跟讀練習: What is History? E.H. Carr - 通過影片學習英語口語

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What is history?

How should history be written?

E.H.

Carr, the historian, diplomat, journalist, philosopher and author of a 14-volume history on the Soviet Union,

set out to answer this question in 1961.

The book is considered a a classic.

Carr starts by discussing the common sense view of history.

In essence, that history is about facts and simply collecting as many facts as possible.

In this view, facts are like fish on a fishmonger's slab, ready to be chosen and cooked.

There are basic facts, raw materials, but the facts only speak when the historian calls on them.

Carr compares the fact that the Battle of Hastings happened in 1066,

with the fact that in 1850 a gingerbread vendor was killed by an angry mob.

The latter is not well known, it is unimportant.

One is selected over the other because it's considered useful.

We use the fact to understand something larger.

So on the one side we have the historian in the present making a judgement about what facts to select.

On the other side, there are documents, letters, diaries, treaties, etc. These are facts of a certain kind,

but tell us no more than what the author thought and are of course invariably one-sided.

Carr says that the classical liberal view of history, popular across the 19th century, proposes that, like the hidden hand of the market,

Letting historians pick from this fishmonger's slab of facts would result in a universal harmony.

The truth would emerge.

Carr starts to point out a few problems with this view.

First, the facts of the past are only accessible through the present.

He says of the historian, the very words which he uses, words like democracy, empire, war,

have current connotations from which he cannot divorce them.

A historical event looks very different through the eyes of a 17th century Frenchman than it does to a 21st century American.

But does this lead to what Carr calls total skepticism?

If there are different views at different times, how can any of them be the right one?

Is there no objective position from which to view history?

To answer the problem of total scepticism, Carr starts with the common view of historical work.

That is that 1 the facts are collected and 2 they are interpreted and written into a narrative.

For Carr, though, this isn't accurate.

It's much more likely that the process is reciprocal.

Some facts are collected, a tentative interpretation is made, more facts are collected, the interpretation is revised, and so on.

He says the historian is engaged in a continuous process of moulding his facts to his interpretation, and his interpretation to his facts.

It is impossible to assign primacy to one over the other.

This process is a dialogue between facts in the past and the historian contextualised in the present.

He says the past is intelligible to us only in the light of the present, and we can fully understand the present only in the light of the past.

He then goes on to say that the process is not just an individual one.

The men whose actions the historians studies were not isolated individuals acting in a vacuum,

they acted in the context and under the impulse of a past society.

He argues then that this means it's obvious we must look at social forces, class vested interests as well as individuals.

So as well as history being a dialogue between the past and the present, it's now a dialogue between the individual and society.

He's painting a picture on multiple axes – past and present, individual and societal.

But how then do we retain any sense of objectivity?

How do we know where to look and which facts to pick up?

To begin to get out of this predicament, Carr moves to compare the process of the historian to the process of the inductive method in science.

He says scientists no longer really spend their time searching for the laws of nature, but instead come up with a hypothesis,

test whether it's a fact, then reassess.

Science is also driven by a back and forth, and by values in the present.

He explores a number of objections to history being a science, problematising them in turn.

For example, it is said that science deals with the general and history with the particular, with unique events.

But he argues that history is also general.

For example, the historian looks for the causes of the phenomenon of war or revolutions.

These are general categories.

Another objection is that history is unable to predict the future.

But he points out that although science predicts, it only predicts probabilities.

Gravity might predict how an apple falls from a tree, but it can't predict things getting in the way or someone catching it before it hits the ground.

He also notes that modern physics after Einstein is also relative, not as universal as was once thought.

Ultimately, he says that the word science already covers so many different branches of knowledge, employing so many different methods and techniques,

that the onus seems to rest on those who seek to exclude history rather than on those who seek to include it.

Carr's view of history as a science is probably the view that would receive the most criticism today.

He moves on to look at causation.

For a long time, historians and philosophers looked for universal laws of history, to try and make it more scientific.

Historians now look for multiple causes.

The Bolshevik revolution, for example, might be said to be caused by the failure of the Tsar, the impoverished proletariat, Lenin's character,

etc. Usually a primary cause is given, then maybe a hierarchy of causes.

Carr draws an analogy.

Driving back from a party, a man who has drank too much,

in a a car with defective brakes kills a man crossing the road to get cigarettes at a blind corner.

What was the cause?

And what is our motivation in finding out what the cause is?

To make roads safer?

To reduce drinking?

