新概念英语第四册学习手册【Lesson19、20、21】

　　为了方便同学们的学习，为大家整理了新概念英语第四册学习手册，新概念英语作为一套世界闻名的英语教程，以其全新的教学理念，有趣的课文内容和全面的技能训练，深受广大英语学习者的欢迎和喜爱。希望以下内容能够为大家的新概念英语学习提供帮助!

　　新概念英语4 Lesson 19

　　The stuff of dreams

　　话说梦的本质

　　What is going on when a person experiences rapid eye-movements during sleep?

　　It is fairly clear that sleeping period must have some function, and because there is so much of it the function would seem to e important. Speculations about is nature have been going on for literally thousands of years, and one odd finding that makes the problem puzzling is that it looks very much as if sleeping is not simply a matter of giving the body a rest. 'Rest', in terms of muscle relaxation and so on, can be achieved by a brief period lying, or even sitting down. The body's tissues are self-repairing and self-restoring to a degree, and function best when more or less continuously active. In fact a basic amount of movement occurs during sleep which is specifically concerned with preventing muscle inactivity.

　　If it is not a question of resting the body, then perhaps it is the brain that needs resting? This might be a plausible hypothesis were it not for two factors. First the electroencephalograph (which is simply a device for recording the electrical activity of the brain by attaching electrodes to the scalp) shows that while there is a change in the pattern of activity during sleep, there is no evidence that the total amount of activity is any less. The second factor is more interesting and more fundamental. Some years ago an American psychiatrist named William Dement published experiments dealing with the recording of eye-movements during sleep. He showed that the average individual's sleep cycle is punctuated with peculiar bursts of eye-movements, some drifting and slow, others jerky and rapid. People woken during these periods of eye-movements generally reported that they had been dreaming. When woken at other times they reported no dreams. If one group of people were disturbed from their eye-movement sleep for several nights on end, and another group were disturbed for an equal period of time but when they were no exhibiting eye-movements, the first group began to show some personality disorders while the others seemed more or less unaffected. The implications of all this were that it was not the disturbance of sleep that mattered, but the disturbance of dreaming.

　　CHRISHER EVANS The stuff of dreams from The Listener

　　New words and expressions 生词和短语

　　speculation

　　n. 推测

　　literally

　　adv. 确实

　　odd

　　adj. 奇特的

　　tissue

　　n. 组织

　　plausible

　　adj. 似乎有理的

　　hypothesis

　　n. 假说

　　electroencephalograph

　　n. 脑电图仪

　　electrode

　　n. 电极

　　scalp

　　n. 头皮

　　psychiatrist

　　n. 精神病学家

　　punctuate

　　v. 不时介入

　　jerky

　　adj. 急动的

　　disorder

　　n. 失调

　　implication

　　n. 表明

　　参考译文

　　很清楚，睡眠必然具有某种作用。睡眠占去那么多时间，所以其作用似乎还是很重要。人们对睡眠作用的种种猜测，确实有数千年之久。一项使人对这个问题感到困惑的奇怪的发现是，睡眠在很大程度似乎并不仅仅是为了使身体得到休息。“休息”，从使肌肉得到放松等方面来看，只要稍微躺一躺，甚至坐一坐就能达到。人体组织在一定程度上有自我修补和自我恢复的能力，有张有弛地连续活动时，其功能。事实上，睡眠状态下仍有着基本的活动量，以防止肌肉活动停止。

　　如果睡眠的功能不是在于使身体得到休息，那么也许是让大脑得以休息?若不是下面两点，这种假使似乎是有道理的。第一点，脑电图记录仪(不过是一种把电极接到头皮上记录脑电活动的仪器)显示，人在睡眠时大脑活动的方式有变化，但没有迹象表明，其活动总量有任何减少。第二点更有意思，也更重要。前些年，美国一位精神病学者发表了一篇报告，报告中记录了眼球在睡眠时的活动情况。他指出，平常人的睡眠周期中不时伴有一阵阵奇怪的眼球队活动，这些活动有的飘忽而缓慢，有的急剧而快速。在眼球活动期间被叫醒的人都说自己在做梦;在其他期间叫醒他们，则说没有做梦。如果有两组人，一组人连续几夜在眼球队活动时被叫醒;另一组人也是连续几夜被叫醒，但是在眼球队没活动时被叫醒的。结果，第一组人开始出现性格失常，而第二组人似乎没受什么影响。这一切暗示我们：睡眠受到干忧没关系，而做梦受到干忧是有问题的。

　　Lesson 20

　　Snake poison

　　蛇毒

　　What are the two different ways in which snake poison acts?

