翻译硕士考研者,在暑期阶段需要看双语阅读文章,来提升阅读水平和翻译能力。下面,北京文都考研网为助力翻译硕士学子们在备考上一臂之力,整理了MTI双语阅读精选文章:更适合的设计,供考生参考。
2020考研MTI双语阅读精选:更适合的设计
BEFORE 2016, Hiroki Takeuchi had not really thought about the difficulties faced by someone in a wheelchair. But while cycling near Regents Park in London he had an accident that paralysed him from the chest down. He was in hospital for three months and when he did return to work he could manage only one day a week. It took 18 months for him to rebuild his strength.
在2016以前,武内宏树从未真正思考过一个乘坐轮椅的人面临的各种不便。可是,他在伦敦摄政公园附近骑车时,发生了一次意外事故,导致胸部及胸部以下瘫痪。住院三个月后,他重返工作岗位,却发现自己每周只能工作一天。只要18个月后才恢复了力气。
One consolation for Mr Takeuchi was his work environment and the support it gave. That was because he ran his own company—GoCardless, which processes direct-debit payments for businesses. The firm’s board waited patiently while his health improved. It also helped that the business could move offices. At the previous site, the desks were tightly packed and it was difficult to manoeuvre a wheelchair. The new office is more open and has parking spaces, so he can drive a specially adapted car to work. He comes in later than others, as it takes a long time to get ready in the morning.
令武内宏树感到辛慰的是,他的工作环境及其给予的支持。公司是他自己经营的,名为“无卡化”,为企业处理直接借记付款。董事会耐心地等待他的健康状况好转,也促使公司办公地点搬迁。在以前的办公室,办公桌排放紧凑,轮椅很难转运。新的办公地点空间更加开阔并带有停车位置,他可以驾驶一辆经过特别改装的车上班,同时,因为早上需要更多的准备时间,所以他的上班时间也比其他人晚。
Few disabled people have such an accommodating workplace. In 2015, 35% of Americans with physical disabilities were employed, compared with 62% of those without. A recent survey by the Toyota Mobility Foundation of 575 wheelchair users across five countries (America, Brazil, Britain, India and Japan) found that 39% had been unable to work because of mobility problems. Only 4% felt they had suffered no negative effects while working or job-hunting.
没多少残疾人能享受到这样一个舒适的工作场所。2015年,美国的残疾人士的就业率是35%,未就业率高达62%。丰田移动基金会最近对五个国家(美国、巴西、英国、印度和日本)的575名轮椅使用者进行的一项调查发现,有39%的人因行动不便而无法工作。只有4%的人认为他们在工作或者求职期间从未受到过不良影响。
Even the most treasured employees face difficulties. August de los Reyes is a designer who works for Google, having previously been employed by Pinterest and Microsoft. When he was at Microsoft, he had an accident that broke his back, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. He is fortunate to have a powered wheelchair and nursing assistants that can help him get to work. But travelling for business now is much harder than it used to be, he says; planes cram more people in, for instance. His wheelchair needs 1.5 metres to turn 360 degrees, making cramped spaces very tricky.
即使是一些优秀员工也困难重重。August de los Reyes是谷歌的一名设计师,此前曾受雇于Pinerest和微软。在微软时,他曾遭遇了一次意外,致使背部断裂,胸部以下瘫痪。然而,幸运地是,他拥有一个动力轮椅和护理助理帮助他返回工作。不过,比起以往,他表示如今出差对于他来说变得更加艰难;如乘坐飞机的人更多了。他的轮椅需要1.5米的空间才能转动360度,在狭窄的空间里会变得非常棘手。
Mr de los Reyes’s difficulties emphasise the importance of his area of expertise: design. Disability, he argues, is simply a mismatch between a person’s ability and their environment. In that sense, disability is designed into the world. Imagine that your home had been built by cats. Entrances and exits would be small flaps; that is all a cat would need. Humans would be trapped inside, rendered immobile by a particular environment.
