观点副词
People want more money nowadays. 人们现在想要更多的金钱。
People are happier in less pressured job. 从事低压工作的人就会更开心。
凝神思考之下,这两句话似乎有些不切合事实:现在所有的人对金钱都更狂热吗?从事低压工作的人就一定会更开心吗?
无论答案是什么,其思考的出发点大都是自己的社会认知和经历,也就是说,皆为个人观点。写句子时要注意区分事实陈述和观点表达,重视形容词和副词的使用,以免表意不正确。有学者从句法功能的角度出发,以意义为辅助标准,将表示说话者对事件、命题的主观评价和态度的副词定义为评注性副词(commentary adverbs)。其中有一个次类叫观点副词(opinion adverb),即表说话人观点的副词,比如clearly, fortunately, hopefully,surprisingly, undoubtedly, possibly等。
我们试看下面的句子:
a. Movie stars are the wealthiest entertainers.
b. Perhaps, movie stars are the wealthiest entertainers.
a. In the future, employers will implement measures to make their employees’ lives less stressful in the future.
b. In the future, employers will hopefully implement measures to make their employees’ lives less stressful.
a. Only a small percentage of people become truly obsessed with celebrities.
b. Fortunately, only a small percentage of people become truly obsessed with celebrities.
从上面的句子可以看出,添加观点副词之后,句子的意思就没有那么绝 对,反而在表意上更中肯,体现了观点的多元化。
其中有些副词可以用more,less, not, somewhat来修饰,比如:
Less obviously, fame can be stressful.
More importantly, the majority of children said they did not want to emulate the bad behavior of their idols.
Not surprisingly, people find notorious criminals quite fascinating.
Somewhat surprisingly, the children of famous people rarely seek fame themselves.
观点副词不仅局限于写作,它在阅读文章时把握作者态度方面也有同样不可小觑的作用。我们一起来看几个例子:
这里的understandably避免了“房屋所有者和农民们不想拿他们的财产和生命冒险”这种绝 对化和一概而论的表达,而是从作者的角度出发,表达出他对可能出现的这种行为的理解。
此处的mistakenly暗示出作者对这一决定的看法,对后面可能出现的问题满下伏笔。
Admittedly “诚然,固然” 后面的句子是一种让步意义的表达,从阅读技巧上讲,后面才是要出题的题眼;clearly表达出作者对存在问题的强调。
备注:以上例句来自于《Skillful Reading & Writing 3》,《Skillful Reading & Writing 4》