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(1)Focalization. Strategies. Reader. and the Ideological. in Learners'. Narratives. Todd Abstract. This article represents. for understanding. how learners'. of view, or focalization,. a continuation subjectivity. Positioning of Classroom. of the Author. and. Activities. S quires of the author's. exploration. of using narrative. is linked to the acquisition of foreign languages.. is argued to be of key significance in the construction. of a "narrating. as a tool. Here, point I" which can. only take shape within the ideological confines of a specific economic and social milieu. The paper demonstrates how the tools of narratology student-produced either sympathy. Keywords:. narratives.. and perspective can be used to analyze. It is argued that student writers use various narrative. or identification. i deology,. and its ideas of subjectivity. mo dality,. strategies. to create. in the reader.. narrative,. focalization,. su bjectivity. 教室内活動としての学習者のナラティブにおける. 「観点」の設定と. 著者・読者のイデオロギー的位置づけ. トッド. 要旨. 本論文は物語(narrative)を. スクワイヤーズ. 分析上の用具として利用して、学習者の主観性と外国語学習の関わりを. 検討するものである。物語の「観点」は「物語る私」を構造する上で重要であり、それを特定の経済的・社会的環境におけるイデオロギー的限界内においてのみ具体化するものである。本論文では物語学 (narratology)の. 手法と、「主観性」および「観点」の観念を用いて、学生が書いた2つのナラティブを分析. する。これらの学生は様々な物語上の手法を用いることで、「共感」あるいは「一体感」を読み手に引き起している。. キーワード. イデオロギー、モーダリティー、ナラティブ、観点、主観性.

(2) Kinki. University. English. Journal. No. 6. Introduction The overarching. aim of research in Second Language. Acquisition. (SLA) has. been to clarify a singular. path of development that learners of second languages. low toward the acquisition. of a target language. This focus on common cognitive proc-. esses has tended to portray the desert (Atkinson,. the individual in the SLA literature. fol-. as a lonely cactus in. 2002), growing for the most part on its own with nourishment. from the sun and rain, but with a minimum Because of this, rarely does mainstream that is rich in ethnographic. of interaction. with its environment.. SLA research give us a picture of learners. detail, enjoining. us to sympathize. with how learners. struggle to learn the target language or rejoice when they overcome obstacles and succeed in the process of learning the target language. Nor are we stimulated. to consider. how local or systemic economic and political factors frame and delimit the extent to which acquisition. of the target. language. them with access to educational. is allowed to specific learners by providing. resources and opportunities.. (For notable exceptions,. see Norton Pierce, 1995 and Norton, 2000.) Despite the efforts of mainstream. SLA to. ally the field with cognitive psychology and empirical science (Doughty & Long, 2003), an increasingly. large body of research has urged us to view foreign language learning. as being situated in a number of overlapping. and interconnecting. contexts (Williams. aspects of language. learning. & Burden, 1997). The lack of emphasis. on the cultural. in main-. stream SLA runs counter to many trends in the social sciences that seek to reveal how individuals. are shaped by the particular. Scientific methodology,. the underlying. historical,. economic and social conditions.. discourse of mainstream. SLA, holds to the ide-. alist notion in Western philosophy that the individual exists separated from the physical world, and any phenomenon,. including. mental. historical practice. The stated project of mainstream cover the universals ated in a particular. phenomena,. is detached. SLA has been, therefore,. from to un-. of second language ability that exist beyond the individual situtime and space. The social world does surely. influence. the. development of the individual; however, it only has limited impact in its role of aiding or hindering. a developmental. ment of second language In contrast. process that is inherent. to a universal. human develop-. ability.. to this, the Marxist theory reverses the priority. that scientific dis-. course has placed upon the individual mind over the external world, and instead the materialist. approach argues that consciousness 68. is the internalization. of social practice.

