中学校英語教科書本文内容の記述における修辞パターンの分析

テキストのつながりに焦点を当てて

抄録

This study seeks to analyze the rhetorical patterns within English textbooks for junior high-schools. Rhetorical patterns refer to the structure of connections, or links, between sentences within a text, and previous studies have identified up to seven basic rhetorical patterns within general expository texts. Accordingly, they are considered to be an essential factor in assessing whether a text is easy to understand. Moreover, some empirical studies, that have investigated the effects of different rhetorical patterns on reader comprehensibility, report that certain rhetorical patterns can facilitate readers in recalling the meanings of a text more accurately than other patterns. Based on a framework of rhetorical patterns, twelve units from two distinct themes were selected and analyzed from six authorized English textbooks for seventh graders, which were revised in 2012 with the implementation of new course study guidelines. The analysis results indicate that half of the selected units employ the “list” pattern, considered to incorporate the lowest level of connectivity in terms of textual structure, while half of the selected textbooks tended to utilize the same rhetorical pattern throughout their units. Moreover, the analysis of rhetorical patterns highlights the importance of textual structure and connectivity for research into the compilation of textbooks.