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电视首辩：哈里斯对特朗普实施表情魔法攻击丨纽约时报丨政治

经济学人双语精读 · 公众号 · 国际 · 2024-09-12 09:38

正文

9月10日，在距离美国大选不到两个月之际，哈里斯和特朗普在费城举行了首场电视辩论。在这场辩论中，哈里斯标志性的表情成为亮点。我们一起看《纽约时报》的报道：

She turned to him with an arched brow. A quiet sigh. A hand on her chin. A laugh. A pitiful glance. A dismissive shake of her head.

From the opening moments of her first debate against Donald J. Trump, Kamala Harris craftily exploited her opponent’s biggest weakness.

Not his record. Not his divisive policies. Not his history of inflammatory statements.

Instead, she took aim at a far more primal part of him: his ego.

At his rallies, on his sycophantic social media network and surrounded by flatterers at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump is unquestioned, unchallenged and never ever mocked.

That changed over the course of 90 minutes in Philadelphia on Tuesday, when the woman who had never before met him succeeded, bit by bit, in puncturing his comfortable cocoon and triggering his annoyance and anger.

Ms. Harris questioned the size and loyalty of the crowds at his rallies. She said world leaders call him a “disgrace.” And she claimed his fortune was built by his father, recasting a business mogul who proudly boasts of being a self-made man as just another nepotism baby.

Then she stood by and watched, as Mr. Trump did himself a whole lot of damage.

接下来看解析：

She turned to him with an arched brow. A quiet sigh. A hand on her chin. A laugh. A pitiful glance. A dismissive shake of her head.

她看向他，眉头微皱，一声轻叹，手托着下巴，发出一声笑，投以怜悯的目光，随后摇了摇头，表示不屑。

turn to sb 表示转向某人，这个表达很常见。

an arched brow 描述的是眉毛拱起的样子，通常表示怀疑、惊讶或审视。其中arched是形容词，表示“拱起的”，它源自arch一词，后者可作名词，表示“拱状物”，如拱桥、拱门、足弓都可以用这个词表示；也可以作动词，表示“形成拱形”。

brow是名词，指眉毛。

“A quiet sigh”、“A hand on her chin”、“A laugh”、“A pitiful glance”、“A dismissive shake of her head”这样的名词独立成句，是一种碎片句的写法，还原成句子的形式是：

“She gave a quiet sigh.”

“Her hand was on her chin.”

“She let out a laugh.”

“She cast a pitiful glance.”

“She gave a dismissive shake of her head.”

这种碎片句常见于文学作品中，通过省略动词或主语，句子变得简洁而有力，强调某个瞬间的动作或场景。这种写法可以让每一个细节都变得鲜明，如同镜头中的特写镜头，让读者一帧一帧地“看到”动作，营造一种生动的场景感。

比如，《经济学人》在描述智能手机给生活带来干扰时，便用了这种写法：

Overflowing inboxes, endlessly topped up by incoming emails. Constant alerts, notifications and text messages on your smartphone and computer. Infinitely scrolling streams of social-media posts. Access to all the music ever recorded, whenever you want it. And a deluge of high-quality television, with new series released every day on Netflix, Amazon Prime and elsewhere.

新邮件被源源不断地投入早已满溢的收件箱。你的手机和电脑中充斥着接二连三的提醒、通知和短信。社交媒体上的新帖犹如滚滚涌动的洪流。只要你愿意，任何时候都可以获取所有已录制好的音乐。此外，一连串高质量的电视节目也正向你袭来，而且每天都有新剧在Netflix、亚马逊Prime等网站上发布。

再看一个美国《国家地理》杂志对“审美焦虑”的报道：

For generations, beauty requires a slender build but with a generous bosom and a narrow waist. The jawline is to be defined, the cheekbones high and sharp. The nose angular. The lips full but not distractingly so. The eyes, ideally blue or green, large and bright. Hair is to be long, thick, and flowing — and preferably golden. Symmetry is desired. Youthfulness, that goes without saying.
几代以来，美要求身材苗条、胸大腰细；下巴轮廓分明，颧骨高而尖；鼻子要棱角分明；嘴唇丰厚饱满，但不能过厚；眼睛大而明亮，最好是蓝色或绿色的；长发浓密，柔顺飘逸——而且最好是金色的；形体对称；还要年轻——这不言而喻。

From the opening moments of her first debate against Donald J. Trump, Kamala Harris craftily exploited her opponent’s biggest weakness.

