「ドチリナ・キリシタン」というのは、戦国時代から江戸時代初期にかけて、イエズス会(Jesuits)の宣教師たちが日本での布教のために作成したキリスト教の初歩的な教理書（カテキズム: Catechism）です。もとは、ローマ・カテキズム(The Roman Catechism)というローマ公教要理に依拠しています。江戸時代の禁教期、キリスト教の教えを記した書籍が没収・焼却されるなか、信者たちが口伝、あるいは書き写して守り抜いたものといわれます。キリシタン史研究の権威であったｃ教授による校注や現代語訳は、難解な古語や宗教用語を理解するための重要な資料となっています。
写真を拡大する現像作業に関する例文が「American English Rhetoric:」にあります。その手順を示すような模範的な段落は、適切に接続詞を使うことによって読者に明確に示され、しっかりとした時系列構成の重要性を示しています。書き手が、露光と現像の手順を、まるで読者を手取り足取り導いているかのように説明している点に注目したいです。この一連の流れは、「作業を開始する」というフレーズで始まります。続いて、「次に」、「印刷工程で」、「満足したら」、「今」、「選択する」、「置く」、「それぞれ数分かかるステップで」、「滴下する」、「次に」といった接続詞が続きます。そして段落の終わりでは「最後に」という接続詞によって、プロセスの終了が告げられます。筆者のこうした丹念な書き方の工夫によって、すべての書き手や読者が望む完璧に明瞭になる文章が生まれるのです。
子どもの童謡で人気のある「桃太郎」や「かぐや姫」の物語は、時系列の代表です。大学生も教官も時系列で文章を書いたり、説明することに心がけているはずです。科学の授業では、時間的な順序は、例えば実験過程を記述する上で当然な構成要素となるのです。歴史の授業でも、時間軸にそって史実を説明するのは当然です。本稿をもって「American English Rhetoric」で説明されている英語の修辞学の解釈は終わりとします。
「American English Rhetoric」という教本では、語彙学習のセクションで単語の文脈を分析することで、意味を推測する二つの練習問題で構成されています。第一の練習問題「段落パズル」(Paragraph Puzzle)では、段落中に一定間隔で挿入された空欄を埋めていきます。適切な選択肢を選ぶには、文脈を参照する必要がある場合が多いです。
段落パズルの例題： How do we know the dogs (have show are, is) color-blind? This has been tested in ( that , a their, the) same way that it has been ( discovered, heard, told, said) what dogs can hear.
単語の手がかりの例題： When John approached the edge of the cliff, he guessed that the edge would be strong enough to walk on. But when the ground collapsed beneth his feet, he learned that his assumption had been wrong.
もう一つの手がかりの例題： Marie wanted to move into her new apartment next week, but her land-lady told her it would bot be possible to occupy the premises until the first of the month.
次に、トピックセンテンスと中心となる考えがどのように書き手の意図につながるかを示す段落を以下に示します。最初の短い文で段落の主題が示され、中心となる考えは「奇跡」という単語に含まれています。次の文は、E. B. Whiteが書いた「The Miracle of New York」というタイトルのものです。
It is a miracle that New York works at all. The whole thing is implausible. Every time the residents brush their teeth, millions of gallons of water must be drawn from the Catskills and the hills of Westchester. When a young man in Manhattan writes a letter to his girl in Brooklyn, the love message gets a blown to her through a pneumatic tube—pfft—just like that. The subterranean system of telephone cables, power lines, steam pipes, gas mains and sewer pipes is reason enough to abandon the island to the gods and the weevils. Every time an incision is made in the pavement, the noisy surgeons expose ganglia that are tangled beyond belief.
Brooklin, New York
By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago, from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit. Long ago the city should have experienced an insoluble traffic snarl at some impossible bottleneck. It should have perished of hunger when food lines failed for a few days. It should leave been wiped out by a plague starting in its slums or carried in by ships rats. It should have been overwhelmed by the sea that licks at it on every side. The workers in its myriad cells should have succumbed to nerves, from the fearfull pall of smoke-fog that drifts over every few days from Jersey, blotting out all light at noon and leaving the high offices suspended, men groping and depressed, and the sense of world’s end. It should have been touched in the head by the August heat and gone off its rocker.
King Charles’ first visit to the United States since his accession to the throne seems to have impressed many Americans. His speeches to both houses of Congress were not merely diplomatic formalities, but imbued with a spirit and determination to bravely confront the various challenges facing the world today. Throughout his speeches, members of Congress repeatedly rose to their feet and applauded, expressing their respect, admiration, and praise.
The speeches were temporarily interrupted by the standing ovations, during which the members of Congress must have been contemplating the current turmoil in American governance and their suspicions and resentment towards another king. This king had never received such a standing ovation from Democratic members of Congress during his speeches.Even Republican lawmakers rose to their feet and applauded, so he must have been gnashing his teeth.
During his speeches, King Charles did not mention the name of this other king. This was a matter of royal pride and courtesy. In diplomacy, one does not name the target of criticism. However, in the context of King Charles’ speeches, the members of Congress could easily imagine the other king, President Trump, who has made numerous harsh remarks.
