第三节 正确推断作者的语气态度
作者在写一篇文章时，经常持有某种态度或倾向。在表露自己感情态度时，作者往往非常注意表达思想的不同方法。作者的语气和态度往往不是直接在文章中写出来，而是通过对词汇的选择或其他修辞手段(如：嘲讽、讽刺等)体现出来。运用不同含义或具有不同感情色彩的词汇，可以表明作者对某些具体事物或问题的不同态度。因此考生要特别注意琢磨文中所使用词汇的特点，可以通过对作者使用词汇(特别是动词、形容词和副词)的分析，推断作者的思想倾向和感情，弄清作者的态度是赞成，还是反对；是肯定还是否定；是中立、冷淡还是同情、厌恶等，从而把握作者的论述基调。
常见的出题形式见第一节所列举的8～11。
例1.(1996年考题第3篇62题)
In the last half of the nineteenth century "capital" and "labor" were enlarging and perfecting their rival organizations on modern lines. Many an old firm was replaced by a limited liability company with a bureaucracy of salaried managers. The change met the technical requirements of the new age by engaging a large professional element and prevented the decline in efficiency that so commonly spoiled the fortunes of family firms in the second and third generation after the energetic founders. It was moreover a step away from individual initiative, towards collectivism and municipal and stateowned business. The railway companies, though still private business managed for the benefit of shareholders, were very unlike old family business. At the same time the great municipalities went into business to supply lighting, trams and other services to the taxpayers.
The growth of the limited liability company and municipal business had important consequences. Such large, impersonal manipulation of capital and industry greatly increased the numbers and importance of shareholders as a class, an element in national life representing irresponsible wealth detached from the land and the duties of the landowners; and almost equally detached from the responsible management of business. All through the nineteenth century, America, Africa, India, Australia and parts of Europe were being developed by British capital, and British shareholders were thus enriched by the world's movement towards industrialization. Towns like Bournemouth and Eastbourne sprang up to house large "comfortable" classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders' meeting to dictate their orders to the management. On the other hand "shareholding" meant leisure and freedom which was used by many of the later Victorians for the highest purpose of a great civilization.
The "shareholders" as such had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen employed by the company in which he held shares, and his influence on the relations of capital and labor was not good. The paid manager acting for the company was in more direct relation with the men and their demands, but even he had seldom that familiar personal knowledge of the workmen which the employer had often had under the more patriarchal system of the old family business now passing away. Indeed the mere size of operations and the numbers of workmen involved rendered such personal relations impossible. Fortunately, however, the increasing power and organization of the trade unions, at least in all skilled trades, enabled the workmen to meet on equal terms the managers of the companies who employed them. The cruel discipline of the strike and lockout taught the two parties to respect each other's strength and understand the value of fair negotiation.
The author is most critical of _____ .
［A］ family firm owners
［B］ landowners
［C］ managers
［D］ shareholders
本题询问作者对哪些人抱有不满、批评的态度?这就要求考生留意作者的措词，通过分析作者使用的语言就可以推断出他的态度。第二段在描述股东阶层时将他们看做是"comfortablee"阶级，他们与别人的关系只是"drawing dividends"(抽取红利)，他们也偶尔地参加一次股东大会"to dictate their orders"。第三段又说这些股东"had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen......and his influence on the relation of capital and labor was hot good"。以上这些对股东的描述所使用的语言不难看出都是批评的语气。由此来看，答案必然是D项。
例2.(1993年考题第2篇40题)
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic (官僚主义的) management in which man becomes a small, welloiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, wellventilated factories and piped music, and by psychologists and "humanrelations" experts; yet all this oiling does not alter the fact than man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blueand the whitecollar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of selfrespect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and again-by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one's fellowcompetitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production or to nineteenth century "free enterprise" capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities--those of love and of reason--are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
The author's attitude towards industrialism might best be summarized as one of _____ .
［A］ approval
［B］ dissatisfaction
［C］ suspicion
［D］ tolerance
本题询问作者对现代化工业社会所持的态度。作者的这种态度贯穿于全文。首先从文章的论点(第一段)"man has become powerless"及"workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines"可以推断出作者的意思是说人已成了傀儡，只能听任机器的摆布。第二段说工人和雇员焦虑"not only because they might find themselves out of a job...also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life"。第三段讲社会上层人士"are no less anxious"。最后一段，即：结论段，作者建议把我们社会制度从一个官僚式管理的工业化体系转成一个人文工业化体系。从这些描述来看，作者对现代化工业社会持有一种不满或批评的态度。因而，答案选B项。