The Purpose of this research is to investigate the use of the affective factors of the successful learners and the less successful ones in the oral communicative tasks, because it is believed that affective factors are closely related with proficiency. A focus is given on two main affective factors: 'anxiety' and 'high self-esteem' with the related concept of the strategy of 'risk-taking'. They are discussed based on the self-reported data collected in the two communicative speaking tasks. The data show some contradictory attitudes of the successful learners in that the low selfe-evaluation co-exists with a positive attitude of 'risk-taking'. This discrepancy is analyzed from various points of view. The investigation sheds light on peculiar affective factors of the Japanese female EFL learners at Junior College in the communicative tasks.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze how students describe everyday actions in English, and to show the significance of the contexts in which the actions take place when students compose English sentences. Many Japanese students tend to memorize English words by translating them directly into Japanese equivalents. They do not give consideration to the context in which the words are used. Thus, they tend to translate Japanese sentences into English ones word by word or phrase by phrase. That is why they are unable to write good English sentences. I set up a conceptual model of general actions which are involved in certain semantic roles: agent, instrument, patient, place, state. In a typical action an agent(actor) does an act with an instrument which affects a patient (the movable object of the act), as a result, the location or state of the patient is changed. I make up Japanese sentences which reflect the conceptual model. I ask students to translate the sentences with denominal verbs. Denominal verbs are verbs which are convened from common nouns without any change in form. Many of them are originally nouns which have the meanings of agent, instrument, patient, place, and state. Those denominal verbs indicate to students that they should focus on the context of a target sentence and see it from different angles when they translate it into an English sentence. That might be an effective way to cultivate composition ability.

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English has no grammatical markers which identify the gender of the speaker. It has, however, been argued that, in certain cases, male and female speakers tend to use different ways of speaking. In this paper, I have investigated by questionnaires the way American speakers make a request to their friends, and compared the expressions that male and female informants preferably use. The results of my investigation show that male and female speakers tend to use different kinds of expressions when they make a request. Male speakers tend to change their expressions depending on the degree of their intimacy with the listeners. They use polite forms of making a request when the listeners are not intimate. If those who do them a favor are close friends, they will ask them in a more casual way, even bluntly without showing any politeness. Male speakers also generally use more polite expressions when they speak to female friends than to males, while female speakers are found not to change their expressions as much depending on the sex of the persons they speak to. Besides, they generally use more polite expressions both to the male and female listeners alike. The difference between the male and female ways of making a request indicates that men choose from different expressions, depending on whom they are talking to, while women tend not to change their way of speaking. This result reflects the different ideas between male and female speakers about gender and intimacy.

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The final scene of Cymbeline is said to be a tour de force. Compared with the compact endings of most of Shakespeare's plays, this final scene is unique in repeating by narration what has happened already in the play. Why, then, does Shakespeare exceptionally depend on a series of narratives to solve more than twenty problems in the denouement ? This paper examines the dramatic function of Iachimo's storytelling in the final scene. Taking advantage of the audience's knowledge of the dramatic events and details of the plot, the playwright reminds them of the previous scenes by providing subtle hints in Iachimo's confession. The dramatist contrives to create fruitful reactions of the audience, who compare and contrast the present narrative with the past incidents. Those on stage who have less or no information about the previous events cannot understand the meaning of the story as fully as the theatre audience. The playwright provides the narrative with dramatic elements in order to stimulate their imagination and enrich the play. Then the repentant Iachimo helps to bring about the reconciliation between the slandered Imogen and Posthumus by giving testimony to the former's chastity and praising the latter's nobleness and goodness. The narrators then successively reveal the truth to the naive king. The stories narrated in the final scene are familiar to the audience and yet inform them of something new and strange. The meticulous use of narration adds deeper significance and dynamism to the drama. The poet succeeds in creating a sense of wonder in the final scene, which is achieved by a series of dramatic narratives, particularly Iachimo's exquisite storytelling.

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Sexual Politics by a radical feminist Kate Millett coped with D.H.Lawrence's novels on different terms than done in the past. It is true that the biographies of Lawrence's admirers had a great impact on the formation of Lawrence's criticisms in the past. While in Sexual Politics Millett criticized the mechanisms of patriarchy of Lawrence's novels which was utilized intentionally by the author in order to dominate females by the use of sexual power. On the other hand, Lawrence called his literature 'art for his sake' as he thought his art was personal and that his fate stigmatized him as a writer. After a close comparison I came to the conclusion that Millett as well as Lawrence considered patriarchy as a system which inevitably involved the modern in the male dominant systems. Both writers thought that such a mechanism as patriarchy should be destroyed in order to aid restoring health to males and females who suffer under the morbid modem systems.