(3) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) (see, for example, Volosinov, 1973 and Vygotsky,. 1986). Social beings are constituted. by their living in the world, and as Marx argues, the individual is shaped by the material conditions that exist prior to his/her coming into being (Marx, 1845/1998). Since these material. conditions. being inextricably. are historically. produced, the individual must be viewed as. linked to the economic, social and ideological conditions. in which. he/she finds himself/herself. Likewise, our foreign language classrooms and the individuals in them, as well, cannot be viewed in isolation from society. Nor can we simply view language as a neutral object that is to be acquired. Language—including. both first and second—is con-. stitutive of our subjectivities,. is part of the cultural context. and the learning situation. within which we interact. The economic and social structures world condition subjectivity. since, as Marx (1998 (1845)) reminds us, individuals must. necessarily enter "definite social and political relations materially,. that exist in the material. ... [and] as they act, produce. and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions. conditions independent. of their will" (p. 41).. Desire to learn a foreign language must be considered as immanent ity, and it is in our discursive Narrative through. as a fundamental. practices. that. to subjectiv-. both the subject and desire arise.. practice of the human being (Bruner, 1986) is the mode. which our subjectivities. on some of the focalization counts of classroom. and. are constructed. strategies. activities.. and maintained.. that learners. This paper focuses. use when writing. The concept of focalization. in narrative. narrative. ac-. will first be. outlined and then discussed in terms of ideological positions that focalization strategies create. The various linguistic narrative. and lexical focalization. will be outlined as points to be explored in depth in the analysis of the data.. In the second section, two narratives. will be compared and contrasted. they use these focalization devices in constructing. construct. author-reader. tions on their subjectivity. relationships. in terms of how. points of view upon the same class-. room activity. In a close reading of these narratives, authors. devices used in Japanese. it will be revealed how student. which imply specific ideological posi-. within educational institutions.. Focalization,. Ideology. and the Narrating. Subject. Focalization: World Building and the Homodiegetic Narrator Over the past thirty years, narrative a number of fields, from literary. has become an important. studies and history 69. research tool in. to sociology and psychology..

(4) Kinki. University. English. Journal. Numerous approaches to the analysis of narrative few researchers. who has actively used narrative. No. 6. data also abound. In SLA one of the to understand. learner motivation. Ema Ushioda (For an example, see Ushioda, 2001). Her narrative growing trend toward making. greater use of qualitative. analysis is part of a. methods such as interviews. and case-studies in order to make research more learner-centered. suggests. that interview data and narrative. the layer of narrative motivation,. Ushioda's approach. can be mined for factors by stripping. discourse, sifting through. categorizing. is. off. the remains for phrases that refer to. them and finally subjecting. them to statistical. analysis.. While the current leader in the field of SLA motivation has lauded this approach as the way in which L2 motivation. research should be pursued in the future (Dornyei, 2001),. there is in essence no fundamental by mainstream. SLA researchers.. change in the positivist approach that is embraced Ultimately,. this methodological. position treats indi-. viduals as scientific entities to be described in the same way as other natural in the physical world. The coding procedure. furthered. runs counter to the perspective that the majority narrative. by researchers. objects. like Ushioda. of narratologists. hold, namely that. is an organic whole: all of the elements within narrative. are part of a sym-. bolic system of signification ated practice. Extracting. and the performance. of narrative. a phrase from narrative. is a historically. and pronouncing. that. situ-. it has a. certain meaning, says more about what the phrase means to the researcher and his or her project rather than what it means within the narrative Narratology, ture of narrative individuals. the theory of narrative,. to communicate. and construct. The distinguishing. learner.. seeks to uncover both the internal struc-. as well as get a better handle on how narrative. world (For key works on narratology,. story. of a particular. an understanding. discourse is used by. of themselves. and the. see Bal, 1985; Genette, 1980 and Todorov, 1981).. feature of narrative. discourse is the co-existence of two levels: the. content and the telling. Analysis. of the story. histoire or fabula) includes the manipulation. level (referred. to variously. of time and the construction. as. of plot and. character are the main issues of inquiry, whereas the at the level of the telling (recit or sjuzet) emphasis has been placed upon understanding. the identity of the narrator. and. point of view. Focalization,. Genette's. sence of any narrative's. technical term for narratorial. style. It is the narrator's. events of a story develop and presenting and the actions. of other characters.. craft in manipulating. how the characters. In narrative, 70. point of view, is the eshow the. think about these events. focalization. has several aspects..