de los Reyes所面临的困难恰好反映了他专业领域的重要性:设计。他认为,行为不便只是一个人的能力与环境之间的不匹配。也就是说,行为不便是这个世界的一部分。想象一下,如果你的家是由猫来建造,那所有的出入口会又小又扁平,因为这些都是猫生存中所需要的东西。如果是这样的话,特殊的环境将人会困在其中,限制了行动。
In her book, “Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design”, Kat Holmes recounts a wartime example of how a rigid approach to design can go wrong. America’s Air Force took the bodily measurements of its pilots and used the average to design the cockpit. After many unexpected crashes, a researcher took ten of the most important measures and found out how many of 4,000 pilots matched all of them. The answer: zero. Instead of forcing everyone to conform to the average, the best approach was to make the seat adjustable.
在《Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design》一书中,凯特﹒福尔摩斯讲述了一个发生在战争时期的例子,证明僵化死板的设计方法造成的恶果。美国空军测量了飞行员的身材,用平均身材数据设计飞机驾驶舱。在发生了多次意外坠机事件后,一名研究人员在最重要的尺寸当中选取了10项,用于找出4000名飞行员当中有多少人是符合所有尺寸要求。最终的结果是零。设计飞机驾驶舱的最佳方式是将座椅设计成是可调整大小,而不是强制要求每个飞行员达到平均值。
Wheelchair ramps are probably the most obvious example of a design change aimed at making environments more inclusive. But several everyday objects and processes have their origins in approaches designed to deal with disability. The original intent of the TV remote control was to help people with limited mobility. Vint Cerf created some of the early email protocols in part to find a way to communicate with his wife; he was hard of hearing and she was deaf. Some of the drive to develop speech recognition and voice commands came from the need to help disabled people.
设计改变让环境更具包容性,最显著的一个例子就是轮椅缓坡。可是,一些日常生活中的物品和制作工序的最初目的就是解决行为不变。电视机遥控器的最初目的是为了帮助行动不变的人。温顿·瑟夫开发了一些早期的电子邮件协议,一个原因是为了能和妻子交流——他有听力有障碍,他的妻子则听不见。推动言音识别以及声控的开发有一定程度是源于需要帮助残疾人士。
Ms Holmes says the ideal is “universal design”, which creates an environment that can be used in the widest possible range of situations without any need for adaptation. For disabled workers, this means that all the elements of a workplace need to be accessible: entrances, lifts, meeting rooms, coffee facilities and, not least, toilets. If it is difficult for people to travel to meetings, firms must provide videoconferencing. And disability is not just about mobility. People with poor vision can be helped by increasing the colour contrasts on computer displays, for example.
福尔摩斯提出,最理想的方式就是”普适性设计”,即创造一种无需做出适应调整,在尽可能适用于最为宽泛的场合。这对于那些行为不变的工人来说,意味着他们可以使用工作场合中的所有要素:入口、电梯、会议室、茶水间以及厕所。如果一些人在很远的地方,赶来开会有困难的话,企业必须要提供视频会议。残疾不仅仅是局限于身体行动。比如说,可以通过电脑展示中的颜色对比程度,帮助那些视力有缺陷的人。
Unless employers are aware of these problems, however, they will not try to solve them. And unless they hire people who are disabled, they will not find out how helpful innovative design can actually be. In the right businesses, such as consumer electronics, that unfamiliar perspective could even help companies come up with better products.
但是,只有雇佣者能意识到这些问题,不然他们是不会动手解决这些问题的。只有他们雇佣那些残疾人,不然他们不会发现这些创新性的设计在现实生活中作用是多么大。在当前的行业中,例如消费类电子行业,常人不习惯的视角甚至有助于企业研发设计出更好的产品。
以上是北京文都考研网给出的“2020考研MTI双语阅读精选文章:更适合的设计”,希望对翻译硕士考生有所帮助!祝2020考研金榜题名!
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