全新版大学英语UNIT-3课文翻译及课后答案.doc

UNIT 3 Text A Maia Szalavitz, formerly a television producer, now spends her time as a writer. In this essay she explores digital reality and its consequences. Along the way, she compares the digital world to the "real" world, acknowledging the attractions of the electronic dimension.迈亚·塞拉维茨曾是电视制片人，目前从事写作她在本文中摸索了数字化世界及其后果与此同步，她将数字化世界与真实世界做了比较，承认电子空间自有其魅力 A Virtual Life Maia SzalavitzAfter too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend's Liverpool accent suddenly becomes impossible to interpret after his easily understood words on screen; a secretary's clipped tone seems more rejecting than I'd imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid — hours become minutes, or seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days. 虚拟世界的生活 迈亚·塞拉维茨在网上呆了太久，听到铃声也会吓一大跳。

显示屏上看多了我男朋友那些一目了然的文字，她的利物浦口音一下子变得难以听懂；而秘书的清脆迅速的语调听上去比我想像的要生硬时间自身变得捉摸不定——几小时变成几分钟，或几秒钟延伸为几天周末原本是我一周的黄金时段，目前却但是是平平常常的两天For the last three years, since I stopped working as a television producer, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via email and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is also computer-assisted.在我不再当电视制片人的这三年间，我的大部分工作都是在家里使用计算机终端进行的我通过电子邮件投稿和校订，运用互联网上的邮件列表与同行交流我男朋友住在英国，因此两人的关系也在很大限度上借助于电脑维系。

If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the endless snowstorm of '96 on TV.我要是乐意的话，可以一连几种星期不出门而什么也不缺我可以在网上订购食品、网上理财、网上恋爱、网上工作事实上我有时独自呆在家里长达三个星期，只偶尔出去拿信、买报纸及日用品1996年那一场接一场的暴风雪我大都是在电视上看到的But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I've become one with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another link in the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to feel an aversion to outside forms of socializing. We have become the Net critics' worst nightmare.然而，一段时间之后，生活自身就显得不那么真实了。

我开始觉得自己似乎与机器融为一体了，我接受信息，再发送出去，就犹如互联网的一种连接点其她上网的人也谈到了同样的症状我们开始厌恶外面的社交方式我们的状况成了批评互联网的人们最胆怯见到的一幕What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become a form of escape, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.一下床就上机，不再为发型、服饰、面部化妆烦心，起初看似奢华的享有如今却成为一种对生活的逃避，一种缺少自律的体现你一旦开始用网络交际取代人与人的真实接触，要走出这种穴居状态就会相称困难I find myself shyer, more cautious, more anxious. Or, conversely, when suddenly confronted with real live humans, I get overexcited, speak too much, interrupt. I constantly worry if I am dressed appropriately, that perhaps I've actually forgotten to put on a skirt and walked outside in the T-shirt and underwear I sleep and live in.我发现自己变得比此前怯生、谨慎、焦急。

或者，反过来，当我忽然面对现实中活生生的人时，会变得过于兴奋，说个不断，爱打断别人的发言我老是紧张自己衣着与否得体，紧张自己会不会真的忘了穿裙子，只穿着夜间睡觉、白天活动时穿的那件T恤和内衣就出门了At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to talk away in the background, something that I'd never done previously. The voices of the programs are comforting, but then I'm jarred by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. "Dateline," "Frontline," "Nightline," CNN, New York 1, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves into the background. I decide to check my email.有时我把电视机开着，让它作为背景声音始终响着，此前我从不这样做。

电视节目中的说话声让人感到宽慰，可那些广告又叫我心烦我发现自己沉浸在肥皂剧里，或者不断地收看最新的新闻报道和天气预报一而再再而三地从“每日新闻”、“一线新闻”、“夜间新闻”、 有线新闻电视网、纽约一套上收看有关每一条新闻的多种不同视角的报道，尽管它们对我毫无用处工作成了次要的我决定去看一下自己的电子信箱On line, I find myself attacking everyone in sight. I am bad-tempered, and easily angered. I find everyone on my mailing list insensitive, believing that they've forgotten that there are people actually reading their wounding remarks. I don't realize that I'm projecting until after I've been embarrassed by someone who politely points out that I've attacked her for agreeing with me.在网上，我发现自己见谁攻谁。

我脾气暴躁，动辄气愤我觉得我与之通信的每一种人都麻木不仁，觉得她们已经忘却尚有人真会去读她们那些刻薄伤人的言辞直到有人礼貌地指出，她批准我的观点却遭到我的抨击时，我才意识到，自己是在以己度人，不由得深感尴尬When I'm in this state, I fight my boyfriend as well, misinterpreting his intentions because of the lack of emotional cues given by our typed dialogue. The fight takes hours, because the system keeps crashing. I say a line, then he does, then crash! And yet we keep on, doggedly.在这种精神状态下，我也和男朋友吵架，常因键出的。