(5) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) First, is spatial point of view, or the physical position from which the story is viewed. It can be viewed from a "bird's eye" point of view that gives the narrator yet distanced, perspective on the events of the narrative, trum we find narratives is also manipulated. unlimited,. while at the opposite spec-. that restrict point of view to that of a single observer. Time. by the narrator.. The narrative. there can be transpositions—flashbacks. can be told chronologically,. or flash forwards—gaps. in the progression. or of. time and inclusion of other stories into the plots development that break up the main body of the narrative.. In addition to time and space, the narrator. how speech and thought. is presented.. presented either as direct quotations the narrator characters. can be readily. accessible to the narrator. An omniscient. of every character;. the narrative. can be. narrator. potentially. of. upon the type of. has complete access to all of the. however, a narrator. are manifested. Likewise, the thoughts. depending. who is one of the characters. world only has access to that character's. these aspects of focalization. in a narrative. or as reported speech, with the latter allowing. to insert his or her presence more overtly.. focalization. thoughts. Speech by the characters. is also in control of. consciousness.. in Japanese. narrative. within. How some of. discourse. will be. considered in the latter part of this section. Genette points to two coordinates tor. The first is level. The narrator. for understanding. can stand outside of the storyworld. acter in the story) or from a position extradiegetic. and intradiegetic. author and the narrator. author.. In contrast,. narratorial. within. (i.e. not a char-. the story. These are referred. respectively. The second is the relationship. A heterodiegetic. the homodiegetic. author. These configurations. the identity of the narra-. narrator narrator. between the. is one who is not coequal with the is to be equated with the real life. are, however, not fixed even within a single narrative.. position may move between a heterodiegetic. and homodiegetic. point of view such as that in autobiography. does not rule out the intrusion. of distance. In other words any narrator. ously the source of the story, organizer. of the narrative,. commentator. antor, who has the ability to focalize outside of any one particular. A. position as. well as move inside and outside of the world of the story. Even an ostensibly. perspectives and manipulation. to as. limited of other. is simultaneon it and guar-. character,. through. the eyes of the hero, or even from multiple points of view. How some of these aspects of focalization construction. are manifested of the narrating. in Japanese. narrative. discourse and perspective in the. subject will be considered. section. 71. in the latter. part of this.

(6) Kinki. University. English. Journal. No. 6. Ideology and Focalization The materialist sciousness. approach. is constituted. developed in Squires. by historical. bound to the construction. conditions,. (2008, 2009) argues that. con-. and desires and motivations. are. of the subject who is ultimately. of the material world. What ensures the continuation. a product of the conditions. of these conditions is ideology.. In this section, the concept of ideology and how ideology conspires with and coerces individuals to reproduce the very power-structures be overviewed. As a social practice, narrative subjectivities. are produced and dominant. The traditional. that constitute. their subjectivity. will. will be shown to be the site where these. ideologies can potentially. be contested.. Marxist position on ideology posits that ideology is an integral. part of the economic and social conditions of a given society. Ideology, Marx (1845) argues, is part of life. "The production. of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness,. first directly woven with the material. activity and the material. intercourse. is at. of men—. the language of real life" (p. 42). As a part of the lived experience of individuals in society, ideology functions as the superstructure tions and culture. that. make up the dominant. however, are not static; they are historically to explain,. of a civilization. It includes the convenideas of any society.. produced and, as Marx goes on further. "The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression. nant material. relationships,. the relationships dominance". the dominant. material. relations. of the domi-. grasped as ideas; hence. which make the one class the ruling one, therefore,. (p. 67). Ideology, therefore,. These ideas,. the ideas of their. functions to ensure that dominant. main in positions of power by legitimizing. and naturalizing. groups re-. the unequal social and. economic configurations. How social groups use power to maintain. their dominant. ject that Antonio Gramsci developed in his Marxist. positions is the sub-. theory (1991). Where Marx was. concerned mainly with how ideology functions in the development of capitalist economies, Gramsci's concern is with the means by which ideology operates within a society to make the actual conditions intelligible.. In the acquisition. of consciousness. ideology, Gramsci believes, the individual does not come to that vidually,. but rather. conformism. through. an intermediary,. ideological. given, but rather they are always produced by ideology through mined ideological field. In other words, subjectivity In his discussion of Althusser,. consciousness. ground,. to a hegemonic system of beliefs. Subjects, therefore,. through. which requires. are not originally a historically. deter-. is the product of social practice.. Squires (2008) emphasizes the importance 72. indi-. that.

