剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译-Test 2-Passage 3

在网上买了Cambridge Enlish教材，看到剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译这篇文章就会明白到玩耍的重要性，开始看Cambridge Enlish这些教材时好多单词不认识，只好在手机上安装app一个一个单词的查，笔者开始看这个教材时没有按照顺序看，拿着剑桥雅思4书就开始了。

但看到阅读时，一是太长，二是好多单词不认识，于是为了加深理解，将教材自已用 google 翻译出来放这，帮助有需要的人。

提示：google 翻译[cn域名]2022年10月已经不能使用，如果你有上网工具，可以使用com域名的google翻译，https://translate.google.com/

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剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译-Test 2-Passage 3

雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译

剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译-Test 2-Passage 3 讲述了玩耍对动物和人类的重要性。文章从玩耍的危害出发，指出既然玩耍有这些坏处，为什么动物还要这样子做。然后提出各种理论进行解释，如玩耍会刺激大脑发育，玩耍会激活高级认知活动等。以下是剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译-Test 2-Passage 3中文翻译：

Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play-fighting or kittens teasing a ball of string aren’t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there’s much more to it than that. For a start, play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty percent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three percent of their energy cavorting, and in children, that figure can be closer to fifteen percent. ‘Even two or three percent is huge,’ says John Byers of Idaho University. ‘You just don’t find animals wasting energy like that,’ he adds. There must be a reason.

玩耍是项十分重要的事情。孩子沉浸在自己幻想的世界中，狐狸幼崽嬉戏打闹，小猫拨弄线球，这些行为都不是单纯的为了娱乐。玩耍看起来像是成年努力工作时期到来之前的一种无忧无虑，精力充沛的打发时间方式。但它的意义远不止如此。首先，玩耍甚至会使动物丧命。幼年海豹中有 80% 的死亡是因为玩耍的幼崽未能发现正在靠近的掠食者。就能量而言，它也是极其昂贵的。玩耍的幼小动物消耗的能量大约占其总能量的2%到3%。而在儿童中，这一比例可能接近15 ％。 “即使是 2% 或 3% 也是巨大的，”爱达荷大学的约翰拜尔斯说。 “你不会发现动物会像那样浪费能量，”他补充道。一定是有原因的。

剑桥雅思4 Play is a Serious Business 翻译-Test 2-Passage 3

But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? The latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you intelligent. Playfulness, it seems, is common only among mammals, although a few of the larger-brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs – tail-wagging in dogs, for example – to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behaviour is not really in earnest. A popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt, mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent years.

但是，如果玩耍不仅仅是像生物学家曾经认为的那样只是一个发育障碍，那么它为什么会进化呢？最新的观点表明，玩耍的演变是为了构建发达的大脑。换句话说，玩会让你变得聪明。嬉戏似乎只在哺乳动物中很常见，尽管一些脑容量较大的鸟类也会沉迷。玩耍的动物经常使用独特的标志——例如，狗摇尾巴——来表明表面上与成年动物相似的行为并不是真的如此。关于玩耍的一种流行解释是，它可以帮助幼年期的动物锻炼他们成年之后所需要的捕猎、求偶以及社交技能。另一个原因是，它可以通过提升幼小动物的呼吸耐力来锻炼成年后的体型。这两种想法近年来都受到质疑。

Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training, then you would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the benefits of increased exercise disappear rapidly after training stops, so any improvement in endurance resulting from juvenile play would be lost by adulthood. ‘If the function of play was to get into shape,’ says Byers, ‘the optimum time for playing would depend on when it was most advantageous for the young of a particular species to do so. But it doesn’t work like that.’ Across species, play tends to peak about halfway through the suckling stage and then decline.

以运动理论为例。如果玩耍演变为锻炼肌肉或作为一种耐力训练，那么您将期望看到永久的好处。但Byers 指出，增加运动的好处在训练停止后会迅速消失，因此青少年玩耍带来的任何耐力改善都会在成年后消失。 “如果玩耍的功能是塑造体型，” Byers 说，“玩耍的最佳时间将取决于特定物种的幼崽何时这样做最有利。但它不会那样工作。’ 在不同的物种中，玩耍往往在哺乳阶段的一半左右达到顶峰，然后下降。

Then there’s the skills-training hypothesis. At first, glance, playing animals do appear to be practising the complex manoeuvres they will need in adulthood. But a closer inspection reveals this interpretation as too simplistic. In one study, behavioural ecologist Tim Caro, from the University of California, looked at the predatory play of kittens and their predatory behaviour when they reached adulthood. He found that the way the cats played had no significant effect on their hunting prowess in later life.

