Inspired by a recent survey of high school students in Hokkaido, Japan, which showed that most students learn no phonetic alphabet in school, presumably because of recent Monbusho guidelines which promote "communicative" teaching methods in the English language classroom, and by their encounters with Japanese high school graduates who exhibit poor pronunciation of English, the authors undertook two studies to see if explicit instruction in phoneme production was useful in improving pronunciation. The studies, involving 1^<st> and 2^<nd> year students at a Japanese women's university, showed that explicit instruction in a phonetic alphabet and in phoneme production does have a beneficial effect on the over-all intelligibility of pronunciation. Since one of the sample groups in the study improved from largely unintelligible to intelligible pronunciation presumably through the explicit instruction provided in the course of the study, the authors argue that such instruction should be incorporated into communicative methodology.

抄録全体を表示

The aim of this study is to see how frequently first person singular pronouns are used in persuasive writings written in English by Japanese EFL learners, to explain the phenomenon from a socio-cultural perspective, and to show that understanding the English speaker's way of thinking is necessary in writing instruction. The data was derived from English essays written by 44 Japanese university students. The essay title is "Are school uniforms necessary or not?" The following results were obtained: 1) About half the students use first person pronouns every 0-14 words in their compositions; 2) The total number of cases of first person pronouns is 491. The sentences which include them express the writer's opinion, experience, feelings, evaluation concerning school uniforms; 3) Students who use first person pronouns are classified into two types according to the main purpose of using them; 4) Students who use first person pronouns with a relatively high frequency mainly use them to express their experiences, while the students who use first person pronouns with a relatively low frequency mainly use them to express their opinions. This paper explains that their use is affected by the Japanese communication style and the traditional writing education in Japan. It is concluded that besides grammar and structure, understanding the English speaker's way of thinking is important in writing instruction.

抄録全体を表示

This paper deals with the problem of translation in general and that of translating children's books in particular. This report endeavors to critically compare Natsu no Niwa [The Summer Garden] , Yumoto Kazumi's Japanese novel for children, with The Friends, the English translation by Cathy Hirano. In the general sense, Hirano's translation, adopting the methods of interpolation, deletion, and replacement, very carefully-and sometimes boldly-attains the level of a creative adaptation while rendering a faithful reproduction so that her North American audience can enjoy the book in the same way as those reading the original Japanese text. Examined in the light of translating children's books in particular, however, her translation is subject to the assumed social and moral norms of adults, such as didacticism, underestimation of children's ability and curiosity, and sentimentalizing and prettifying attitudes. In spite of Hirano's attempts at both pointing out underlying similarities that encourage young readers to overcome superficial differences and bringing out the charm of what is new and strange that broadens their horizons, these two goals are not always easily reconcilable in the translation. Performing a balancing act between faithfulness and intelligibility is a difficult task with which all translators must contend.

抄録全体を表示

In many of Shakespeare's plays there are certain characters who demonstrate an eagerness to detect their own self-image in others. They sometimes have an irresistible compulsion to regard others as a mere reflection of themselves. Most of them, however, cannot achieve such complete identification with other characters. The affinity between Antipholus of Syracuse and Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors lies only in their external appearances. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona Valentine devotedly attempts to find a reflection of himself in Proteus even after he falls in love with Silvia. At the critical moment of the play when Proteus tried to rape Silvia, Valentine puts more importance on his friendship with Proteus than on his love for Silvia. When betrayed by his trusted friend, Proteus, Valentine pardons him after only a brief apology. At the end of the play when Valentine declares that he and Proteus will share "one feast, one house, one mutual happiness" he tries to make their emotional bond still deeper, even after they married their respective lovers. Valentine is not mature enough for serious, adult-like love. He is satisfied with the mirror image of himself and feels no need to acquire his own identity. This lack of emotional maturity is closer to that of some of Shakespeare's tragic characters, such as King Lear, than to that of characters who have fallen in love in his more sophisticated comedies.

抄録全体を表示

"Mother and Daughter" is said to reflect Lawrence's thought in his late years after "the leadership novels" starting with Aaron's Rod (1922) through The Plumed Serpent (1926). In those novels, Lawrence developed his male chauvinistic ideas which led to male supremacy. Lawrence's later thought is also characterized by his conspicuous heterosexism as depicted in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) in which Lawrence displays male chauvinistic attitudes through the treatment of his heroin. In "Mother and Daughter" Lawrence depicts a family in which the absent father is replaced by a strong willed mother who does her best vis- a-vis her daughter in order to compensate for the father's absence. However, despite her "strange muscular energy" she eventually destroys her own matriarchal family in which her daughter is her own alter ego. She is described as a witch because she tries to hypnotize her daughter. But the mother looses ground when her daughter brings her own fiance whose tribe is patriarchal. Lawrence's intention to make a case for male supremacy seems to be accomplished when the strong woman who squashed her husband to death is symbolically defeated. But the daughter's final revenge doesn't necessarily imply that she has reached total independence from her mother. So far the daughter Virginia is often considered to be one of Lawrence's failure. However, her attitude toward her mother reflects a mood that shows an independent personality. Here I would like to see Lawrence's anticipation toward Virginia despite his later chauvinistic viewpoints.