(7) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) the Althusserian. position on ideology places upon the formation. Gramsci, Althusser structures. believes that it is through. which ensure that dominant. of subjects. As with. ideology that a society reproduces. groups maintain. the. their position of social, cul-. tural and economic hegemony. Where Marx and Gramsci often tend to obscure the actual material. processes that aid in the production. defines two types of institutions State Apparatuses. of ideology, Althusser. (1971) clearly. that function in society. The first of these are the. (SA), which include the government,. the army, the police, the. courts and the prisons all of which can use physical violence to enforce the will of the state. There are also the Ideological State Apparatuses.. Unlike the State Apparatuses,. these ISAs and the power that they yield is not readily visible and function not in the public sphere but in the private domain. Religion, the family, schools, communications media, the political system all serve the dominant forcing conduct, morality. interests. by perpetuating. and en-. and action in society.. Drawing upon Lacanian psychoanalysis, Althusser argues that subject, or " subject positions," are produced by ideology and therefore exist before individuals are born. As "always already subjects ... [we] constantly cal recognition,. which guarantee. guishable and (naturally) ideology is illustrated. practice rituals of ideologi-. for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distin-. irreplaceable. subjects" (p. 117). The recognition. clearly by Althusser. function of. in his example of a person being hailed by. a police officer in the street. The police officer cries, "Hey, you there!" having been called upon, the individual turns hundred-and-eighty-degree. toward the police officer and "[b]y this mere one-. physical conversion, he becomes a subject" (p. 118). Herein. is the real power of ideology, since. What. thus. reality. seems to take. takes. place in ideology.. fore to take place outside selves practical. by. place outside. definition denegation. ogy never says,. What. ideology. really. (to be precise,. in the street). takes place in ideology. it. That is why those who are in ideology. outside. ideology:. of the ideological. "I am ideological". one. of the. character. effects. of ideology. in. seems therebelieve them-. of ideology by ideology:. is the ideol-. (p. 118).. Likewise our discursive practices are ineluctably. ideological. Central to the construc-. tion of subjectivity. becoming subjects through. is language and it is through. that our consciousness is formed. Language, 73. the medium through. language. which ideology and.

