音樂或許能滋養(yǎng)愛情,卻難以傳達愛意英語美文

　　“WHERE words fail, music speaks.” Though these words, from the pen of Hans Christian Andersen, are an appealing notion, the idea that there might be universals in music which transcend cultural boundaries has generally been met with scepticism by scholars working in the field. That scepticism may, however, be unwarranted, for research published in Current Biology this week by Samuel Mehr and Manvir Singh of Harvard University provides evidence that music does indeed permit the communication of simple ideas between people even when they have no language in common.

　　“當言語無效之際，音樂為你發(fā)聲。”盡管這引入入勝的觀念出自安徒生筆下，認為音樂全球相通、能跨越文化界限的看法卻普遍遭到這一領域的學者質疑。然而質疑聲或許毫無根據：由哈佛大學Samuel Mehr和Manvir Singh發(fā)表在本周《當代生物學》的研究證明，音樂的確可以讓人們交流簡單的想法，即便他們并沒有共同語言。

　　To ascertain this, the two researchers recruited 750 online volunteers from 60 countries. They played these volunteers 36 musical excerpts, each 14 seconds long, and each drawn at random from one of 118 songs in a collection of the music of small-scale societies around the world. Given the broad range of cultures and languages represented in the collection, and the ethnic diversity of the volunteers, Dr Mehr and Mr Singh could be reasonably certain that those listening were both unfamiliar with the music and unable to understand the lyrics in question.

　　為了驗證這點，兩位研究者招募了來自60個國家的750位在線志愿者。他們?yōu)檫@些志愿者播放36個音樂選段，每段時長為14秒，均從118首全球小型社會的音樂合集中隨機選取。鑒于合集的文化跨度巨大，志愿者又來自不同種族，Mehr和Singh有理由相信：志愿者們既不熟悉播放的音樂，也無法理解歌詞含義。

　　After each excerpt had been played, volunteers were asked what they thought the song’s function was, and how sure they were of that on a scale of one to six. The possibilities offered were: “for dancing”; “for soothing a baby”; “for healing illness”; “for expressing love for another”; “for mourning the dead”; and “for telling a story”. The first four of these were real functions, as stated by the people from whom the song in question had been collected. The last two were made up, and were included as foils.

　　每節(jié)音樂選段播完后，志愿者需要回答歌曲的用途，以及對回答的確定程度，級別從1至6分。供選擇的用途有：“用于跳舞”、“哄寶寶入睡”、“療愈疾病”、“向他人表達愛意”、“哀悼死者”、“講故事”。前四項是真實用途，在收集到的被試歌曲中確有呈現。最后兩項則為編造，用以迷惑志愿者。

　　Dr Mehr and Mr Singh found that volunteers’ perceptions of a song’s function were generally in good agreement with its actual function—with one exception. Dance songs were particularly easy to identify. They rated 2.18 points higher on the certainty scale as being used “for dancing” than lullabies did; 1.38 points higher than love songs; and 1.09 points higher than healing songs. Similarly, lullabies were rated 1.53 points higher than dance songs as being “to soothe a baby”, 1.42 points higher than healing songs and 1.19 points higher than love songs.

　　Mehr和Singh發(fā)現，志愿者所感知的歌曲用途與其真實用途大體一致-只有一項例外。識別舞曲尤為容易。對于舞曲，志愿者判別其“用于跳舞”的確信程度比搖籃曲高出2.18分，比愛情歌曲高出1.38分，比療愈歌曲高出1.09分。類似的，對于搖籃曲，志愿者判別其用于“哄寶寶入睡”的確信程度比舞曲高出1.53分，比療愈歌曲高出1.42分，比愛情歌曲高出1.19分。

　　Healing songs proved a bit more troublesome. They scored only 0.47 and 0.31 points higher than dance and love songs respectively for “to heal illness”, and were statistically indistinguishable from lullabies. The outlier, though, was love songs. Listeners could distinguish them from healing songs, but not from lullabies or dance songs.

　　療愈歌曲則有點難以甄別。播放“療愈疾病”選段時，選擇療愈歌曲的確信程度只比舞曲高出0.47分，比情歌高出0.31分，在統(tǒng)計學上與搖籃曲無顯著區(qū)別。愛情歌曲的得分最為異常，志愿者們可以區(qū)分愛情歌曲與療愈歌曲，卻無法將其與搖籃曲和舞曲區(qū)分。

　　Why love songs were hard to identify is unclear. Because such songs involve showing off to the object of one’s affections, they may require more creativity, and thus generate more variety than lullabies or dance songs. Perhaps the fact that both dancing and cooing are involved in romance confused listeners. This genre aside, however, Andersen was clearly onto something.

　　難以判別愛情歌曲的原因尚不明確。由于這類歌曲要向人凸顯自己的愛慕之情，它們可能需要更多的創(chuàng)造力，因而比搖籃曲和舞曲更為多元。抑或是浪漫歌曲中的舞曲元素和柔聲細語迷惑了被試者。不過，撇開這一音樂流派，安徒生的話顯然適用。

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