Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change. define 意思？

define vt= state precisely the meaning of (eg words of historical changes and institutional contradiction)
Hence:-historical changes---big environment relates our luck
----------institutional contradiction---theory we don't understand relates the same.

(Simon 和 Prisoner 的解說都可一讀)
Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change.
然而，人們通常不會經由歷史的變動來解釋他們所處的困境。

define 在英文中的意思，不是只有 "下定義" 而已，解說、 解釋、說明、釋疑、闡明、闡述、闡釋、界定....

原文出自: The Sociological Imagination (Mills, 1959)
http://www3.uakron.edu/witt/midlater/socimag.htm

Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change.

define 在這裡的意思應該是: 將..視為..

在這裡整句意思是:

然而 男人 並不將 (他們所受的問題) 視為 (有改變歷史作用的)

另例:

Men do not define women they love in terms of sex objects.
男人不會將 他們所愛愛的女人們 視為 性物件的.

本題之完整句為 - Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction.
Define : to describe something correctly and thoroughly, and to say what standards, limits, qualities etc it has that make it different from other things – copied from Longman。故句裡的define可譯為 ”正確了解”。
In terms of : 就...方面…與其有關
1.題目就字面直譯：但是男人仍然不了解他們所承受的麻煩與歷史的改變有關。如此譯的缺點是在英文裡historical change感覺上是歷史也包含了目前發生的改變 – 比如我們國家即將作的年金改革，但用中文的思維歷史感覺上不包含現在(最起碼我的老思想是如此)，所以直譯有點難懂
2.因題目把and institutional contradiction拿掉，更使非完整句直譯產生問題。因為institutional contradiction – 組織矛盾(對立)，所講的對立含現在。在大部分情況下只看半句勉強翻譯會造成語譯失真
3.叁考文章中的另一句話 – “What we fail to understand is the larger environment in which we stand.” 感覺上 “historical change and institutional contradiction” = “the larger environment in which we stand”.
4.所以最後我感覺是”historical change and institutional contradiction” 之解譯為大環境之改變及其帶來的對立