Despite its high density of leopards, Malawi could previously only lay claim to a few itinerant lions in southerly Liwonde National Park. The solitary male, known as Titus, was as elusive as the literary character after which he was named; spotted in 2007 he went to ground until 2010, only to be seen once more before disappearing in 2011. "Not much of a reason for big cat buffs or travellers keen on spotting the precious Big Five (lion, rhino, buffalo, leopard, elephant) to set their compass for this southern African country.:
Despite its high density of leopards, Malawi could previously only lay claim to a few itinerant lions in southerly Liwonde National Park. The solitary male, known as Titus, was as elusive as the literary character after which he was named; spotted in 2007 he went to ground until 2010, only to be seen once more before disappearing in 2011. Not much of a reason for big cat buffs or travellers keen on spotting the precious Big Five (lion, rhino, buffalo, leopard, elephant) to set their compass for this southern African country.
這篇文章的標題叫 Malawi’s mane event heralds a fresh dawn (獅子預示馬拉威一片嶄新的曙光)；其中 mane 原指獅子鬃毛，這裡就是比喻獅子。
英文文章的第一段，如果不是直接破題講明主旨，就是用故事、背景介紹等方式先替讀者建立一點相關背景知識，讀者才能進入狀況、真正了解接下來文章的內容。以這篇文章為例，第一段就是做背景介紹；因為大部分的讀者可能對馬拉威這個國家很陌生，當然也不清楚關於它的野生生態狀況，向讀者交待這些資訊就有其必要性。也由於第一段把背景資訊交待清楚後，第二段才有能夠講明主旨(late last August, two females and two male lions (all three years old) were translocated from South Africa to Malawi’s Majete Wildlife Reserve in the south of the country.)，你會發現接下來各段落的內容都是分別跟這個主旨(獅子二公二母被移殖到馬拉威)有關的故事…。
簡單分析文章架構主要是點明第一段的功用，理解文章發展脈絡有時對理解句子有很大的幫助。
再回過頭想：第一段從開頭到倒數第二個句子要講什麼？馬拉威極少獅子現蹤。因此，對獅子愛好者(big cat buffs)和熱愛親眼目睹草原五大動物的旅客而言，前述狀況成為不怎麼吸引他們前往馬拉威的原因。
其實可以把這個句子想成這樣：
(This is) Not much of a reason forbig cat buffs or travellers keen on spotting the precious Big Five (lion, rhino, buffalo, leopard, elephant)toset their compass for this southern African country.
這個 this 就借代前面講的事情。not much of 意思是"不怎麼是"，接下來是 reason for sb. to do sth. 的用法。
因為 this is 沒有實質的意思，是為了讓句子結構完整而要加上的主詞、動詞；再加上 this 所借代的對象很清楚，就是此段落從開頭到這個句子前所講的東西，不容易混淆。因此作者就乾脆不要這個沒有實質意思的 this is ，也可以藉由不完整句不合一般正常句子結構的特殊性，產生讓讀者特別注意它、達到加強語氣的效果。
事實上，這個句子在這篇文章裡的角色很重要。觀察標題和這個句子的關係就能明白：若不是有這個句子所敘述的狀況，就不會有這篇文章的標題。從這個角度去看，就不難明白作者為什麼要用特殊句法來處理這個句子。
以上說明希望你滿意。 作者: beater 時間: 2013-5-6 12:35 PM
