for each word at their own pace. Many paused at the unexpected “was”. “The scientist confirmed the hypothesis” seemed a complete sentence.

Tufts University 新常春藤

grammatical /ɡr??m?t?kl/? a
connected with the rules of grammar

trick? ? /tr?k/? n 陷阱
something that you do to make somebody believe something that is not true, or to annoy somebody as a joke

subject?? 研究對象;實驗對象? ? /?s?bd??kt/,??/?s?bd?ekt/??
In an experiment or piece of research, the?subject?is the person or animal that is being tested or studied.

6 They also heard music as they performed this exercise. Some were treated to a new chord in a pleasing progression with every word that was revealed. Others heard a jarring chord at the moment they reached the trick word “was”. Both groups slowed down—but those given the discordant notes did so much more. Mr Patel hypothesises that this is because sentence structure, and the structure of the harmony, draw on shared, limited resources in the brain.

chord? 和弦

?jarring

discordant

?draw on? ?利用

7 For all the overlap, there are big differences. Both music and language can make you feel and even think, but only language is truly propositional. A quip attributed to Bertrand Russell—“no matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest”—might be adapted for music. Language can express contingencies, pose counterfactuals and talk about the future. Music’s nuances are of a different order.

overlap /???v?l?p/? n.重疊部分;?覆蓋物，涂蓋層;?[數(shù)]交疊，相交;
the amount by which one thing covers another thing

propositional /?pr?p??z???nl/? a.建議的，提議的;?命題的;
?in the form of a statement

attributed to 歸因于
attribute something to somebody? = modify
to say or believe that somebody is responsible for doing something, especially for saying, writing or painting something

quip [kw?p]?? 俏皮話;諧語;妙語
A?quip?is a remark that is intended to be amusing or clever.

eloquently?? /?el?kw?ntli/? ad 雄辯的;口才流利的;能言善辯的
?in a way that uses language and expresses your opinions well, especially when you are speaking in public

bark [bɑ?k]?? （犬）吠

be adapted for? ——> 適應(yīng)
adapt something for something
to change something in order to make it suitable for a new use or situation

contingency? /k?n?t?nd??nsi/? ??n 可能發(fā)生的事;不測之事;突發(fā)事件??
1> an event that may or may not happen; the fact that events are not certain? = possibility
2>? a sum of money that you keep for additional payments

pose?? /p??z/? v? 提出；陳述
1>? ?to create a threat, problem, etc. that has to be dealt with
2>? pose a question?
(formal)?to ask a question, especially one that needs serious thought

counterfactual?? /?ka?nt??f?kt?u?l/??
n
a statement that expresses what did not happen or what is not the case
a
?connected with what did not happen or what is not the case
adj.反事實的（指在不同條件下有可能發(fā)生但違反現(xiàn)存事實的）;

nuance?? /?nju?ɑ?ns/? n (聲音、感受、外貌或意義的)細(xì)微差別
a very slight difference in meaning, sound, colour or somebody’s feelings that is not usually very obvious

8 Another stark contrast lies in the range of human aptitude for each ability. Nearly all children produce complex sentences by the age of three and become fluent speakers just a few years after that. As adults, they create striking and novel utterances every day. Conversely, only a minority of adults are talented musicians; even fewer are skilled composers of new, hitherto unheard works.

?in the range of 人類不同天賦的差異

? stark contrast? ?鮮明的對比
?lies in? 來源于

aptitude /??pt?tju?d/? n? = talent? ?
natural ability or skill at doing something??

utterance? ?/??t?r?ns/??
1>? the act of expressing something in words? ? 言辭；言語；言論
2>? [c]?something that you say? 吐露；表達(dá)

Conversely?? /?k?nv??sli/? ?ad
in a way that is the opposite of something

hitherto? /?h?e??tu?/? ?ad? 前所未聞
until now; until the particular time you are talking about

9 Victor Wooten, a bass player and music teacher, has an explanation for that disparity. Children, he points out, learn to talk by being constantly surrounded by linguistic virtuosos—fluent older speakers who, in musical parlance, are “jamming” with the novices almost from birth. Their fumbling efforts are encouraged. On the other hand, students of music often keep company with other beginners, and are stopped every time they make a mistake.

bass?player? 貝斯手

disparity 差異? /d??sp?r?ti/
a difference, especially one connected with unfair treatment

parlance? /?pɑ?l?ns/? ? /?pɑ?l?ns/??術(shù)語
?a particular way of using words or expressing yourself, for example one used by a particular group??

jam? /d??m/
1> ?jam something (up) (with somebody/something)?to fill something with a large number of people or things so that it is unable to function as it should? = block
2>??to play music with other musicians in an informal way without preparing or practising first

with

novices

fumbling

10 It is not that simple, reckons Jay Keyser, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a jazz trombonist. For him, music is not like spoken prose, which almost everyone can do proficiently, but instead resembles a specific, rhythmic form of language: poetry. And, he says, “most human beings are bad at poetry.” The number of grammatical sentences is vast. But the number that are fit for verse, in terms of both meaning and prosody, is much smaller. Finding those is hard—like composing music, or improvising jazz.

reckon = consider

emeritus?professor? ?榮譽退休教授

trombonist.? ?長號手

?prose? ? /pr??z/? 散文 n?
?writing that is not poetry

?verse [v??s] 詩;詩體;韻文 —— 詩句
1>? [u]?writing that is arranged in lines, often with a regular rhythm or pattern of?rhyme ?
= poetry
2>? [c]?a group of lines that form a unit in a poem or song
(verse是主歌，chorus是副歌)

prosody?? /?pr?s?di/? n 韻律
1> the patterns of sounds and rhythms in poetry; the study of this
2>? ?(phonetics)?the part of?phonetics?that deals with stress and?intonation?as opposed to individual speech sounds

11 On Mr Keyser’s plausible view, using ordinary language is a less rarefied talent than making music. But while it may not instil wonder and joy, as music can, it is still a miracle—just an everyday one.

plausible? /?pl??z?bl/? a 貌似真實的;?貌似有理的;?花言巧語的;?有眉有眼;
1>? ?(of an excuse or explanation)?reasonable and likely to be true
2>? ?(disapproving)?(of a person)?good at sounding honest and sincere, especially when trying to trick people

rarefied /?re?r?fa?d/ a?
1>? ?(often disapproving)?understood or experienced by only a very small group of people who share a particular area of knowledge or activity?? 過于高雅的;過于高貴的;脫離現(xiàn)實生活的
2>? ?(of air)?containing less?oxygen?than usual? （空氣）稀薄的，含氧量少的?

instil? ? /?n?st?l/??? v?? 逐漸灌輸 培養(yǎng)——> 傳遞 （翻譯出潛移默化的意思）
to gradually put an idea or attitude into somebody's mind; to make somebody feel, think or behave in a particular way over a period of time

miracle?? /?m?r?kl/? n
1>? [c]?an act or event that does not follow the laws of nature and is believed to be caused by God
2>? [singular]?(informal)?a lucky thing that happens that you did not expect or think was possible