硕士研究生英语长难句解析与佳句赏析【2】

      

A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so-called digital divide-the division of the world into the info (information) rich and the info poor. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic. 

 

There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. ①As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access-after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will he netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we’ve ever had.【佳句赏析1】

 

Of course, the use of the Internet isn’t the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential. 

 

②To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure（the basic structural foundations of a society）in the United States.【佳句赏析2】 When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn’t have the capital to do so. And that is why America’s Second Wave infrastructure-including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on-were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain’s former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans. I believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. ③The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you’re going to be. That doesn't mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign corporations run uncontrolled. But it does mean recognizing how important they can be in building the energy and telecom infrastructures needed to take full advantage of the Internet.

文章长难句分析与佳句赏析

长难句分析:

①As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access—after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are.

该句子的主句是it is in the interest of sb to do sth.（做某事符合某人的利益），前面是As引导的状语从句表伴随：随着…，破折号后面的一句话是对主句的解释。

②To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment.

该句结构并不复杂，关键注意其中的几个介词短语的使用，get over克服，从……中恢复过来；with respect to，涉及、提到或关于某事物。主句前是to引导的目的状语从句。

③The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you’re going to be.

该句中有一个比较级的固定结构the more…the more，表示“越……越……”，which引导的定语从句解释前面的Third Wave infrastructure。

佳句赏析:

①And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we’ve ever had.

句中may well+动词原形结构相当于have good reason to，意为“理应，有足够的理由”。如：He may well be proud of his son.（他大可以以他的儿子为荣）。该句子用这个结构来强调“网络完全可以成为最有力的工具来战胜世界贫困”。

②Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States.

Might/may (as) well +动词原形结构常常用来建议或劝说某人采取某种活动，有时相当于had better，译为“还不如，不妨”。如：Students that still have some problem with this lesson might well ask me after class.（那些对这篇课文仍然有问题的同学不如课后再问一下我）。该句中作者建议那些抱有偏见的人不妨研究一下美国基础设施建设的历史。

 

核心词汇与超纲词汇

(1) attention做“注意力”讲是不可数名词，和它构成的动宾搭配在含义上主要分为两类：一是“（某事）引起（某人的）注意”，如：attract/ arrest/ call /catch/draw / get /invite one’s attention to sth.，engage one’s attention；二是“（某人）注意（某事）”concentrate attention upon/on sth.，devote/turn/give attention to sth，此外，divert attention from sth（转移注意力）

(2) digital divide数字化分界；digital（a.）数字的，信息的；divide（n.）：分界线，分水岭，差异

(3) lecture（n./v.）演讲，讲课，～to somebody on something；教训，谴责

(4) commercialize（v.）商业化；-ize后缀意为“…化”，如：universalize普遍化。

(5) access（n.）通道，访问，接近，接近权，享用权，have/gain/get/obtain access to sth.，（v.）存取，接近，得到，了解；accessible（a.）易接近的, 可到达的, 易受影响的, 可理解的；inaccessible（a.）无法接近的，不能达到的，难懂的

(6) combat（n. /v.）搏斗，斗争，～ poverty 对抗贫困，也可用defeat poverty。

(7) impoverished（a.）贫穷的，词根 -pover- 意为“贫穷”，impoverish：使贫穷

(8) anti-colonial（a.）反殖民主义的，anti-前缀表示“反，抗”，如：antibody抗生素；antislavery反奴隶制

（9）sovereignty（n.）主权（国家），君主，词根-reign-意为“统治, 支配”。

（10）infrastructure（n.）基础设施，前缀infra-表示“下，低”，如：infrared红外线（低于红线），infrasound亚音速（低于音速）。