1、此资料由网络收集而来，如有侵权请告知上传者立即删除。资料共分享，我们负责传递知识。TED英语演讲稿：不幸也许是个时机简介：残奥会短跑冠军aimee mullins天生没有腓骨，从小就要学习靠义肢走路和奔跑。如今，她不仅是短跑选手、演员、模特，还是一位稳健的演讲者。她不喜欢字典中 “;disabled;这个词，因为负面词汇足以毁掉一个人。但是，坦然面对不幸，你会发现等待你的是更多的时机。i'd like to share with you a discovery that i made a few months ago while writing an article for itali
2、an wired. i always keep my thesaurus handy whenever i'm writing anything, but i'd already finished editing the piece, and i realized that i had never once in my life looked up the word &disabled& to see what i'd find.let me read you the entry. &disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless, us
3、eless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down, worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile, decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done-for, done-in cracked-up, counted-out; see also hurt, useless and weak. antonyms, healthy, strong, capable.& i was re
4、ading this list out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so ludicrous, but i'd just gotten past &mangled,& and my voice broke, and i had to stop and collect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from these words unleashed.you know, of course, this is my ragged
5、y old thesaurus so i'm thinking this must be an ancient print date, right but, in fact, the print date was the early 1980s, when i would have been starting primary school and forming an understanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kids and the world around me. and,
6、 needless to say, thank god i wasn't using a thesaurus back then. i mean, from this entry, it would seem that i was born into a world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever going for them, when in fact, today i'm celebrated for the opportunities and adventures my
7、life has procured.so, i immediately went to look up the XX online edition, expecting to find a revision worth noting. here's the updated version of this entry. unfortunately, it's not much better. i find the last two words under &near antonyms,& particularly unsettling: &whole& and &wholesom
8、e.&so, it's not just about the words. it's what we believe about people when we name them with these words. it's about the values behind the words, and how we construct those values. our language affects our thinking and how we view the world and how we view other people. in fact, many a
9、ncient societies, including the greeks and the romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was so powerful, because to say the thing out loud brought it into existence. so, what reality do we want to call into existence: a person who is limited, or a person who's empowered by casually doing
10、something as simple as naming a person, a child, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. wouldn't we want to open doors for them insteadone such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the a.i. dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizz
11、utillo, an italian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americans to pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bow ties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.i loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with
12、the exception of my physical therapy sessions. i had to do what seemed like innumerable repetitions of exercises with these thick, elastic bands - different colors, you know - to help build up my leg muscles, and i hated these bands more than anything - i hated them, had names for them. i hated them
13、. and, you know, i was already bargaining, as a five year-old child, with dr. p to try to get out of doing these exercises, unsuccessfully, of course. and, one day, he came in to my session - exhaustive and unforgiving, these sessions - and he said to me, &wow. aimee, you are such a strong and power
14、ful little girl, i think you're going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, i'm going to give you a hundred bucks.&now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. p's part to get me to do the exercises i didn't want to do before the prospect of being the richest five-year-
15、old in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me was reshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising experience for me. and i have to wonder today to what extent his vision and his declaration of me as a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as an in
16、herently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.this is an example of how adults in positions of power can ignite the power of a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, our language isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want, the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our language hasn't caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have been brought
