经济学人:数字式家谱
日期:2013-09-13 12:08

(单词翻译:单击)

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Digital family trees

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数字式家谱

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This little isle

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大不列颠这个小岛

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A new website celebrates connections between Britons

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一个新成立的网站对大不列颠关系网欣喜不已

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TRACING family trees is a popular British pastime. Television programmes show celebrities rummaging through old census documents. Websites help amateur sleuths track down distant relatives. A new project launched on August 26th provides another twist to the obsession.

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追踪家谱是大不列颠一项流行的消遣方式!+K,D^JZy^Cd。电视节目总是播放着名人们为寻亲而不断查找老旧的人口普查资料的信息yR4|v;)]ckg。网站帮助业余侦探寻找人们的远房亲戚WgzI)r^x@%m~V7。一个在8月26号新建的项目则带来了一股扭曲的热潮T^~Dt52Bj(ZGfU~

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“KindredBritain” is a website launched by Nicholas Jenkins, an English professor atStanfordUniversityinCalifornia. The project grew out of Professor Jenkins’s research into both his own background and that of W.H. Auden, a 20th-century poet. The website now holds entries on nearly 30,000 Britons. Visitors to the website trace relations between different people using clear infographics and interactive tools. Admirals, bankers, poets, painters, lawyers and politicians are all in the mix. Unlike traditional family trees, these include bigamists, same-sex couples and illegitimate children.

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“同族的英国人”是由尼古拉斯·詹金斯创办的,他是位于加州斯坦福大学的教授ctr;*[wQ.,LD。创建这个网站的灵感来源于詹金斯教授对自己身世的追溯和对20世纪诗人奥登本经的调查研究*DP#Dv*k7TH%YybY51。现在这个网站在英国已有近3万访问量W]U34*WxJO~h。进入网站的访客使用清晰的信息图表和交互工具来追踪人们之间的关系,@snEH,|A7。船队队长、银行家、诗人、画家、律师以及政治家都包括在其中+JU^DS86p-!s。有别于以往的家谱,这项项目包括重婚者、同性恋以及私生子*mwKN_7_dbA8

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The project is an intriguing example of the “digital humanities”. Scholars are starting to interact with coders and website designers to make their research more accessible and data publicly available.

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这个项目是“数字人文”的一个有趣的例子3NDt@ciL-Vmfi。学者们开始和编码员以及网站设计师就同族英国人项目进行交流来使寻亲搜索更加可靠,寻亲信息更加公开化L%ZSkjjx)PgVZV

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Certain affinities appear in the data. Poets are often related to each other whereas novelists tend to be linked by marriage. T.S. Eliot, a 20th-century American-born poet, is a distant cousin of the British bards Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley (a link presumably unknown to Eliot). In contrast links between Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, perhaps the two most famous 19th-century novelists, are through several generations of marriages. As characters in novels are more meritocratic, so too are novelists.

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在数据中,一些亲缘关系出现了iGiuGYrGo@]e=[K^lIT。诗人往往是相互关联的,而小说家一般是通过婚姻来挂钩#8T]!XbF@ZdxFq。20世纪出生在美国的诗人艾略特是英国吟游诗人阿尔佛雷德、坦尼森、拜伦、波比·雪莱等的远亲表弟,(这层关系艾略特应该不知道)UGIddm5t0X.3。与之形成对比的是,可称之为19世纪最著名的两位小说家简奥斯汀和狄更斯之间的关系是通过好几代婚姻来建立的lSCnKE9Xs%ws24。因为小说中的人物更加精英化,所以他们自己也是小说家yUQe%BP_~j_N7n

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Other connections are more unexpected. Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured), an American actress, is linked by marriage to A.C. Swinburne, a Victorian poet who dabbled in sadomasochistic verses. David Cameron, the prime minister, is distantly connected to Harold Pinter, a dramatist who once said that voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 was “the most shameful act of my life”. Kevin Bacon, a famously well-connected American actor, is related to the 16th-century philosopher Francis Bacon.

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还有一些关系是没有想到的9YG~]C&0VsH。美国女演员格温妮丝·帕特洛(上图右),通过婚姻与涉足于虐恋诗的维多利亚时期的斯温伯恩建立关系y[dSVTR3PegP。首相卡梅隆与戏剧家哈罗德·品特是远方亲戚,哈罗德·品特曾表示1979年投票选举玛格丽特·撒切尔是他一生中感觉最羞耻的行为H%P47[_MOX0yYCK.Gjt2。出生名门的凯文·贝肯与16世纪的哲学家弗兰西斯·培根有亲戚关系|Jua^B._R8(#g][~@MJ8

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And yet despite its novelty, “Kindred Britain” touches on an older notion. Even within the sprawl of data, a handful of families are shown to have shaped British culture and history. The number of prime ministers related to each other may not be surprising. But the links between different walks of life are illuminating, for both literary critics and celebrity-spotters alike.

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尽管“同族的英国人”这个项目很新奇,但是它却涉及一个古老的概念vrKxqXg+f@。即使身处于这些杂乱无章的数据里面,一些家庭还是看到了自己已经影响了大不列颠的文化和历史jIc(elx@Yz。不论对于文学评论家还是名人评论家来说,首相之间的关系或许不足以让人吃惊,但是不同阶级之间的关系确是很有深意的70#9AqGsrkOT3M@|

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重点单词
  • contrastn. 差别,对比,对照物 v. 对比,成对照 [计算机]
  • twistv. 拧,捻,搓,扭曲 n. 扭曲,盘旋,捻,拧
  • tendv. 趋向,易于,照料,护理
  • traditionaladj. 传统的
  • obsessionn. 困扰,沉迷,着魔,妄想
  • relatedadj. 相关的,有亲属关系的
  • availableadj. 可用的,可得到的,有用的,有效的
  • primeadj. 最初的,首要的,最好的,典型的 n. 青春,壮
  • certainadj. 确定的,必然的,特定的 pron. 某几个,某
  • unexpectedadj. 想不到的,意外的