抄録全体を表示

The inter-war period was a moment pregnant with social and political re-invention: Communism and Fascism, in different ways, were already addressing the problems of social reconstruction in the wake of what was widely perceived as the failure of capitalism. Photojournalists in the 1930s such as Stefan Lorant, the editor of Picture Post, worked to mobilise middle-class sympathy for the socialist cause by using an anthropological trope as their strategy for defining a common cultural identity across class differences. The anthropological trope which framed these social explorers' photographic documentations of working-class homes and working-class modes of labour and leisure initially posited the observer as knower and the working class as an exotic, primitive tribe to be examined. However, they then rewrote the narrative of the worker as exotic other into the story of middle-class self-discovery. That is, what begins as a search for knowledge of the working-class 'local Other' becomes a search for 'self' -knowledge as the working class becomes a vehicle for reflecting middle-class identity. This paper examines the problems and potential of Picture Post and British photojournalism, the cost of mobilising a mass identity based on a re-invented nation's self-image and the ways in which representations of social and cultural identity structure political communities.

抄録全体を表示

Niall Ferguson's book, Empire: How Britain Mede the Modern World (2003) has recently drawn attention. It was based on the namesake TV series (2003) on Britain's Channel 4, highlighting the history of British expansion from its beginning in the 17th century to the devolutions of the 20th century. Ferguson attempts to demonstrate that the British Empire was "a good thing" in spite of its slave trade and ethnic cleansing in the 18th century. He claims that its globalization with gunboats brought democracy and the free market to the world. This, he states, is definitely better than what the evil empires. Germany and Japan, might have done. Contrasting British differences with the evil empires, Empire emphasises the continuity from the British Empire to America, "empire m denial" and suggests that America should "take up the White Man's Burden" to propagate the "Anglo-balization" across the world thoroughly. This paper will put Empire in the context of the UK in 2002-3 when the term "imperialism" was recycled by the so-called "New Imperialists" during the Iraqi crisis while British imperial consciousness was refashioned by the controversy over its colonial past. On this point, Niall Ferguson has played a key role in the following movements: firstly, revision of the British Empire as a beneficial agent of globalization, and secondly, incorporation of Empire history as a GCSE subject. Taking into consideration Ferguson's articles, this paper suggests that he should be a historian counterpart of Robert Cooper, Blair's diplomacy guru. In this sense, Ferguson's academic and journalistic propaganda of new imperialism has a similar purpose as Cooper's strategy concerning Britain's international presence, standing on the shoulders of a giant, not shoulder to shoulder. Almost a century ago when America rose while the British Empire began to decline, Rudyard Kipling emphasised the British blood bondage to America in his "White Man's Burden" (1899). Ferguson's Empire may turn out to be a White Man's Burden for the 2lst century.

抄録全体を表示

Margaret Atwood is one of the best-known writers in her country. Canada. Her works are translated in the various countries. She was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature in 2001. She has been awarded the Booker Prize (2000) and the Governor General's Award, which is the best prize for literature in Canada, twice. Jugding from the above, not only Canada but also the world has admired her works. Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that she has what other writers don't have. On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind that she has also written some books about literature. These books tell us her unique literary theory. Moreover, Atwood accepts herself that her idea as a literay critic is reflected in her writings in many ways. So, we think that the quality of Atwood the writer can be found out by analyzing that of Atwood the critic. The first and foremost, we must try to clarify the central conception of Atwood the critic, which is derived from Survial (1972), Second Words (1982) and Negotiating with the Dead (2002). Next, her central conception is compared with successive Canadian literary critics', T. S. Eliot's, Nathaniel Hawthorne's and W. Somerset Maugham's. Only in the final place, we consider her novels through the concept of Atwood the critic, and then reach the quality of Atwood the writer.

抄録全体を表示

Henry James was much bewildered in 1904 to find the United States was dramatically changed after his absence of 22 years. "The Jolly Corner" owes much to the experience and in this story an alter ego is employed to revalue the protagonist Brydon's native land and to discharge his troubled feelings. James follows the Gothic style of C. B. Brown and E. A. Poe to some extent, helped by the thought of Emerson here. But the alter ego can not be defined as a traditional Gothic device in that his role is not so much in frightening Brydon as in allowing to be manipulated by him in order to assist him to find a outlet for the uneasiness. This story suggests how the author accepted things American and how Jamesian Gothic developed in his last years.

抄録全体を表示

It is not too much to say that Sherman Alexie (1966-) is one of the most gifted Native American writers at present. Surprisingly, he appears before us in a variety of creative roles: a moviemaker^l, a poet, and a novelist. Alexie's concern is to depict the real life of contemporary Native Americans by making the best possible use of his extraordinary imagination and creativity. Two motives have combined to make me focus on his first novel, Reservation Blues (1995). First, I want to inquire into the issue of the representation of blackness; secondly, I would like to put this literary piece into the context of globalization and reinterpret the overall problems raised by this fiction. Pursuing these two questions in this novel. I expect to reach the core of the issue of ethnoscapes^2 in the era of globalization.

抄録全体を表示

As American main-streamed feminists step in the Third World women's issues, they often ignore the grass-roots women's movement in the Third World and believe that they are the one who can and must deal with these issues in the name of "human rights" and "sisterhood." Their arrogant attitudes toward the Third World women bring a strong antipathy against American feminists because they are deeply connected with hegemony and post-colonialism. By explaining Hosken's and Walker's post-colonial perspective in FGM and Feminist Majority's disregard of RAWA, I analyze how logos-centrism and English imperialism support hegemony and postcolonialism in American main-streamed feminists. I'm also concerned about the globalization and unilateralism among American feminists. I attempt to find some answer/response in Women in Black groups to resist them. Women in Black stands in a public place in silent, non-violent vigils at regular times and intervals. It is a loose network of women world-wide committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to war and other forms of violence. It is not an organization, but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. The silence and their performance represent the resistance of logos-centrism and the possibility of transnational feminism.

抄録全体を表示