社會雜談：語言和數(shù)字的關聯(lián).

　　Being able to speak a language is the key to understanding numbers,scientists have discovered. A research project found that deaf people who had not learned a language containing symbols used for counting were unable to comprehend any number greater than three. Experts said the reason was that they had not studied the familiar "count list" of one to ten that most people are taught when they are young.

　　科學家們已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)，語言能力的高低是理解數(shù)字的關鍵。一項研究項目顯示，失聰?shù)娜藳]有掌握關于語言符號的情況下，認識的數(shù)字不超過3個。專家分析，這其中的原因主要在于這些失聰?shù)娜嗽谀暧椎臅r候沒有學會1到10該怎樣數(shù)。

　　Children learn such a sequence even bore they know what it means and it stays hard wired into their brain for the rest of their lives. The study is the first to identify the link between language and numeracy and was carried out by researchers at the University of Chicago.

　　兒童在開始學習數(shù)數(shù)時，只是按照順序一個一個數(shù)下來，甚至并不知道這些數(shù)字所表示的意義。然而，這些數(shù)字好比硬性數(shù)據(jù)一樣存儲到他們的大腦硬盤中讓他們在以后的生活中發(fā)揮作用。據(jù)悉，這個關于數(shù)字與語言的聯(lián)系方面的研究是由芝加哥大學的研究人員領頭的。

　　They studied deafi people from Nicaragua who had created their own unique sign language to talk to one another. These so called homesigners’did have numbers in their culture including a monetary system, so any differences they exhibited wound have to solely be due to language.

　　科學家對來自尼加拉瓜的聾啞人做研究時發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們創(chuàng)造了自己獨特的手語，將所要表達的意思傳達給另一個人，這個被稱之為他們自己的表達系統(tǒng)就是一種數(shù)字文化，包含貨幣系統(tǒng)。因此，接受試驗的人所表現(xiàn)出來的不同都應歸因于他們的語言表達能力的差異。

　　The first test involved asking them to answer which had the most value out of a 10-unit, 20-unit and 100-unit coin.

　　第一個試驗就是讓受試者區(qū)分10個貨幣單位、20個貨幣單位和100個貨幣單位的貨幣，哪個更有價值。

　　As they were familiar with their money, the test subjects were able to answer each question correctly.

　　因為他們非常熟悉他們所用的貨幣，所以測驗中的這類問題，他們都能很準確地回答上來。

　　Things changed when were shown an animated video in which numbers played a key part, such as a story with ten sheep in a pen.

　　當研究人員在他們眼前播放一個畫面活躍的視頻，并且其中數(shù)字起著關鍵作用，類似于講述一個10只羊圈在圍欄里的故事，情況就發(fā)生變化了。

　　The researchers then asked the subjects to retell the story to a friend using their homesigns but as the numbers got bigger, they had increasing difficulty in making an accurate gesture with their hands.

　　看完后，研究人員要求受試者用他們的“表達系統(tǒng)”像他們的一個朋友復述這個故事，但是隨著數(shù)字越來越大，他們的手指很難描繪出確切的意思，他們表達起來愈發(fā)費勁。

　　Finally, the test subjects were shown cards with different numbers of items on them and asked to give a gesture that represented the number of items

　　在最后一個試驗，研究人員給測試者出示了一系列繪有數(shù)字的卡片，然后讓他們用手語將卡片上的數(shù)字表達出來。

　　The homesigners were accurate only up to the number three,

　　結(jié)果是，他們能準確表達的數(shù)字最高是“3"。

　　The research team concluded that the problem understanding large numbers was not due to an inability to communicate them, but because they could not think about them.

　　研究小組得出的結(jié)論是:理解這種較大數(shù)字的障礙就在于語言的溝通，而這對他們來說是不可能的。

　　Susan Goldin Meadow, a professor in psychology at Chicago University, said:It's not just the vocaibuiary words that matter, but understanding the relationships that underlie the words一the fact that "eight" is one more than "seven" and one less than "nine", Without having a set of number words to guide them, deaf homesigners in the study failed to understand that numbers build on each other in value.

　　來自芝加哥大學的心理學家蘇珊·戈爾丁·梅多說:“語言表達能力強，指的不僅僅是詞匯量的問題，更是理解到數(shù)字下更深層次的含義—事實就是+g”要比“7”大，比“9”小。沒有一系列的基礎數(shù)字去引導他們，聾啞人的表達是無法理解建構在此的數(shù)字的意義的?！?/p>