King Charles’ speech draft was originally written in consultation with the king by a speechwriter who could be described as a historian. It appears that the speech was based on a thorough examination of past British-American relations, in order to construct and present a story that would resonate with the audience.
Historically, Britain and its colonies, America, had a relationship akin to brotherhood. In the 1760s, Britain was under the rule of George III. He maintained absolute sovereignty and consistently imposed a hardline policy on the colonies. He held the belief that “colonies should be subordinate to the mother country.” This manifested as “mercantilism” and the accompanying “increased taxation” of the colonies. The colonies sent petitions for reconciliation, but George III rejected them, declaring them “rebels.”
The struggle for hegemony between Britain and France in the Americas in the 1700s is known as the “North American Colonial Wars.” These conflicts, linked to wars in Europe, involved repeated clashes but ultimately ended in an overwhelming British victory. King George III prioritized military force over dialogue, even hiring mercenaries from Germany to intervene in colonial administration. This hardline stance led the colonists, who had previously revered the king personally, to perceive him as a tyrant, contributing to the Declaration of Independence.
A witty joke exchanged between the two kings at a White House dinner has become a topic of discussion. It was in response to President Trump’s speech at the Davos conference, where he stated that “if America hadn’t existed in World War II, European countries would have spoken German.” King Charles responded by saying, “If I may say so, if Britain hadn’t existed, you would all have spoken French,” a humorous indirect reference to Britain’s role in eliminating French influence during the colonial wars.
King Charles’s recent visit to the United States appears to have been an opportunity to subtly demonstrate Britain’s position while offering respectful praise to the other side. This is evident in his speeches to Parliament and his reciprocal speech at the dinner in the White House.
次の例文は、Robert W. Smutsが「Women and Work in America」に投稿した文です。作文するには、段落ーパラグラフに一貫性を持たせることが大事であることを示す内容です。その肝は、接続詞を用いて段落が円滑に流れることです。
Far more striking than any changes in the kinds of work, done by women in the USA labor force is the shift of wives and mothers from household activities to the world of paid employment. Emphasis on the new work of women, however should not be allowed to obscure an equally important. Today as always, most of the time and effort of American wives is devoted to their responsibilities within the home and the family circle. This is the true even of those who are in the labor force.
Since 1890 the demands of paid work have become much lighter. The normal work week has decreased from sixty to forty hours; paid holidays and vacations have become universal; and most of the hard, physical labor that work once required has been eliminated. Because of these developments, many women can work, outside the home and still have time and energy left for home and family.
Moreover, most working mothers do not assume the burdens of a full schedule of paid work. Among employed mothers of preschool children, four out of five worked only par time or less than half the year in 1956. Among those shoes children were in school, three out of five followed the same curtailed work schedule. And even among working wives who had no children at home only a little more than half were year-round, full-time members of the labor force.
You can easily trace the devices that give this paragraph its coherence. The transition “however” connects the second sentence 2 to the first sentence 1 ; the adverb “today” links 3 to 2. The pronoun “this” join 4 to 3 , the phrase “since 1890” connects 5 to 4, and 6 contains example of the point made in the previous sentence.
Beginnings are apt to be shadowy, and so it it with the beginnings of that great mother of life, the sea. Many people have debated how and when the earth got its oceans, and it is not surprising that their explanation do not always agree. For the plain and inescapable truth is that no one was there to see, and in the absence of eyewitness accounts there is bound to be a certain amount of disagreement. So if I tell here a story of how the young plant Earth acquired an ocean, it must be a story pieced together from many sources and containing many whole chapters the details of which we can only imagine. The story is founded on the testimony of the earth’s most ancient rocks, which were young when the earth was young; on hits contained in the history of the sun and whole universe of star-filled space. For although no man was there to witness this cosmic birth, the stars and the moon and rocks were there, and, indeed, had much to do with the fact that there is an ocean.
最近、書庫を片付けていましたら、「American English Rhetoric:」という本がでてきました。「アメリカ英語の修辞学」というもので、「第二言語としての英語による文章作成の技法」という副題がついています。
文字通り、この本は英語で文章を書くために教本で、ウィスコンシン大学(University of Wisconsin-Madison) に留学中に購入した本です。ページをめくると、あちこちに手書きのメモが残っています。私が相当苦労して勉強していたことがうかがえます。この教本のお陰で出された課題に関する小論文を作成し、学位論文を書くのに大いに役立ちました。
ウィスコンシン大学では、留学生のための相談室(Writing Lab) があり、ここに下書きしたペーパー(小論文）を点検してくれるのです。でも持ち込んだペーパーどれも真っ赤になるほど修正されたものです。この相談室で購入することを勧められのが、この「American English Rhetoric:」です。手元の元本の表紙は破れ、つぎはぎだらけとなっています。この教本を手にしながら、どうしてもその内容を紹介したくなりました。私の英語学習の集大成のようなものなのです。
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