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In writing about her childhood along the Texas-Mexico border, Gloria Anzaldua describes the experience of being caught between two cultures, as being an alien in both. The actual physical borderland that Anzaldua describes in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is the Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border, but the "borderlands" she refers to are something more psychological, sexual, and spiritual. These Borderlands are present wherever two or more cultures confront each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where all socio-economic classes touch, and where the confusion of sexual and gender identity exists. Her preoccupations with the inner life of the Self, and with the struggle of that Self in the borderlands provide the unique positioning consciousness. The quest for one's identity based on race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, etc., ends up in the system of binary oppositions. In my view, in this book Anzaldua criticizes an absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one or the other and insists that the Self is plural, transformative, and performative. She searches for a way of balancing, and mitigating the system of binary oppositions through knowing and learning the history of oppression. Anzaldua suggests that we should accept our differences and that our differences should open political lines of affiliation with other groups to challenge the specific forms of domination that we share in common.

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Margaret Fuller, living in the nineteenth century's 'Cult of True-Womanhood', spent all her life exploring the territory beyond her destiny. When she met newly-wed Hawthorne at Concord, she worked as an editor of 'Dial' and pondered on the relationship between man and woman. In his works such as 'Rappacini's Daughter' and The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne dramatized Fuller as a 'Dark Lady' who told a story of punishment and retribution. Like Beatrice, her father's good intention to give his daughter higher education made Fuller isolated from the world; Hester, being a noble and courageous woman, cherished in vain for the idea of being a prophetess for a new world. Hawthorne fully sympathized her idea, yet kept his attitude conservative, considering that Fuller with her knowledge and claim was a stigma in those days. In conclusion I would like to say that Fuller's radical (at that time) ideas about women' s rights, equality of both sexes and the nature of marriage influenced Hawthorne's writings, especially those works such as 'Rappacini's Daughter' and The Scarlet Letter.

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Mark Twain presents various anti-imperialistic speeches and writings in the latter period of his life. Twain accuses Civilization in China and the Philippines as American Imperialism in "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." Although he religiously and politically accuses Civilization, he rather satirizes the adherents who support it without value judgement by themselves: for he uses the same word -Civilization- as a punch line in the same way in "The Dervish and the Offensive Stranger." By way of illustration, citations from The Innocents Abroad show Twain's point of view. He insists that there is no assurance in the people who depend on authority without examination by themselves. In The Autobiography of Mark Twain, he indicates kindred implicit faith in religion and politics allegorically, illustrating superstitious idea about depilation. Besides, the theme of "True Patriotism at the Children's Theater" comes from his skepticism against artificially created public opinion; he criticizes his contemporaries' non-examined opinion that makes their public pronouncement, such as a Civilization policy, merely at second hand. However, he supported the Children's 'Theater at once to educate coming generations to think and act for themselves.

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In 18th century north America, many Euroamerican people chose to live among Native American tribes during the wars between Native Americans, white settlers of Spain, French and Great Britain. They were called 'White Indians,' and many of them were children and women abducted by Native Americans. But there also existed those who entered into native people's communities voluntarily. Many of them were English Indian Traders who engaged in the deerskin trade for export to Europe, and who wanted to gain more wealth by a closer connection with native people. The case of a Scotch-English trader named James Logan Colbert who traded with the Chickasaw Indian tribe residing in the southeastern part of North American continent and who married three Chickasaw Indian women, and subsequently became the one of tribal leaders, is examined in this paper. As a 'Red English,' he was also concerned with furthering the interests of Great Britain on the North American continent, so he fought the British crown's enemies: thirteen British colonies which rebelled against their home government (later the United States of America), Spain and hostile Indian tribes like the Choctaws.

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While attempts were being made in Europe to discover the "Terra Australis Incognita" (unknown southern land), imaginary land which had long been thought to exist at the bottom of the earth since the times of Greek geographer, Ptolemy, Japan was under National Isolation Policy. It was not until Captain Cook's explorations that precise maps of Australia and New Zealand were drawn. Captain Cook also found that the legendary land which had been thought to occupy the whole bottom of the earth did not exist. In Japan, however, cartographers kept on producing out-dated maps. The shape of some land masses especially that of Australia differed according to Buddhists, Confucianists, and those Japanese Dutch scholars who were so-called positivists. It was a Japanese feudal government officer, Kageyasu Takahashi, who finally drew the first correct map. Though the Japanese government publicly acknowledged Confucianism to be the "orthodox" ideology, they on the other hand pursued European knowledge. However, this knowledge was restricted to themselves. That is why private scholars were behind the times. In this essay, three styles of maps of Australia during the Edo Period are described along with the discussion as to why such lack of unity occurred

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