2. 外语
  3. (1)The European Union has been operating in 20 official languages since ten new member states joined the legislative body last y

(1)The European Union has been operating in 20 official languages since ten new member states joined the legislative body last y

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问题     (1)The European Union has been operating in 20 official languages since ten new member states joined the legislative body last year. With annual translation costs set to rise to 1.3 billion dollars(U.S.), some people question whether EU institutions are becoming overburdened by multilingualism. Brussels, Belgium, the European Union’s headquarters city, is fast getting a reputation as the new Babel. Parliamentary sessions are conducted 20 languages simultaneously. With further countries soon to join the EU, some analysts fear the effectiveness of its institutions could be getting lost in translation.
    (2)The European Parliament requires some 60 interpreters to help elected politicians from the 25 member states understand each other. These interpreters work in soundproofed booths, translating the words of European members of Parliament(MEPs). Even so, unfamiliar words or phrases can leave interpreters lost for words, says Struan Stevenson, a British MEP. Comic misunderstandings can arise that become part of Brussels lore. For instance, during an agricultural working group session, "frozen semen" was translated into French as "frozen seamen". Another MEP recalls how the expression "out of sight, out of mind" became "invisible lunatic" after a computer-aided translation.
    (3)The European Commission(EC), the legislative body of the European Union, says it’s essential that legislation is published in the official languages of all member states, because EU citizens can’t be expected to comply with laws they don’t understand. However, the resulting translation workload has meant problems for both the EC and individual member states. For instance, Estonia’s government this month reported major difficulties in ratifying some European legislation because of poor translation of EU laws. The EC also admits to difficulties in finding sufficient numbers of qualified translators in languages such as Maltese, which is spoken by only about 370,000 people.
    (4)Most EC translators also have access to a powerful computer application called Translator’s Workbench, which stores all previous work. "The translator faced with a new assignment feeds it into the system and gets back a text in which the memory suggests translations of phrases, sentences, or even whole paragraphs that have been translated in the past," Rowe, spokesperson for the EC’s Directorate-General for Translation, said. "We always recycle previous work wherever possible." He adds that internal EC work is conducted largely in just three languages—English, French, and German—for reasons of efficiency and economy. In the longer term, such an approach may be the way forward throughout the EU, according to Giles Chichester, a British MEP. "In practice, the institutions are trying to move towards one dominant language, with one or two other working languages," he said. "Let nature take its course."
    (5)Unofficially, English is the language of choice within the EU. It is now used for drafting around 60 percent of all paperwork. English is also widely spoken as a second language in Europe, especially in Scandinavian and Eastern European countries. In Malta, the vast majority of residents understand English. Officially, however, an EU dominated by English would be unacceptable politically. The French are particularly sensitive to its increased use, while multilingualism is considered a vital cornerstone of the European Parliament.
    (6)"Members are elected and represent the public because of their political stances, not their language skills," said Rowe, the EC translation-services spokesman. "So in the interests of democracy and transparency, the service provided to them has to be much more multilingual."
    (7)In fact, the amount of translation and interpretation work could multiply further if various political groups get their way. Catalan is spoken by some seven million Europeans, mostly in Spain. Yet it doesn’t have official status within the EU. Similarly, the Irish and Welsh are lobbying for official recognition of their native Celtic tongues. For the European Union to work as one, "Eurobabble" may be the price it has to pay.
According to the first paragraph, why is Brussels called "the new Babel"?
选项
答案Because Brussels is a place employing different languages．
解析 第1段提到，欧盟为多种语言问题所困扰，已经迷失在翻译中。根据该段描述可以得出布鲁塞尔之所以被称作新通天塔，是因为它作为欧盟的总部，目前使用多种语言，故答案可表述为Because Brussels is a placeemploying different languages。本题涉及到关于“通天塔”的传说，如果了解这一文化常识，便不难作答。
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