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  3. Gossip Even if you’ve never taken a class in 18th century Russian history, you’ve probably heard the story about Catherine t

Gossip Even if you’ve never taken a class in 18th century Russian history, you’ve probably heard the story about Catherine t

admin2010-07-14  49
问题                                                                 Gossip
    Even if you’ve never taken a class in 18th century Russian history, you’ve probably heard the story about Catherine the Great. According to the lore, Catherine Ⅱ, Empress of Russia, died under questionable circumstances involving a horse. If you ask someone who has a fondness for history or urban legends, though, you’ll learn that the story isn’t true. Catherine I1 really died of a stroke, and no horses were present.
Introduction
    The story of Catherine the Great and the horse isn’t recent invention-it started out as gossip more than 200 years ago. It’s a good illustration of the nature of gossip.
    It’s almost impossible to figure out who told the story first. Historians believe that the French upper class created the rumor in an attempt to destroy Catherine’s reputation.
    It started as a malicious (用意歹毒的) attempt to slander (诽谤) someone and possibly to improve the social standing of the people who made up the story.
    When people repeat it today, they believe it is true, in spite of its inherent outlandishness (古怪).
    The tale is persistent and widespread. It’s stayed around for hundreds of years, and no matter how many historians refute it, people still pass it on.
    It’s the kind of news most people can’t help spreading around, even if they’ve resolved to spend less time gossiping.
    Even though some of the details have changel, the core of the story is the same as if was 200 years ago. In this respect, real gossip is different from the "telephone game" often used to teach children about its hazards.
    However, unlike the story of Catherine I[, not all gossip is malicious or untrue. Like swearing, another use of language many people try to avoid, gossip plays a number of roles within social groups, and some of them can actually be useful.
    Sociologists, linguists, psychologists and historians are among the people who research gossip and how it functions in society. It’s a tricky phenomenon to study, though. People usually gossip spontaneously and in private, so it’s almost impossible to study gossip in a laboratory setting. In fact, many researchers study gossip by eavesdropping (偷听) on gossipers.
    In addition, when researchers study gossip, they don’t all use the same definition. Most start with the same basic idra: Gossip is a conversation between two people that concerns a third person who is not present. Different researchers then add a range of stipulations.
    The comversation takes place in private.
    The people talking are transmitting information as though it were fact, but they have not confirmed the information as factual.
    The people gossiping and the person being gossiped about know each other in real life. By this definition, celebrity gossip is not really gossip unless the speaker and the listener are sriends with the celebrity in question.
    Something in the speaker’s body language or tone of voice suggests a moral judgment about the information being relayed. For example, the sentence "Clara got a puppy" sounds pretty neutral. But if Clara lives in a college dorm that doesn’t allow pets and the person speaking sounds scandalized, the sentence becomes gossip.
    The people gossiping compare themselves in some way to the person being gossiped about, usually considering themselves to be superior to the subject.
    Gossip is full of contradictions. People do it even though they think they shouldn’t. Gossip can bolster (助长) one person’s reputation while destroying another’s, and it can establish a trusting bond between two people while betraying the trust of a third. People who gossip too much can develop a reputation for being untrustworthy or too talkative. But people who don’t gossip can develop a reputation for being distant, uptight or snobbish. These fictional examples explore the different sides of gossip and its moral implications.
Malice with a Purpose
    Mickey, Amy and Joey are in elementary school, Mickey tells Amy that Joey failed a test. With this piece of gossip, Mickey establishes that he’s smarter than Joey and implies that Amy is, too. Amy and Mickey position themselves as better than Joey, which can raise social standing compared to him and the rest of the class.
    This isn’t a particularly kind piece of gossip, since it’s likely to cause classmates to tease Joey and hurt his feelings. In addition, Mickey and Amy have to continue to gossip their classmates in order to maintain their more popular place withinthe the social group. This a common use for gossip-people compare themselves favorably to others, raising their own status within a social circle while lowering someone else’s. False or slanderous gossip usually works in much the same way.
Us Versus Them
    Mirabelle is a member of a choral group, and after being named one of the group’s section leaders, she starts to slack off. She skips rehearsals, arrives late and leaves early. Two other members of the group, Gins and David, generally come early and stay late to help other members. They’ve also volunteered to organize and store all of the group’s sheet music. One day, a new member named Michael joins the group. After rehearsal, Gins and David take Micheal to dinner and fill him in about Mirabelle’s habits.
    This conversation allows all three people involved to form a bond—in general, people who are united against a common hardship or enemy become closer to each other. In fact, the group as a whole might become stronger as it compensates for Mirabelle’s shortcomings. This is another common use for gossip- one study has even shown that the amount of gossip in a team environment peaks when the team views one of its members as inefficient.
    This piece of gossip also makes Michael aware of Gina and David’s expectations of him. He gets advance warning of issues he might have with Mirabelle. However, some would argue that Gins and David are simply bad-mouthing a colleague rather than taking steps to address the problem.
Delicate Information
    Jason is suddenly terminated from his job. His co-workers begin to worry about their own job security-Jason was well-liked and efficient, and his being fired came out of the blue. Morale begins to suffer as people wonder whether they will be next. Soon, people learn through the office rumor that Jason had been stealing money from the company’s charity fund drive, which he was coordinating.
    Jason’s co-workes need this information to feel secure in their own jobs, but it would not be appropriate for the company to broadcast it. In this kind of situation, a company’s official sources of information can’t answer employees’ question, so the employees turn to unofficial sources. For this reason, gossip is often is often prevalent in businesses that do not communicate well with their employees;
    Spreading this information could be considered a violation of Jason’s privacy or an assault on his character. In addition, it can be argued that people’s confidence in Jason is more important than their sense of job security.
    This example also demonstrates something that’s typical of a lot of gossip. Most people would probably react to the news of Jason’s theft with disbelief. However, everyone trusts that the source of the information is telling the truth—they suspend their disbelief. Although the idea someone as kind and responsible as Jason could be a thief can seem absurd, people will pass it on if they believe it to be true.
Being Prepared
    Amanda lives in an apartment. One night, someone breaks into the aprtment upstairs. Amanda learns that her upstairs neighbors were drug dealers and had recently been arrested. Her landlord evicted the neighbors, but they’d left most of their possessions in the apartment. Police theorize that the thief had bought drugs from the neighbors and had broken in looking for drags or money.
    Amanda’a landlords clean out the upstairs apartment and rent it to a family who has a young daughter. Concerned for their safety, Amanda tells her new neighbors about the previous neighbors and the break-in.
    Most people think of gossip as negative, but in this situation, Amanda could feel morally obligated to gossip. She’a giving her neighbors information that they need to have to ensure their physical safety. She and her neighbors also develop a bond of trust during the conversation, which can make it more likely that they will be able to trust and help each in the future.
Gossips are always with an evil intention, and the stories are always untrue.
选项 A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案B
解析
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