The Art Of Conversation 談吐的藝術(1)

SIR ISAIAH BERLIN, a Latvian-born Oxford philosopher who died in 1997, may well have ranked among the greatest conversationalists who ever lived. According to Robert Darnton, a Princeton historian, Berlin's friends would "watch him as if he were a trapeze artist, soaring through every imaginable subject, spinning, flipping, hanging by his heels and without a touch of showmanship". Darnton reckoned that Berlin's only match in relatively modern times might have been Denis Diderot, an 18th-century French Enlightenment philosopher. By one account Diderot's conversation was "enlivened by absolute sincerity, subtle without obscurity, varied in its forms, dazzling in its flights of imagination, fertile in ideas and in its capacity to inspire ideas in others. One let oneself drift along with it for hours at a time, as if one were gliding down a fresh and limpid river, whose banks were adorned with rich estates and beautiful houses."

出生於拉脫維亞，辭世於1997年的牛津哲學家ISAIAH BERLIN爵士足可躋身於世間曾有的最偉大的健談人士之列。據普林斯頓大學歷史學家Robert Darnton稱，Berlin的朋友們會"注視着他就像看着一位高空雜技藝術家——他從你想象得到的每一個道具中猛然穿越而過，靠一雙腳跟旋轉着，彈跳着，懸掛着，而你卻對他表演能力毫無察覺"。 Darnton認爲，在相對當代時間內，唯一可以與Berlin媲美的是18世紀的法國啓蒙哲學家狄德羅（Denis Diderot）。據說，狄德羅的談吐的特點是"因極致的真誠而來的生動活潑，機巧而不含糊，形式多有變化，想象力奇妙得令人驚羨，觀點豐富，其內涵足以激發他人的觀點。他的談吐，能讓人一次隨之遊蕩上數個小時，彷彿隨着清澈而明淨的河水飄搖而下，兩岸河邊點綴着富氣的洋房和美麗的宅院。"

Churchill was another magnificent talker, perhaps the greatest of the 20th century, but often a poor listener. Virginia Woolf was given, in the words of one biographer, to "wonderful performances in conversation, spinning off into fantastic fabrications while everyone sat around and, as it were, applauded". A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, Sir Tom Stoppard, Studs Terkel and Gore Vidal.

丘吉爾（Churchill）是另一位豪氣干雲的健談家，他也許還是20世紀最偉大的健談家，但他常常是個糟糕的傾聽者。在一本傳記中，弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙（Virginia Woolf）被寫描寫成："交談時的表現非凡，在彷彿受人稱道似的被大家圍坐一旁時，他說起來了就像是穿針引線，織布成錦。"如果拉出一個尚且健存在世的最偉大的英語健談家的簡短名單話，大概一定要囊括上Christopher Hitchens，Patrick Leigh Fermor爵士， Tom Stoppard爵士， Studs Terkel和Gore Vidal這幾位了。

Great brilliance, fantastic powers of recall and quick wit are clearly valuable in sustaining conversation at these cosmic levels. Charm may be helpful too—although Samuel Johnson, one of the most admired conversationalists of 18th-century England, seemed to manage without much of it. For those of more modest accomplishments, but attached to conversation as one of life's pleasures and necessary skills, there is a lively market in manuals and tip-sheets going back almost 500 years, and a legacy of wisdom with an even longer history. One striking thing about the advice is how consistent it remains over time, suggesting that there are real rights and wrongs in conversation, not just local conventions.

在這些普適用水平上，橫溢的才華、非凡出色的回憶能力和急智，這些都對支持談吐都有明確的價值。魅力也能多少的增色添香——儘管18世紀英格蘭最令人欽佩的交談高手Samuel Johnson在這一點上並粘到多少光也能得心應手。對於那些更爲適宜的教養，除了作爲人一生的樂趣和必需技能而依附於談吐之上，還有一個可以追溯至近500年前的、存在於手冊和小竅門摺頁的鮮活的市場和一份甚至歷史更悠久的智慧遺產。"超時的剩餘部分有多大的一致性" 這樣一個有關建議所突出的事宜，提示談吐中確實有對有錯，而不僅僅只是本土習俗。

The principle that it is rude to interrupt another speaker goes back at least to Cicero, writing in 44BC, who said that good conversation required "alternation" among participants. In his essay "On Duties", Cicero remarked that nobody, to his knowledge, had yet set down the rules for ordinary conversation, though many had done so for public speaking. He had a shot at it himself, and quickly arrived at the sort of list that self-help authors have been echoing ever since. The rules we learn from Cicero are these: speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.

"打斷別的發言人的講話是粗俗魯莽的" 的這一原則這至少可以追溯至公元前44年，西塞羅（Cicero）所寫的文字。他說，良好的交談需要參與者之間的"輪轉"。其著作《論責任》中，西塞羅談論到，據他所知，已經有人爲日常會話制定出了規則，儘管許多人作公共講演時也施行這些規則。他自己據此而行，飛快躋身到了某種"自學的作品引起了從未有過的迴應"的名單之上。從西塞羅這可以學到的這些規則有：咬字清楚，通情達意；談吐自如，勿要贅言敷敘，他人出語之刻，殊不可間語插話；知書達禮持；大事慎應，小事雅裁；戒以蜚短流長、說項說莊；老調多彈，鄉俗常拾；（堅持普羅大衆的感興趣的話題）；勿要自是自彰，自矜自誇。諸般之上，萬不可易色改容，失性發狂（而在所以這些之上的則是絕不發火發飆。）

Probably only two cardinal rules were lacking from Cicero's list: remember people's names, and be a good listener. Each of these pieces of advice also has a long pedigree. At a pinch you might trace the point about names back to Plato. Both found a persuasive modern advocate in Dale Carnegie, a teacher of public speaking who decided in 1936 that Americans needed educating more broadly in "the fine art of getting along". His book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is still in print 70 years later and has sold 15m copies. To remember names, and to listen well, are two of Carnegie's "six ways to make people like you". The others are to become genuinely interested in other people; smile; talk in terms of the other person's interests; and make the other person feel important.

西塞羅的單子上也許只少了2個關鍵性的規則：記住人們的名字，成爲好的傾聽者。這些建議的吉光片羽都源遠流長。尋幽探微的話，追溯起來可以找到柏拉圖的名字。兩者都在能言善道的時髦鼓吹手Dale Carnegie身上中找得到。作爲教授公開演講的老師，他在1936年斷言，美國人需要進行更爲寬泛的"相處的現代藝術"教育。其著作《如何贏得朋友和影響他人》在之後的70年裏一直還在印刷出版，售賣了1500萬本。記住姓名，進行良好的傾聽，是Carnegie的"讓別人喜歡上你的6個辦法"中的2個。其他的幾個是：發自內心的關注他人、微笑、用別人感興趣的腔調說話、讓他/她覺得自己很重要。

Cicero's rules of conversation seem to have been fairly common across cultures as well as time, if varying in strictness. It might reasonably be said that Italians are more tolerant of interruption, Americans of contradiction and the English of formality, for example. These rules of conversation also intersect with those of politeness more generally, as formulated by two American linguists, Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, the pioneers of "politeness theory".

西塞羅的談話原則在不同文化不同時代裏都是適用的，只不過側重點不一樣（對各項原則的要求嚴格程度並不一樣）。比如說，意大利人更能忍受被人打斷，美國人忍受自相矛盾，英國人忍受拘謹俗套，這些都是合乎情理的。正如由作爲"禮貌理論"的先鋒的2位美國語言學家Penelope Brown和Steven Levinson所繫統化表達的那樣，這些規則更爲普遍的與禮貌互相作用。