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What Does Friendship Mean to You?

时间:2005-05-04 16:00:00

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(单词翻译)

Lesson 20

                          What Does Friendship Mean to You?

                                             Text A
Mr Brooks1, Martin, Robert and Jean are being interviewed on subject of friendship. Mr BROOKS:   I consider friendship to be one of the most important things in
   life-whatever your status, married or single. I see too many lonely people
   around. A lot of us get so involved with material values, family problems,
   'keeping up  with the Joneses,' etc. , that we forget the real meaning
    of friendship.
INTERVIEWER:   Which is what., according to you?
R BROOKS:   They say `a friend in need is a friend.indeed' which is partly true, but a  
   real friend should also be able to share your happy moments- without feeling
   jealous. A good friendship is one where you accept and forgive faults,
   understand moods, and don't feel hurt if a friend doesn't feel like seeing
   you. Of course, honesty is an essential part of any reIationship. We
   should learn to accept our friends for what they are.
INTERVIEWER:   As a married man, do you find your frier ships are only with other men?
MR BROOKS:   Of course not! Both my wife and I have m and women friends-thank goodness.   
   ALthouhg family life is fulfilling, it isn't nough! Both my wife and I get
   tremendc satisfaction from our friends, married a single, male and
   female-and we both ha our separate friends too. We'd get bored with each
   other if we had the same friends!
INTERVIEWER:   You must have a full life.
MR BROOKS:   We certainly do! And as I say, our friends give us a lot of pleasure. After 
   all, friends should not be people with whom .you kill time. Real friendship,
   in my opinion, is a 'spiritually developing' experience.(Martin, Robert and
   Jean are being interviewed on the subject of friendship. )
INTERVIEWER:   How important are friends to you, Martin?
MARTIN:   I've never had a lot of friends. I've never regarded them as particularly
   important.Perhaps that's because I come from a big famil Two brothers
   and three sisters. And lots cousins. And that's what's really important me.
   My family. The different members of my family. If you really need help,
   you get from your family, don't you? Well, at least that's what I've always
   found.
INTERVIEWER:   What about you, Jean?
JEAN:   To me friendship... having friends, people I know I can really count on...
   to me that's the most important thing in life. It's more important even than .
   love If you love someone, you can always fall out of love again , and that 
   can leadto a lot of hurt feelings , bitterness, and so on. But a good a
   friend is a friend for life.
INTERVIEWER:   And what exactly do you mean by a friend?
JEAN:   Well, I've alreadys said, someone you know you can count on. I suppose what I 
   really mean is... let's see, how am I going to put this . . . it's someone who
   wili help you if you need help, who'il listen to you when you talk about you
   problems... someone you can trust.
INTERVIEWER:   What do you mean by a friend, Robert?
ROBERT:   Someone who likes the same things that you
   do, who you can argue with and not lose your temper, even if you don't always
   agree about things. I mean someone who you don't have to talk to
   all the time but can be silent with perhaps. That's important, too.
   You can just sit together and not say very much sometimes. Just relax.
   I don't like people who talk all the time.
INTERVIEWER:   Are you very good at keeping in touch with your friends if you don't see
   them regularly?
ROBERT:   No, not always. I've lived in lots of piaces,
   and , to be honest , once I move away I often do drift out of touch with my or
   friends. And I'm not a very good letter writer, either. Never have been. But
   I know that if I saw those friends again, if I ever moved back to the same
   place, for some other reason we got back into close contact again, I'm sure
   the friendship would be just as strong as it was before.
JEAN:   Several of my friends have moved away, got married, things like that. One       
   of my friends has had a baby recently, and I'll admit I don't see her or 
   hearfrom her as much as I uesd to.... She lives in another neighbourhood and  
   whenI phone her, she always seems busy. But that's an exception. I write a
   lot of letters to my friends and get a lot of letters from them. I have a
   friend I went to school with and ten years ago she emigrated to Canada,
   but she still writes to me every mom and I write to her just as often.
 

                                            Text B

                                   A Friend in Need of Help

    You and Sol have been friends for over fifteen years. You went to high school together and now work in the same company pany. For the past several months , Sol has been very irritable3 and at times has shown his emotions by openly criticizing the company and some of his fellow workers. Most of the people in the office know that he sometimes drinks too much when he feels depressed4 about some of his personal and family problems.


    But recently Sol made a very nasty personal comment which hurt'one of the people in the office. No one said anything to him, but it was obvious that many people were angry at what he said and now have little sympathy for him .