　　How it came about that snakes manufactured poison is a mystery. Over the periods their saliva, a mild, digestive juice like our own, was converted into a poison that defies analysis even today. It was not forced upon them by the survival competition; they could have caught and lived on prey without using poison, just as the thousands of non-poisonous snakes still do. Poison to a snake is merely a luxury; it enables it to get its food with very little effort, no more effort than one bite. And why only snakes? Cats, for instance, would be greatly helped; no running fights with large, fierce rats or tussles with grown rabbits -- just a bite and no more effort needed. In fact, it would be an assistance to all carnivores though it would be a two-edged weapon when they fought each other. But, of the vertebrates, unpredictable Nature selected only snakes (and one lizard). One wonders saliva into why Nature, with respect from that of others, as other on the blood.

　　In the conversion of saliva into poison, one might suppose that a fixed process took place. It did not; some snakes manufacture a poison different in every respect from that of others, as different as arsenic is from strychnine, and having different effects. One poison acts on the nerves, the other on the blood.

　　The makers of the nerve poison include the mambas and the cobras and their venom is called neurotoxic. Vipers (adders) and rattlesnakes manufacture the blood poison, which is known as haemolytic. Both poisons are unpleasant, but by far the more unpleasant is the blood poison. It is said that the nerve poison is the more primitive of the two, that the blood poison is, so to speak, a newer product from an improved formula. Be that as it may, the nerve poison does its business with man far more quickly than the blood poison. This, however, means nothing. Snakes did not acquire their poison for use against man but for use against prey such as rats and mice, and the effects on these of viperine poison is almost immediate.

　　JOHN CROMPTON The snake

　　New words and expressions 生词和短语

　　saliva

　　n. 唾液

　　digestive

　　adj. 助消化的

　　defy

　　v. 使不可能

　　analysis

　　n. 分析

　　prey

　　n. 被捕食的动物

　　fierce

　　adj. 凶猛的

　　tussle

　　n. 扭打

　　carnivore

　　n. 食肉动物

　　vertebrate

　　n. 脊椎动物

　　lizard

　　n. 蜥蜴

　　concoct

　　v. 调制

　　potency

　　n. 效力

　　conversion

　　n. 转变

　　arsenic

　　n. 砒霜

　　strychnine

　　n. 马钱子碱

　　mamba

　　n. 树眼镜蛇

　　cobra

　　n. 眼镜蛇

　　venom

　　n. 毒液

　　neurotoxic

　　adj. 毒害神经的

　　viper

　　n. 蝰蛇

　　adder

　　n. 蝮蛇

　　rattlesnake

　　n. 响尾蛇

　　haemolytic

　　adj. 溶血性的

　　viperine

　　adj. 毒蛇

　　参考译文

　　蛇是怎样产生毒液的，这是一个谜。蛇的唾液本来和我们人的消化液一样柔和，但经过漫长的时间，演变成了今天仍无法分析清楚的毒液。毒液不是生存竞争强加给它们的，它们也可以不用毒液捕捉动物而生存，就像今天成千上万的无毒蛇那样。毒液对毒蛇来说只不过是一种舒适生存的优越手段，它使蛇不用费多大力气就能捕获到食物，轻咬一口即可。为什么只有蛇才有毒液呢?譬如说，如果猫有毒液，那对猫会大有帮助，它就不必再和又大又凶的老鼠边跑边博斗了，也不必再和大兔子扭斗了，只要咬一口，就不必再费大力气。因此，任何食肉动物有了毒液，都能从中获益。不过，当它们相互撕打时，毒液就成了利弊参半的武，可以杀死对方，也可以被对方的毒液杀死。然而，在脊椎动物中，大自然神秘模测地只选择了蛇(还有一种蜥蜴)，人们弄不清楚大自然为什么在某些蛇的身上调制出如此高效的毒液来。

　　人们可能认为，唾液转变成毒液，其中有固定的程序。其实没有。有些蛇产生的毒液也在各方面与另外一些毒蛇产生的毒液不同，就像砒霜不同于马钱子碱一样。不同毒蛇产生的毒液产生的效果不同，一种毒液作用于神经，另一种毒液作用于血液。

　　产生神经毒液的蛇有一种非洲树眼镜蛇和眼镜蛇，它们的毒液称为神经毒素。蝰蛇(蝮蛇)和响尾蛇产生血液毒素，称为溶血性毒液。这两种毒液都很可怕，但溶血性毒液尤其厉害。据说，神经毒液在两种毒液中是较为原始的一种，而溶血性毒液，打个比方说，是根据改良配方生产的一种较新的产品。不过，神经毒辣液比溶血性毒液在人身上起作用快得多。但是，这没有什么关系，因为蛇有毒液不是用来对付人的，而是对付它的猎物，诸如鼠类，毒液对这些猎物会立刻起作用。

　　Lesson 21

　　William S. Hart and the early 'Western' film

　　威廉.S. 哈特和早期限的‘西部’影片

　　How did William Hart's childhood prepare him for his acting role in Western films?

