'Audience'観と英作文指導について : その考察と実践

Views of 'Audience' and the Teaching of English Writing

小林 ひろ江

広島大学総合科学部紀要. V, 言語文化研究

Bulletin of the Faculty of Integrated Arts and Science, Hiroshima University. V, Studies in Language and Culture

Western rhetoric places much emohasis on 'audience' for effective communication and how 'audience' is perceived exerts a great influence on the teaching of writing. A view, inherited from the Western oral tradition, has been predominant in the field; however, another view has recently emerged with a new composition theory. This article first discusses the views of 'audience' underlying the two current composition theories: one is product-oriented and the other, process-centered, and also their respective teaching method. Secondly, it reports on an experiment which was made on Japanese college students with the process-centered approach in teaching how to write English essays.

An product-oriented approach, based on classical rhetoric, tends to view 'audience' as someone to be convinced or persuaded and the assumed relatonship between writer and reader is adversarial. This view leads a writer to write with a persuasive intent and to adopt the prescribed form of text to express such an intent. In contrast, the process approach focuses on the discovery of meaning and its agreed view of 'audience' seems to be as a 'constructive participant'. That is, a reader participates in the writer's composing process by reacting to the writer's draft. The writer usually rewrites the draft through interaction with actual readers or interaction with his own text. Generally, the product-oriented approach is considered to be formulaic, skill-based, while the process approach is organic, competence-based.

The experiment reported here was to examine how process-centered teaching affects Japanese college students learning to write English expository essays. In this experiment, student interaction and revison were emphasized: the students were asked to read drafts prepared by others in a group and write a comment for each other, and then to rewrite their own draft at home. This procedure was applied twice until the final draft was completed. A total of three essays were produced in the same manner over one semester.

The results of the experiment were analyzed through the student's revised texts and their answered questionnaires. The most frequent changes made in the texts were content-related; readers' comments, in particular, contributed a great deal to the writer's including specific examples, developing further ideas or clarifying implicit statements. Other changes seen were related to the student writers' attitude. First, their sense of 'audience' had increased and they contrived to make their writing easier for readers. Secondly, the students realized how important it was to develop a critical reader within themselves to improve their writing ability.

In conclusion, the above results support the claim that the process-oriented approach nurtures the writer's competence rather than skill. It is important for Japanese college students to develop such competence in writing in English. However, it is also important for those writing in a second language to acquire relevant English conventions. While nurturing the writer's competence, the teacher should also be concerned with 'when' and 'how' to introduce such conventions.

教育 [ 370 ]

英語 [ 830 ]

日本語

広島大学総合科学部

Copyright (c) 1988 by Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, All rights reserved.

[ISSN] 0385-1494

[NCID] AN00077749