2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Contrastive Analysis of Japanese and English from a Viewpoint of Clause Positioning and Contribution to Improving the teaching of English Composition
| Project/Area Number |
17520316
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
English linguistics
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| Research Institution | Tohoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
FUKUCHI Hajime Tohoku University, Graduate School of Information Sciences, Professor (90015884)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ASAKAWA Teruo Center for the Advancement of Higher Education, 高等教育開発推進センター, Professor (50101522)
OGAWA Yoshiki Graduate School of Information Sciences, 大学院・情報科学研究科, Associate Professor (20322977)
NISHIDA Koichi Graduate School of Information Sciences, 大学院・情報科学研究科, Associate Professor (80326454)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2007
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| Keywords | English linguistics / phonetics / general linguistics / Japanese linguistics / cognitive science / translation / syntax / semantics |
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| Research Abstract |
In the academic year of 2005, the project started by integrating the knowledge the co-researchers had concerning the difference and the contrast observed in the positioning of clauses in Japanese and English. At the same time, the designated researchers looked for useful knowledge in linguistic literature that is related to the way Japanese and English is structured in combining a preceding clause and a following clause in order to express a semantic relation of event sequence. Also, the researchers collected relevant Japanese and English data from newspapers, magazines, etc.
In 2005, the project continued through the assistance by graduate students who browsed in electronic corpora to collect data that are revealing in characterizing the correspondence between clause juxtaposition in Japanese and clause structuring in English. The researchers analyzed the collected data and categorizing them into some syntactic and semantic patterns In 2007, Hajime Fukuchi, the chief investigator for the project published an interim report in the Rising Generation under the title of "English Composition Seen from English Linguistics."
The findings we have made so far can be summarized as follows. The semantic relations that are expressed in compound clause structure in Japanese can be can be conveyed in English through subordinate clause structures like (1) a main clause followed by a (typically, present) participial clause; (2) a main clause that is followed by a (semantically some adverbial) infinitival clause; (3) a main clause that is followed by a clause final relative clause; (4) a main clause that is followed by an adverbial subordinate clause that is introduced by when, as, etc.; (5) a prepositional phrase headed by to, with, etc. that functions as an adverbial adjunct. We arrived at a conclusion that these five corresponding syntactic patterns seem to reveal fundamental contrastive characteristics that have been made clear in linguistic literature.
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Research Products
(10 results)