然后是技能培训假说。乍一看，玩耍的动物似乎正在练习成年后所需的复杂动作。但仔细观察会发现这种解释过于简单化。在一项研究中，来自加利福尼亚大学的行为生态学家Tim Caro观察了小猫的捕食行为以及它们成年后的捕食行为。他发现猫的玩耍方式对它们以后的捕食行为没有显着影响。

Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada, reported that there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general. Comparing measurements for fifteen orders of mammal, he and his team found larger brains (for a given body size) are linked to greater playfulness. The converse was also found to be true. Robert Barton of Durham University believes that, because large brains are more sensitive to developmental stimuli than smaller brains, they require more play to help mould them for adulthood. ‘I concluded it’s to do with learning, and with the importance of environmental data to the brain during development,’ he says.

今年早些时候，加拿大莱斯布里奇大学的Sergio Pellis报告说，一般哺乳动物的大脑大小和嬉戏之间存在很强的积极联系。他和他的团队比较了十五种哺乳动物的测量结果，发现更大的大脑（对于给定的体型）与更大的嬉戏有关。反之亦然。达勒姆大学的罗伯特·巴顿（Robert Barton）认为，由于大一点的大脑比小一点的大脑对发育刺激更为敏感，因此他们需要更多的玩耍来帮助他们成长。“我的结论是它与学习有关，与发育过程中环境对大脑的重要性有关” 他说。

According to Byers, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to what’s going on. If you plot the amount of time a juvenile devotes to play each day over the course of its development, you discover a pattern typically associated with a ‘sensitive period’ – a brief development window during which the brain can actually be modified in ways that are not possible earlier or later in life. Think of the relative ease with which young children- but not infants or adults – absorb language. Other researchers have found that play in cats, rats and mice is at its most intense just as this ‘window of opportunity’ reaches its peak.

据Byers说，幼龄动物玩耍阶段的时机为正在发生什么提供了重要的线索。如果你绘制出幼龄动物在发育过程中每天在玩耍上花费的时间，你会发现通常与“敏感期”相关的模式-一个短暂的发育窗口。在此期间，大脑实际上通过某种在生命早期和晚期都不太可能的方式进行调整。想想幼儿（不是婴儿或成人）学习语言的轻易性。其他研究者发现，在这种“机会之窗” 达到顶峰之时，猫、老鼠和小白鼠的玩耍也最为激烈。

‘People have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,’ says Marc Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoff studied coyote pups at play and found that the kind of behaviour involved was markedly more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. Such behaviour activates many different parts of the brain, he reasons. Bekoff likens it to a behavioural kaleidoscope, with animals at play jumping rapidly between activities. ‘They use behaviour from a lot of different contexts – predation, aggression, reproduction,’ he says. ‘Their developing brain is getting all sorts of stimulation.’

科罗拉多大学的Marc Bekoff 说：“人们对游戏激活的大脑数量没有给予足够的关注。” Bekoff 研究了玩耍的土狼幼崽，发现其所涉及的行为明显比成年人的行为更加多变和不可预测。他解释说，这种行为会激活大脑的许多不同部分。 Bekoff 将其比作一个行为万花筒，其中的动物在活动之间快速跳跃。 “他们使用来自许多不同背景的行为——捕食、侵略、繁殖，”他说。 “他们正在发育的大脑正在受到各种刺激。”

Not only is more of the brain involved in play than was suspected, but it also seems to activate higher cognitive processes. ‘There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play,’ says Bekoff. He points out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates, ideas of reciprocity and the use of specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of a particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights everything up,’ he says. By allowing link-ups between brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other, play may enhance creativity.

不仅有人怀疑玩耍会涉及更多的大脑部分，而且它似乎也激发高级认知过程。“玩耍包含了大量的认知活动”，贝科夫说。他指出，玩耍通常涉及对玩伴的复杂评估，对互惠观念的认识，以及对信号和规则使用。他认为玩耍为以后的生活创造出一个拥有更大灵活性、更高学习潜力的大脑。葛底斯堡学院的斯蒂芬·西维（Stephen Siviy）的研究也支持这一说法。西维研究了玩耍如何影响大脑中与神经细胞刺激和生长有关的特定化学物质的水平。他对刺激的幅度感到经验。“玩耍点亮了一切”，他说。通过将大脑中平时不怎么可能交流的区域联系起来，游戏可能可以增强创造力。

What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?

关于当今许多社会中儿童成长方式的进一步实验可能提出什么建议？我们已经知道，被剥夺玩耍机会的老鼠的大脑较小，并且在与同伴互动时未能发展出运用社会规则的能力。随着上学时间的提前和考试导向的加深，玩耍的机会可能会更少。谁知道这样做的结果是什么？