从新概念延展到英语四级阅读：镜像蒙太奇法

　　蒙太奇，montage的音译，原为建筑学术语，意为构成、装配。

　　蒙太奇是电影创作的主要叙述手段和表现手段之一，即将一系列在不同地点，从不同距离和角度，以不同方法拍摄的镜头排列组合(即剪辑)起来，叙述情节，刻画人物。凭借蒙太奇的作用，电影享有了时空上的极大自由，甚至可以构成与实际生活中的时间空间并不一致的电影时间和电影空间。

　　了解了镜像蒙太奇，您可能了解了现代电影的拍摄方式，懂得了现代电影刻画人物的方法。我们在哲学上学过，万事万物都是在矛盾中运行，矛盾有它的特殊性，也有它的普遍性，我们把镜像蒙太奇这一特殊性运用到新概念文章的学习中也是未尝不可。这一方法将帮助我们从根本上了解新概念文章的构成，从而达到掌握新概念文章的内在规律的学习效果，进而在考试中破译阅读理解的难点!

　　新概念的文章基本遵循线性结构，即：第一段话为文章的主题段，第二段或者第三段为细节描述段，或者是过程展开段。这样段落的构成经常为一副副画面的展开，每一幅画面为一句话，经过镜像蒙太奇的方式把画面进行排列组合，从而达到叙述情节的目的。

　　下面以第一课为例：

　　A Puma at large (逃遁的美洲狮)

　　Pumas are large, cat-like animals which are found in America. When reports came into London Zoo that a wild puma had been spotted forty-five miles south of London, they were not taken seriously. However, as the evidence began to accumulate, experts from the Zoo felt obliged to investigate, for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma were extraordinarily similar.

　　在这一段中作者其实告诉我们的是一件事情从不为人知到引起人们的注意，再到引起社会关注的一个过程，重点句式是“experts from the Zoo felt obliged to investigate”专家开始关注。

　　那么第二段话讲的就应该是整个“investigation”过程，而要达到描述调查过程的目的，用到的就是“镜像蒙太奇”这样一种叙述方式，我们来分句看看。

　　第一副画面是一个老妇人：“The hunt for the puma began in a small village where a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat' only five yards away from her.”

　　第二幅画面是美洲狮的反应以及专家的现身说法：“It immediately ran away when she saw it, and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered.”

　　第三幅画面是美洲狮的飘忽不定：“The search proved difficult, for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.”

　　第四幅画面是美洲狮对当地带来的影响以及用事实进行的证明：“Wherever it went, it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits. Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes.”

　　第五幅画面是见到美洲狮的人的描述：“Several people complained of "cat-like noises' at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree.”

　　第六幅画面是专家得出的结论：“The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma, but where had it come from? As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country, this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow managed to escape.”

　　第七幅画面是搜捕工作的艰难：“The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught. It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.”

　　这样七幅画面通过镜像蒙太奇法排列组合在一起描述了“investigation”过程和细节。在阅读类似的文章的时候，我们要做的事情其实就很简单了，看懂主题段，略读细节段(勾划出每句的主语即可)，这样可以帮助我们在最短的时间内破译考试中的阅读理解部分!

　　下面以四级阅读真题为例，运用镜像蒙太奇法快速选出正确答案。

　　通过观察几个关键词“well-fed”“almost fully employed people”，我们得出结论： 这篇文章的主题是“1952年之后美国经济的繁荣”。

　　那么第二段应该从细节初描述经济繁荣的表现，在这里有一个词要特别注意“economic survey”就相当于第一课中的“investigation”. 那么现在需要做的仅仅就是以句号为单位勾划每句话的主语了。

　　The economy of the United states after 1952 was the economy of a well-fed, almost fully employed people. Despite occasional alarms, the country escaped any postwar depression and lived in a state of boom.

　　An economic survey of the year 1955, a typical year of the 1950’s, may be typical as illustrating the rapid economic growth of the decade. The national output was value at 10 percent above that of 1954 (1955 output was estimated at 392 billion dollars). The production of manufacturers was about 40 percent more than it had averaged in the years immediately following World War 2. The country’s business spent about 30billion dollars for new factories and machinery. National income available for spending was almost a third greater than it had been in 1950. Consumers spent about 256 billion dollars; that is about 700 million dollars a day ,or about twenty-five million dollars every hour , all round the clock. Sixty-five million people held jobs and only a little more than two million wanted jobs but could not find them. Only agriculture complained that it was not sharing in the room. To some observers this was an ominous echo of the mid-1920’s . As farmer’s share of their products declined , marketing costs rose. But there were , among the observers of the national economy, a few who were not as confident as the majority . Those few seemed to fear that the boom could not last and would eventually lead to the opposite-depression.