在她与特朗普的首场辩论开始时，卡马拉·哈里斯就巧妙地攻击了对手最大的软肋。

craftily 是副词，表示“巧妙地、狡猾地”，类似的说法还有shrewdly、deftly、cunningly。

exploit 意思是“利用（某人的弱点或机会）”，这个词很简单，主要积累一些同义替换：

1）leverage - 指利用某种优势或资源。

They leveraged their extensive network to secure the deal.

他们运用广泛的人际网络，最终促成了这笔交易。

2）take advantage of - 指充分利用，尤其是某种机会或弱点。

She took advantage of the sale to buy some high-quality clothes at a lower price.

她趁着促销机会以较低的价格购买了一些优质的服装。

3）capitalize on - 指充分利用某种机会或优势。

The company capitalized on the growing demand for renewable energy.

这家公司抓住了可再生能源需求增长的契机。

4）utilize - 指有效地使用某种资源或机会。

He utilized his technical skills to solve the problem quickly.

他运用自己的技术技能迅速解决了问题。

Not his record. Not his divisive policies. Not his history of inflammatory statements.

不是他的政绩，也不是针对他的分裂性政策，更不是他过去的煽动性言论。

record 指的是一个人的历史记录或成就。

divisive是形容词，表示“引起分歧的、造成争议的”，它源自divide（分裂），"-ive"通常用来形成形容词，表示具有某种性质或倾向的，如descriptive 描述性的，explosive 爆炸性的。

inflammatory是形容词，表示“煽动性的”，它由 in+flame+atory三部分组成，“in-”表示“使置于某种状况”，如 inflame 使愤怒、imperil 使处于危险之中。“flame”是火焰，后缀“-atory”是形容词后缀，如explanatory 解释的。

看一个《傲骨贤妻》里的台词：

inflammatory在医学领域也可以表示“发炎的”，《妮基塔》中出现过这个含义：

Instead, she took aim at a far more primal part of him: his ego.

相反，她直指他更为根源的弱点：他的自我。

take aim at 的意思是“瞄准、对准某物”，表示集中注意力或攻击某个目标或问题，可以用target替换。

At his rallies, on his sycophantic social media network and surrounded by flatterers at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump is unquestioned, unchallenged and never ever mocked.

在特朗普的集会上、在奉承他的社交媒体网络上，以及在海湖庄园被阿谀逢迎者包围的时候，特朗普不能受到质疑、挑战，也不能被嘲弄。

sycophantic [ˌsɪkəˈfæntɪk] 这个词了解即可，表示“溜须拍马的，阿谀奉承的”，可以用subservient（顺从的，谄媚的）或fawning（逢迎的，巴结的）替换。

这个词在原版小说《哈利波特》中出现过很多次，如：

Malfoy laughed loudly and sycophantically. Umbridge gave her wide, complacent smile and settled herself into a chintz-covered armchair, blinking up at her captives like a toad in a flowerbed.

马尔福大声而谄媚地笑了起来。乌姆里奇露出得意的笑容，坐进了一张覆盖着印花棉布的扶手椅里，眨着眼睛看着她的俘虏们，像花坛里的癞蛤蟆。

但这一切在周二费城90分钟的辩论中发生了改变，这位从未与他见面的女士一点一滴地戳破了他的舒适圈，激起了他的烦躁和愤怒。

puncture指的是“刺破”，后面可以加表示具体事物的词汇，如puncture a tire（刺破轮胎）、puncture a balloon（刺破气球），也可以加表示抽象事物的词汇，如puncture one's confidence（破坏某人的自信）、puncture an illusion（打破幻想）。

cocoon本义指的是“茧”，即昆虫或其他生物在蛹化过程中形成的保护壳。比喻意义上，它表示“舒适、安全的环境”。它也可以作动词，表示“把……包围起来保护”，看一个《鱼翅与花椒》里的句子：

My classmates and I were stranded in China, like it or not, and outside the cocoon of the Foreign Students’ Building we had little choice but to throw ourselves into Sichuanese life.
我和我的同学们算是“搁浅”在中国了，喜不喜欢都得忍着。走出留学生楼这个小小的蚕茧之后，我们别无选择，只能一头扎进四川生活之中。

米歇尔·奥巴马自传《成为》中出现过它的动词用法：

We were protected, cocooned, catered to. A lot of kids, I was coming to realize, had never in their lifetimes known anything different.
在这里我们受到保护，就像裹着一层茧衣，各种需求都会得到满足。我后来才知道，很多学生从小到大一直都处在这样的环境中，不知道还有其他不同的生活。

再看一个《钢铁侠3》中的台词：