The present paper reevaluated the significance of the Obscene Publications Act 1857(OPA), or Campbell's Law(An Act for more effectually preventing the Sale of Obscene Books, Pictures, Prints, and other Articles) from the view point of assessing the opposing forces in and out of the British Parliament that influenced the actual law-making process. In good contrast with the first hesitant approach before his submission of OPA, Lord Campbell, the propagator of OPA, is found quite straightforward in pressing his objective, widely supported by the public opinions outside the Houses, to his fellow members of the House, which might have unnecessarily provoked repulsive attitudes from some of them-probably best represented by Lord Lyndhurst, who openly made objections in the House of Lords, referring to the possibility of endangering the British literary works in the process of enforcing OPA. The verbal conflict between the two parties will well be summarised as that of maintaining the standard of decency in society as against the protection of national literature. It is quite noteworthy that the process of law-making itself only promoted the discussion of decency and moral integration, and not the protection of literature.

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When George Smith, publisher of the Cornhill Magazine, asked Trollope to provide a serial novel for the periodical, he had never composed such a novel. Nevertheless the first number was successfully published only about two months later, and the novel, Framley Parsonage, maintained its great popularity to the end. In writing the serial novel, Trollope strived to make each number "a whole". It was, however, necessary to adopt a technique to secure the unity, especially when many different characters appeared in one number. Trollope didn't like to use the suspenseful ending, one of the possible choices, because he thought it would destroy the trust between the novelist and his readers. It was the introduction of one particular theme into each number that he, instead, employed in Framley Parsonage. As a result, it allowed him to teach readers the lessons more frequently, which he considered, at that time, as one of the very important roles of a novelist.

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The heroine of The Seven Sisters, Candida Wilton, is a late middle-aged woman. She got married to an English man, Andrew, right after graduating from a university. She has not engaged herself in a job for a long time and she has spent her life just as a housewife. She is both a wife and a mother but she prefers to keep distance from her husband and daughters. Andrew feels lonely and seeks for her love. However, she is not affectionate towards him. Finally, he falls into the arms of another woman and Candida is forced to divorce him. This novel depicts how Candida lives her new life after the divorce, seeking her own happiness. Judging from this point, it ostensibly seems to deal with the same theme as Drabble's earlier novels. However, it is not so simple a novel. We notice that the narrative in The Seven Sisters is so artificial at our first reading: that is, computer journal, first or third person narrative shifting, false narrator's change and so on. In her earlier years of writing, Drabble said, "I hate books which are deliberately confusing. I aim to be lucid." She detested complicated novels like experimental ones so she has written many comparatively simple ones, having found themes in daily lives. Considering her words, Drabble seems to have some reason for having adopted several narrative techniques in The Seven Sisters. In this paper, I have studied how the development of Candida's new life and the narrative techniques are related.

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Henry James created some invalids, who are vital to know the author's story-telling methods. When we read The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of the Dove, we can find two types of invalids. One of them is one with special powers of perception like Ralph Touchett and another is a typical Victorian degenerate like Gilbert Osmond. Jamesian invalids like them have some Victorian nature; they lead a double life, have traits of degenerates and have dangerous influences upon others. But they also show some traits that cannot be ascribed to the Victorian age. Availing themselves of their special power of perception, they give stories a point of view that is different from the usual characters' or the author's. The idiosyncratic nature of Jamesian invalids are sometimes handed over from one character to another within a story or transferred to another character in a different story. The two novels, The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of the Dove sprang from the image of the author's cousin Minny Temple. So the two protagonists Isabel and Milly are more likely to be compared than other pairs of characters, but when we read the two novels focusing on the invalids, another line that connects the novels can be found.

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The aim of this paper is to discuss the fundamental characteristics of translated Japanese animation movies by analyzing adaptations applied in the process of translation. Two distinct approaches are adopted for this analysis. One approach compares the numerical phenomena of the words used in the translation of animes with American animations originally written in English. The other approach involves using Warriors of the Wind, a translation of an award-winning Japanese animation movie, as a concrete example to provide more in-depth consideration to the lexical phenomena. The analysis of the statistical data gathered on words used in translated animations indicates that the vocabulary of translated animations is significantly poorer in number, variety, and density. In addition, the proportion of words appearing only once in a translated work is lower, whereas that of words repeated more than six times is higher. Behind these phenomena lies the influence of the target culture, including the normalization or standardization of the text in accordance with adults' attitudes toward children, which are liable, whether consciously or not, to distort translation that involves the adaptation and the transformation of words, sentences, and even whole scenes in Warriors of the Wind. Adjusting the text to the model of the target system still predominates in translated animation movies for children.

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The present study was designed to investigate the effects of film-based dictation practice on listening comprehension skills. Considering that films are often shown with Japanese subtitles to low-proficiency learners, this study also explored the influence of subtitles in dictation practice. The subjects were 155 Japanese college students and they were divided into three groups: Japanese subtitles(JS) group, no subtitles(NS) group and control group. JS group watched a film scene with Japanese subtitles before dictation practice, while NS group watched the same scene without any subtitles before the dictation practice. After a 12-week session, two types of listening tests(TOEIC^[○!R] style listening comprehension test and film-based dictation test) and a questionnaire were given to the subjects. No major difference was observed between JS group and NS group in the TOEIC^[○!R] style test, while JS group scored significantly higher than NS group in the dictation test. The result of the tests revealed that dictation practice made little contribution to improving learners' listening comprehension, although it did improve learners' listening perception. The results of the questionnaire showed that Japanese subtitles produced favorable effects on learners' attitude toward the exercise. The results of the study suggested that dictation should be incorporated with other teaching techniques in order to improve learners' listening comprehension skills.

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