(8) Kinki. subject is produced. University. is a fusion. English. Journal. of our inner consciousness. (Volosinov, 1973), and it is in our interactions written discourse—that. No. 6. we construct. and the outer. world. with other individuals—spoken. and maintain. our subjectivities. and. and express our. desires and motivations. In the previous section it was seen how narratorial important. for understanding. homodiegetic narratives ating narrative. the identity. also necessarily. who in the case of. is ostensibly identified with a real world author. Thus, in cre-. the events of the story impinge upon his/her. embrace the reader's. cific ways and manipulated. subjectivity,. This understanding. and interpretation.. and ultimately. and how we are enjoined by the narrative. The narrative. strategy. to relate. which is part of the work of reading. of manipulating. relationships. between. on the one hand and writer and reader on the other is part of. what Currie (1998) calls "positioning," tural and rhetorical. as the reader is positioned in spe-. takes place.. as readers to the narrative. and narratee. but they. of point of view helps bridge the gap between how we wit-. ness the writer's work of narrating our own subjectivities. subjectivity,. by how the events are revealed to him/her. effecting how the process of interpretation. and it includes the combination. of all the struc-. devices that are used by the writer to position the reader in rela-. tionship to the characters Currie. of the narrator,. point of view, not only does the position(s) from which the narrator. chooses to narrate. narrator. point of view was primarily. argues,. in a narrative.. following. Althusser's. idea of interpellation,. that. narratives. must be considered to create mutual subjectivity not only by creating bonds of sympathy between the reader and characters, themselves in the narrative. by identifying. fication rather than sympathy the reader. can exert. but also narratives. narratives. freedom to attach. historically-situatedness. can call upon readers to see. with the characters.. Thus, through. identi-. can delimit the hermeneutic. space in which. meaning. Because of the. to the narrative.. of the writer and reader, there can only be certain culturally. and socially prescribed ways of reading of self into a narrative. This paper suggests linguistic. and pragmatic. that writers. devices to position. those created in their narrative fashion distinct narrative ways in which students that learning. mediate the narrating. real world identities. in relationship. to. worlds. These modal aspects of language combine to. styles with specific narrative approach. process using various. language learning. takes place. Those narratives 74. points of view and implicate. contexts and how they perceive. in which there is less intrusion. of the.

(9) Focalization Strategies and the Ideological Positioning of the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of Classroom Activities (Squires) narrator. (more closely approaching. reader. to build mutual. understanding. nist of autobiographical character. or point. overtly. mediated. narrative). positions. present.. the narrated. real-life,. present. Instead. hand,. strategies. narrative. that. the protago-. identification. with any one. past. places. the reader. in a less. leave the narra-. style is less distanced (one in which. in the more immediate. calls upon the reader. prescribed. (in particular. the mind of the narrator. the narrated. than. of distancing. the author. socially. within. rather. and invite the. calling upon them to identify. Sympathetic. the reader. On the other. past.. ing situation,. without. form and rely upon a set of narrative. may or may not have existed) rating. rely more upon sympathy. with the characters. of view. These narrators. tive more open to interpretation. the narrative. mimesis). the reader. situation. the reader. of the nar-. at a distance. from the immediacy. to view the events. in that. from. of the narrat-. through. the lens of. roles.. The Narrating Subject: Modality and Ideology In the previous section it was argued that subjectivity. is closely linked to both. language and ideology. Language is the space where gender, class and other culturally significant. distinctions. are produced. Ideology operates through. tuting subjects and thereby creating a structure ditions of the real, material consciousness. (Voloinov,. any number of qualifications.. the inner landscape. is the internalization. of human. of social practice. its possibility. with the speaker's. morphology,. event with. or the speaker may qualify the proposition. or necessity. Ways of qualifying. commitment. event are all elements. can become part of a communicative. The speaker may express various levels of confidence in. value of the proposition. way by stating. through. It is the con-. 1973).. How events, or propositions,. the truth. of mutual identification.. world which determines. In other words, consciousness. language by consti-. to the status. of modality lexis, syntax. of the proposition. (Palmer,. information. in some that deal. that describes some. 2001), which is realized in language. and intonation. (Bybee & Dahl, 1989). Broadly. speaking, there are three types of modality (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca, oriented modality expresses conditions that are internal. 1994). Agent-. or external to an agent which. effects the completion of some given action. This type of modality is used to express things. such as obligation,. speaker-oriented. necessity. and ability.. The second type of modality. modality which effect how messages are transmitted. This includes things. such as imperatives, 75. prohibitions,. warnings. is. to an addressee. and permission..

