EEnglish Rules the Waves 网络英语独领风骚

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EEnglish Rules the Waves

网络英语独领风骚

   

The English language is growing bigger rapidly; thanks, of course, to the internet. On the one hand there are the proliferating net neo-logisms -e-mail, emoticons, cyberspace and so on. On the other there is the hard fact that the net is overwhelmingly an English-language medium, an estimated 85% of its pages being in English.

英语词汇变得越来越多，这当然是归功于因特网。一方面，网络新词正在激增：比如电子邮件（e-mail）、情感符(emoticon)和网络空间（cyberspace）等。另一方面，网络是英语占统治地位的媒体：据估计，有85%的网页为英语网页。 　　

By 2050,it is said that more than half the world's population will be competent users of English. The net advances the global power of the language more ruthlessly than the British Empire ever cou1d. Every new net user will have to learn a version of English if he is not to find himself locked in a linguistic cyberghetto. 　　

据说，到2050年，全世界将有一半以上的人能够熟练地使用英语。网络对英语普及的推动力超过了大英帝国的任何行动，每个新的上网者都必须学习某种版本的英语，如果他不想困在语言的\"网络隔离区\"内。 　　

The expansion of the language is not a new phenomenon. When the Oxford English Dictionary was completed in l928, it defined 2OO,00O words; now, thanks to the regular addition of supplements and amalgamation into the second edition, published in 1989, it defines 24O,OOO. 　　英语的扩张并不是新现象。1928年的《牛津英语词典》收入了20万个词条；如今，由于对第二版（1989年）的经常性补充与合并，这本词典中的词条已达24万个。 　　

However, the net-driven globalisation of English will tend to enhance the worldwide significance of a net dictionary. There are already sites-Webopedia and the Encyclopedia of the New Economy at Hotwired which act as dictionaries of, and guides to, the new webspeak. As cyberEnglish expands, so will the need and the desire to understand the language. One can easily imagine a Japanese surfer keeping the OED window permanently open to help him navigate an alien language. In this sense, since English is the mother tongue of the cyberrealm, the OED may well become this new religion's virtual Bible. 　　

网络推动的英语全球化将逐渐加强网络字典的全球的地位。已经有一些网站担当起网语字典或网语指导的角色。随着网络英语的扩展，理解这种语言的需要和愿望也将越来越强。很容易想象，某个日本冲浪者得一直开着《牛津英语词典》的窗口才能在这门\"外语\"里航行。从这种意义上看，既然英语是网络世界的母语，《牛津英语词典》很可能成为这个新领域的虚拟《圣经》。 　　

The much deeper issue, however, is what the net will do to the language. It has already brought in new words but it has also brought in those curious adjuncts to language-emoticons. These smiling, frowning or winking faces, constructed from punctuation marks, compensate for the fact that in chat groups or e-mail all communication consists of typed words, devoid of expression or explanation. 　　

更深刻的问题是：网络将对英语产生什么影响？网络带来了新的词语，但也带来了一些奇怪的修饰语：比如情感符。在聊天组或电子邮件中，所有的交流都由打出的文字完成，没有任何表情或解释；那些由标点符号构成的微笑、皱眉或眨眼等表情弥补了这一缺憾。  　　

Net communication is usually between strangers who may share few cultural references and whose sense of the language may be seriously out of register. This will tend to produce either bland, have-a-nice-day standardisation of, more usually, various idiolects-private versions of the language---that work only in specific contexts. 　　

网上交流通常是在陌生人之间进行的，他们的文化背景可能相差甚远，对语言的感觉可能也很离谱。这也许会带来平淡无奇的标准化语言，但更多的则是适用于特定环境的充满个人色彩的语汇。 　　

This will accelerate further the expansion and evolution of e-English, and will tribalise the language. English will move more quickly into the future and, as a result, earlier forms will become more rapidly obsolete. Most people already find it difficult to read Chaucer and a proliferation of new idiolects may soon make Shakespeare equally inaccessible. 　　

这将进一步加强网络英语的扩张和发展，并将使英语部落化。英语将更加迅速地走向未来，而早期的英语形式将更快地落伍。多数人已经觉得乔叟很难懂，新的个人化语言可能很快使莎士比亚变得同样难懂。