【精英翻譯】的部落格

Ageism is everywhere 年齡歧視無所不在

精英翻譯社轉自http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1168807&day=2018-01-15

◎劉宜庭

Ageism is so common it may seem routine, trivial, well-intentioned. But it’s not necessarily harmless. Similar characteristics are interpreted differently by age. A teenager losing the car keys is momentarily careless, an older person is developing dementia.

年齡歧視是如此普遍，可能看似平常、微不足道且基於善意。但它並非全然無害。相似的表徵會因為年齡不同，而有不同的解讀。青少年遺失鑰匙叫作粗心大意，在老人身上卻成為失智的前兆。

Compared with other common prejudices, ageism is rarely discussed. Everyday ageism is so widespread that people tend to use "young" and "old" as almost synonymous with positive-versus-negative traits.

相較於其他普遍的偏見，年齡歧視鮮少被人們探討。日常的年齡歧視如此普遍，以至於人們幾乎傾向於將「年輕」和「年老」當成正面對比負面特質的代名詞。

Old people have become more segregated. Throughout most of human history, different generations usually lived together or nearby. But the Industrial Revolution lured younger people into cities for jobs, and urban living quarters couldn’t accommodate extended families, said Todd D. Nelson, a psychologist at California State University.

老人已經變得愈來愈孤立。綜觀人類歷史中大部分的時刻，不同世代通常會同住一室或比鄰而居。然而，工業革命驅使年輕人前往都市工作，都市的居住空間卻無法容納大家庭，加州州立大學心理學家托德．尼爾森表示。

Nelson mentioned an even less obvious reason for the changing status of old people：the invention of the printing press. Before then, old people were respected sources of valuable knowledge handed down from earlier generations and accumulated through their years of experience.

尼爾森提到老人地位改變另一個較不明顯的原因：印刷術的發明。在此之前，老人曾代表傳承自前人的寶貴知識來源，以及畢生累積的經驗。