(10) Kinki. Third, is epistemic modality of a proposition.. University. English. Journal. No. 6. which expresses the speaker's commitment. Finally, is subordinating. to the truth. modality which is typically found in subor-. dinate clauses to express ideas of purpose and concession. Modality, propositional. as can be seen in its four. modes, conveys. content, but it also includes the speaker's. or psychological. attitude. his or her interlocutor". toward the message content, the speech act itself or toward (Maynard,. 1993, p. 38). In other words, it is within the modal. she identifies. (1993) analysis of dis-. five types of indicators— those linguistic. which express the personal attitude independent,. only objective. "subjective, emotional, mental. elements of language where the subject emerges. In Maynard's course modality,. not. of the speaker—namely,. complex and multi-phrase. discourse modality. paralinguistic, indicators.. elements syntactic,. Squires (2008,. 2009) looks specifically at how the active / passive (a syntactic discourse modality indicator). is used to in the construction. of the narrating. Japanese, it is shown, is multiply ambiguous. and their representatives. perspective on. to learn an L2 are subsumed. under. subject positions within the ideologically de-. fined limits of the social system, a structure stitutions. The passive in. and fashions a narratorial. events in which subjects and their motivation larger desires to conform to prescribed. subject.. in which the authority. of educational in-. are encoded in the very language through. which. individuals express their subjectivity. In the following. section, the function. of ideology through. two other types of. discourse modality will be examined. The first of these is the desu/masu-da alternation. As a multi-phrase. discourse modality indicator, Maynard notes that the mixed use of. desu/masu and da styles in narrative distinction. between backgrounded. of the speaker toward backgrounded. the hearer.. information. discourse can has two bases: manipulation and foregrounded. information. The direct or informal. or to give the impression. of the. and the sensitivity. da style is used to mark. that the speaker was present at. the scene of the event being narrated.. In addition, the use of the da style conveys the. immediacy of spontaneous. The desu/masu form is used as if the speaker is. directly addressing. expression.. the listener and thereby the speech or narrative. as being specifically narrative index the interpersonal. discourse.. relationship. space in which amae (psychological. is overtly marked. Use of the desu/masu style can, therefore,. between the speaker and listener and open up a and emotional dependence) is developed and main-. tained. In addition. to the desu/masu-da style alternation, 76. lexical choice also impinges.

(11) Focalization Strategies and the Ideological Positioning of the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of Classroom Activities (Squires) upon. how. terms. can be used for personal. referents. indexes. culturally rectly. subjectivity. specific. in Maynard's. of a unified. Perspective constructing. strategies. that. of distance. through. the use of personal. modality,. to other. lexical through. choice of personal. are manipulated style. through. choice and. are. choice is not included. di-. of student. is essential. reveals. to the con-. pronoun. of public. of. nar-. modality. in-. private. self. and. Analysis that were produced by students. (19 male, three female) in an informa-. part of a discussion module in an ESP listening/speaking in which they retold. in a con-. were written by males. college at a large private university. Students wrote their narratives. ways. choice.. in a class of 22 second-year students. tion science and engineering. two distinct. these two discourse. versation skills class will be analyzed in detail. Both narratives. a narrative. subjects. an examination. the expression. In this paper, two complete narratives. to write. Each of these. How this is done can be seen in the way that. Narrative. studying. various. that. reference. in the two narratives. subjectivities.. the desu/masu-da. In Japanese,. of view.. or positioning. dicators:. Although. of discourse. point. student. in relationship. determined.. theory. discourse.. watashi, boku, jibun and so forth.. social relationships. it will be shown. struction. in narrative. reference:. and hierarchically. narratives. rative. is constructed. in western Japan. As. class, students. what had happened. as homework. and then submitted. were asked. during. the class.. them at the begin-. ning of the next class. The language. in which students. were asked to write. the narratives. Japanese. There were two reasons for this. First, because the students' ciency level was low intermediate. was. English profi-. (average scores on the TOEIC were roughly 450), it. was felt that by allowing the students. to write in their native language the students. could provide much richer detail about what happened in the classroom and how they felt about it. Second, as the purpose of this research was to understand narrativize. their subjectivity. tions, writing how students'. and motivation. how students. to learn English in educational. institu-. in the language of the native culture was felt to be more able to reflect learning and desire to learn is experienced and produced.. The Narratives The data. here. is presented. with. an English. 77. gloss. which. is intended. to accurately.