　　William S. hart was, perhaps, the greatest of all Western stars, fro unlike Gary Cooper and John Wayne he appeared in nothing but Westerns. From 1914 to 1924 he was supreme and unchallenged. It was Hart who created the basic formula of the Western film, and devised the protagonist he played in every film he made, the good-had man, the accidental-noble outlaw, or the honest-but-framed cowboy, or the sheriff made suspect by vicious gossip; in short, the individual in conflict with himself and his frontier environment.

　　Unlike most of his contemporaries in Hollywood, Hart actually knew something of the old West. He had lived in it as a child when it was already disappearing, and his hero was firmly rooted in his memories and experiences, and in both the history and the mythology of the vanished frontier. And although no period or place in American history has been more absurdly romanticized, myth and reality did join hands in at least one arena, the conflict between the individual and encroaching civilization.

　　Men accustomed to struggling for survival against the elements and Indians were bewildered by politicians, bankers and businessmen, and unhorsed by fences, laws and alien taboos. Hart's good-bad man was always an outsider, always one of the disinherited, and if he found it necessary to shoot a sheriff or rob a bank along the way, his early audiences found it easy to understand and forgive, especially when it was Hart who, in the end, overcame the attacking Indians.

　　Audiences in the second decade of the twentieth century found it pleasant to escape to a time when life, though hard, was relatively simple. We still do; living in a world in which undeclared aggression, war, hypocrisy, chicanery, anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by.

　　CARL FOREMAN Virtue and a Fast Gun from The Observer

　　New words and expressions 生词和短语

　　Supreme

　　adj.

　　protagonist

　　n. 主角

　　outlaw

　　n. 逃犯，亡命之徒

　　framed

　　adj. 遭到陷害的

　　vicious

　　adj. 恶毒的

　　mythology

　　n. 神话

　　vanished

　　adj. 消失了的

　　absurdly

　　adv. 荒诞地

　　arena

　　n. 竞技场在

　　encroaching

　　adj. 渐渐渗入的

　　Indian

　　n. 印第安人

　　bewilder

　　v. 使手足无措

　　alien

　　adj. 外来的

　　taboo

　　n. 戒律

　　disinherit

　　v. 剥夺...继承权

　　undeclared

　　adj. 未经宣布的

　　hypocrisy

　　n. 伪善

　　chicanery

　　n. 诈骗

　　impending

　　adj. 迫近的，近在眉睫的

　　immolation

　　n. 杀戮

　　code

　　n. 准则

　　参考译文

　　威廉.S.哈特大概是美国西部电影明星中的佼佼者。他和加里.古柏、约翰.韦恩不同，他只在西部电影中扮演角色。在1914年至1924年期间，他，独霸影坛。正是他创造了西部电影的基调，即在他自己的拍摄的影片中他所塑造的主人公形象：被认为是坏人的好人，出人意料的高尚的逃犯，诚实却遭陷害的牛仔或因流言蜚语蒙受嫌疑的司法官。总之，主人公是一个自相矛盾，又与他的拓荒环境相矛盾的人物。

　　哈特与大部分同时代在好莱坞的演员不同，他确实了解西部早期拓荒生活的一些情况。作为一个孩子他曾在西部生活过，当时西部拓荒生活正在消失。他塑造的英雄人物深深地扎根于他本人的记忆和经历之中，也扎根于有关已经消失的拓荒生活的历史和神话之中。虽然在美国历没有任何时期或地区像西部拓荒时期那样被荒谬地浪漫主义化了，但神话和事实至少在某一个舞台上共存，也就是存在于个人与渐渐闯入的文明这两者的冲突之中。

　　习惯与大自然和印第安人作斗争以求生存的拓荒者被政客、银行家和商人搞得晕头转向，最后被圈地、尖律我外来的清规戒律所击败。哈特扮演的被误为坏人的好人总是一个局外人，总是一个被剥夺继承权的人。如果他认为在进行过程中有必要枪击一个司法官或抢劫一个银行，他的早期观众很容易接受，觉得应该原谅他，特别是当哈特最后战胜了前来进攻的印第安人时，观众更能原谅他。

　　生活在20世纪20年代的观众认为，逃到一个即使艰苦但比较简朴的时代中去是件愉快的事，我们今天仍有这种感觉。如今，不宣而战的侵略、战争、虚伪、诈骗、无政府状态以及即将临头的毁灭成了我们日常生活的一部分，我们都希望有一个赖以生存的行为准则。

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