Maybe he was killed because he was desperate for cigarettes, but by intuition we distinguish between rational and accidental causes.

Carr's point here and he quotes the German historian Friedrich Meineck,

is that, "...the search for causalities in history is impossible without reference to values.

Behind the search for causalities there always lies,

directly or indirectly, the search for values." We are always trying to learn something from history.

This leads Carr to argue that,

to avoid total scepticism, the facts and interpretations historians choose should be organised around the idea of progress.

Maybe not as an unbroken straight line without reverses and deviations, as he says, but progress all the same.

Ultimately he says that a belief in progress means belief not in any automatic

or inevitable process but in the progressive development of human potentialities.

Being objective, choosing the facts and the hierarchy of causes, means considering the future.

He says when we call a historian objective we mean I think two things.

First of all we mean

that he has the capacity to rise above the limited version of his own situation in society and in history.

Secondly, he means

that he has the capacity to project his vision into the

future in such a way as to give him a more profound

and more lasting insight into the past than can be attained

by those historians whose outlook is entirely bounded by their own immediate situation.

In other words, historians should work to transform society as much as other disciplines do.

Carr has been criticised for having a relativistic view of history.

That the facts and questions are determined by the present, so that no objective reading of the past is possible.

But through an optimism about the future, Carr also tries to draw a route back to objectivity,

picking facts through the value of progress.

It's a unique argument and many have claimed it doesn't hold today, but the text, both short and rich,

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is still held as a classic introduction to the question, what is history?

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本課的詞彙與口語要點

這段影片共有 106 個句子、1442 個單詞可供跟讀。講話部分時長為 9:47。說話人語速平穩，每分鐘約 147 個詞，很適合跟讀。 82% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，其餘的詞建議在練習前先學一下。

影片中的重點詞彙

影片中 15 個不太常見的單詞，附發音和釋義：

historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ (名詞) — 歷史學家 /歷史學家, 歷史家 /歷史家. A writer of history.
interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/ (名詞) — 翻譯 /翻譯. An act of interpreting or explaining something unclear; a translation; a version.
predict /pɹɪˈdɪkt/ (動詞) — 預言 /預言. To make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of…
collect /ˈkɑlɪkt/ (動詞) — 庋藏, 收藏. To gather together; amass.
objective /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/ (名詞) — 目標 /目標, 目的. A material object that physically exists.
universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ (形容詞) — 宇宙的. Of or pertaining to the universe.
argue /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ (動詞) — 辯論 /辯論, 爭辯 /爭辯. To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
dialogue /ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/ (名詞) — 對話 /對話, 會話 /會話. A conversation or other form of discourse between two or more individuals.
belief /bɪˈliːf/ (名詞) — 相信, 信心. Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
compare /kəmˈpɛɚ/ (動詞) — 比, 比較 /比較. To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it…
select /sɪˈlɛkt/ (動詞) — 選 /選, 挑選 /挑選. To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
cigarette /ˈsɪɡəɹɛt/ (名詞) — 香煙 /香菸, 紙煙 /紙菸. A small cigar consisting of tobacco or another substance, wrapped up in a thin roll with paper, intended for smoking.
hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/ (名詞) — 等級制度 /等級制度, 階層 /階層. A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ (名詞) — 異議 /異議. The act of objecting.
philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/ (名詞) — 哲學家 /哲學家. A lover of wisdom.

影片中出現的短語動詞

look for (動詞) — 找, 找尋 /找尋. To seek.
look at (動詞) — 觀察 /觀察, 看. To observe or watch.
point out (動詞) — 指, 指出. To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body.
come up with (動詞) — 想出, 提出. To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
find out (動詞) — 找出, 查明. To discover, as by asking or investigating.
pick up (動詞) — 拾取, 撿 /撿. To lift; to grasp and raise.

需要注意的發音

說話人用了 4 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 can't, doesn't, isn't。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。

“sh” 和 “zh” 音: interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
長單詞——注意重音位置: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/

如何用這段影片練習

先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
用正常速度逐句跟讀，每句重複到你的節奏與說話人一致為止。
錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 historian, interpretation, predict 這類單詞。

影片中的語法

說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：

結構	影片中的用法
被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的	be written · is considered · be chosen
現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事	has been criticised · have claimed
定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物	those who seek · man who has

什麼是跟讀法？

跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。

影子跟讀法: 閱讀完整分步指南 →

跟讀練習: What is History? E.H. Carr - 通過影片學習英語口語

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