文/埃德·扬 译/蒋威

By Ed Yong

The Incredible Thing We Do During Conversations交谈的神奇之处

文/埃德·扬 译/蒋威

ByEd Yong

When we take turns1speaking, we chime in2after a culturally universal short gap. 轮流讲话时，一方语毕，我们会稍作停顿再插话，这是人类文化中的一个普遍现象。

One of the greatest human skills becomes evident during conversations. It’s there, not in what we say but in what we don’t. It’s there in the pauses, the silences, the gaps between the end of my words and the start of yours.

[2] When we talk we take turns,where the “right” to speak flips3flip翻动。back and forth between partners. This conversational pitter-patter4pitter-patter噼里啪哒的声音。is so familiar and seemingly unremarkable that we rarely remark on5remark on评论，议论，谈论。it. But consider the timing: On average, each turn lasts for around 2 seconds, and the typical gap between them is just 200 milliseconds—barely enough time to utter a syllable6syllable音节。. That figure is nighuniversal7nigh-universal近乎普遍的。. It exists across cultures, with only slight variations. It’s even there in sign-language8sign-language手语。conversations.

人类最伟大的技能之一在交谈时变得显而易见。但这项技能并非体现在言语中，而是在言语外。它体现在交谈时的停顿和沉默里，在你一言我一语的间歇中。

[2]我们在交谈时会轮流讲话，“发言权”在彼此间来回翻转。这种谈话节奏是如此司空见惯，看似毫不起眼，以至于我们鲜有谈及。但细想一下讲话时机：平均来说，每轮讲话大概持续2秒钟，两轮讲话之间的间隔一般只有200毫秒——几乎不够发一个音节。但这一时间间隔近乎普遍存在，不同文化间仅略有差异，甚至在手语交流中都是如此。

1 take turns依次，轮流（说、做等）。

2 chime in插话。

[3] “It’s the minimum human response time to anything,” says Stephen Levinson from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics9马克斯·普朗克心理语言学研究所，隶属于马克斯·普朗克科学促进学会。该促进学会是德国的一个大型科研学术组织，也是国际上规模最大、威望最高和成效最大的由政府资助的自治科学组织，下设83个研究所。. It’s the time that runners take to respond to a starting pistol10starting pistol发令枪。—and that’s just a simple signal. If you gave them a two-way11two-way双向的。choice—say, run on green but stay on red—they’d take longer to pick the right response. Conversations have a far greater number of possible responses,which ought to saddle us with12saddle with使负重担，使承担任务或责任。lengthy gaps between turns. Those don’t exist because we build our responses during our partner’s turn. We listen to their words while simultaneously13simultaneously同时发生地。crafting14craft精心制作。our own, so that when our opportunity comes, we seize it as quickly as it’s physically possible to.

[4] “When you take into account the complexity of what’s going into these short turns, you start to realize that this is an elite behavior,” says Levinson.“Dolphins can swim amazingly fast,and eagles can fly as high as a jet, but this is our trick.”

[3]马克斯·普朗克心理语言学研究所的斯蒂芬·莱文森说：“这是人类对任何事物作出反应所需的最短时间。”这也是跑步运动员听到发令枪后作出反应所需的时间，而枪声只是一个简单的信号。如果给运动员一个双向选择——譬如说，看到绿色信号便起跑，红色则不动——那么，他们需要更长的时间来作出正确反应。……