    You are beginning to wonder whether you should say something to Sol. You don't consider him your best friend, but he might possibly lose his job because you didn't try to help him. On the other hand, you don't know whether Sol would think that you were interfering5 in his privatu iife by talking about his personal problems.
    What would you do in this situation?


                                Additioaal Information

    In fact, studies of friendship seem to implicate6 more eomplex factors. For exampte, one function friendship seems to futfil is that it supports the image we have of ourselves, and confirms the value of the attitudes we hold. Certainly we appear to project ourselves onto our friends; several studies have shown that we judge them to be more like us than they (objectively) are.

This suggests that we ought to choose friends who are similar to us ( 'birds of a feather' ) rather than those who would be complementary ( 'opposites attract' ) , a prediction which is supported by empirical evidence , at least so far as attitudes and beliefs are concerned. In one experiment, some developing friendships were monitored amongst first-year students living in the same hostel7.

It was found that similarity of attitudes (towards politics, religion and ethics8, pastimes and aesthetics) was a good predictor of what friendships would be established by the end of four months, though it had less to do with initial alliances - not surprisingly, since attitudes may not be obvious on first inspection9.


    There have also been studies of pairings, both voluntary (married couples) ples ) and forced (student roommates ) , to see which remained together and which split up. Again, the evidence seems to favour similarity rather than complementarity as an omen2 of a successful relationship, though there is a complication: where marriage is concerned, once the field has been narrowed down to potential mates who come from similar backgrounds and share a broad range of attitudes and values, a degree of complementarity seems to become desirable.

When a couple are not just similar but almost identical, something else seems to be needed. Similarity can breed contempt; it has also been found that when we find others obnoxious10, we dislike them more if they are like us than when they are dissimilar!


    The difficulty of linking friendship with similarity of personality probably reflects the complexity11 of our personalities12: we have many facets13 and therefore require a disparate group of friends to support us. This of course can explain why we may have two close friends who have little in common, and indeed dislike each other. By and large, though, it looks as though we would do well to choose friends (and spouses) who resemble us. If this were not so, computer dating agencies would have gone out of business years ago.


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1 brooks cdbd33f49d2a6cef435e9a42e9c6670f     
n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时,狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了,今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》
2 omen N5jzY     
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示
参考例句:
  • The superstitious regard it as a bad omen.迷信的人认为那是一种恶兆。
  • Could this at last be a good omen for peace?这是否终于可以视作和平的吉兆了?
3 irritable LRuzn     
adj.急躁的;过敏的;易怒的
参考例句:
  • He gets irritable when he's got toothache.他牙一疼就很容易发脾气。
  • Our teacher is an irritable old lady.She gets angry easily.我们的老师是位脾气急躁的老太太。她很容易生气。
4 depressed xu8zp9     
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的
参考例句:
  • When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
  • His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。
5 interfering interfering     
adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词
参考例句:
  • He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事!
  • I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预,让我自己拿主意。
6 implicate JkPyo     
vt.使牵连其中,涉嫌
参考例句:
  • He didn't find anything in the notebooks to implicate Stu.他在笔记本中没发现任何涉及斯图的东西。
  • I do not want to implicate you in my problem of the job.我工作上的问题不想把你也牵扯进来。
7 hostel f5qyR     
n.(学生)宿舍,招待所
参考例句:
  • I lived in a hostel while I was a student.我求学期间住在青年招待所里。
  • He says he's staying at a Youth Hostel.他说他现住在一家青年招待所。
8 ethics Dt3zbI     
n.伦理学;伦理观,道德标准
参考例句:
  • The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
  • Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。
9 inspection y6TxG     
n.检查,审查,检阅
参考例句:
  • On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查,发现肉变质了。
  • The soldiers lined up for their daily inspection by their officers.士兵们列队接受军官的日常检阅。
10 obnoxious t5dzG     
adj.极恼人的,讨人厌的,可憎的
参考例句:
  • These fires produce really obnoxious fumes and smoke.这些火炉冒出来的烟气确实很难闻。
  • He is the most obnoxious man I know.他是我认识的最可憎的人。
11 complexity KO9z3     
n.复杂(性),复杂的事物
参考例句:
  • Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
  • The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。
12 personalities ylOzsg     
n. 诽谤,(对某人容貌、性格等所进行的)人身攻击; 人身攻击;人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
  • Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。
13 facets f954532ea6a2c241dcb9325762a2a145     
n.(宝石或首饰的)小平面( facet的名词复数 );(事物的)面;方面
参考例句:
  • The question had many facets. 这个问题是多方面的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • A fully cut brilliant diamond has 68 facets. 经过充分切刻的光彩夺目的钻石有68个小平面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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