(12) Kinki. reflect. the. flavor. of the. original. University. English. Japanese. Journal. No. 6. narrative,. and. not. be a polished. English. translation.. Kenji's Line 1. 5. 10. Narrative Original. English. 今日はディスカッションをする日でした。最初に新しいグループを分けることになりました。私達は仲の良い友達と一緒になれるようにこの日は離れて座っていましたが、カードの配り方が思っていたのは違い、あまり意味がありませんでした。ディスカッションを始める前に、二回練習がありました。まず、一回目の練習は新しくできたグルー. Today . 20. 25. 30. 35. 40. we did discussions. . the cards what . day I sat apart . were . distributed . I had thought, . At first. new . to be put into a group . but on that . with . I. close friends,. from . them;the . way. different . than. was . there wasn't . groups. . much . meaning. init. Before . we began . the discussion, . two times we had practice. was with the people formed. . in the group . The content . Point work . 思ってなくてだらだらと長い文章に仕上げてしまっていました。その為、最初に個人練習として与えられた十分間では完壁に覚えきることができずに、一回目の相手の人にはかなり迷惑をかけてしまう練習になりました。二回目は私達が席を移動し新しいペアの人とでした。流石に二回目とあって先程よりは話すスピードがあがっていました。しか. wasn't . し、文章の長さと私が速暗記が苦手なことも重なり、結構な時間がかかってしまいました。さて、いよいよ本番となりました。相手は二回目に練習した相手とでした。みんなの前に出てやるものだとばかり思っていたので、グループ内での発表というのは結構気楽にできました。そのおかげかどうかはわかりませんが、今までで一番スラスラと読めました。. with the second . the discussion lengthy . thought . given . first time[of . during . the ten minpractice, . it completely, . and . pair practice]Icaused . rather . time . we changed . improved . Now, . a rather . done . myself . class . as usual, . had to[think . 78. that I practiced. pretty . that I so I was. comfortably. of this, but I. smoothly.. ended rather . this than . this week's . week . having. just listening class was a lot. about]what . and I felt as if I could . really meaningfully.. きる今回の授業のほうがとても楽しく、そして有意義に過ごすことができたように感じます。. the real performance.. in a group . discussion, . to the lesson . and I. time.. or not it was as a result . Although . my. and my. time. I was only thinking . was able to read it rather . of fun-I . text . to go up in front of everyone . able to perform . only . long . was the opponent . have . time . the previous. overlapped, . it was finally . opponent . Whether . of my . at memorization . up taking . would . with . the length . ability . ended . My . in comparison . However, . poor . a lot. seats and did. it as a new pair. Since it was the second . time. . I. the. to my partner.. The second . speed . of. a really. for private . able to memorize . of trouble . that this home-. and so I had completed . we were . what Minus. really be the content . text. For this reason, . utes that . was . that day,"The . just as it was would . time. that was newly. of the discussion . System."Ihadn't . なっていた「マイナスポイント制度」についてのものでした。私は、この宿題がまさかそのままディスカッションの内容になるとは. there were. The first practice . we had for the homework . 今回の授業はほとんどディスカッションだけで終わりましたが、いつものようにただ授業を聞いているだけより、自分で何かで 45. the day . teacher]divided[us]into . hoped . プの人達とでした。ディスカッションの内容はこの日宿題と 15. was . [the . I could spend . do. the time.

(13) Focalization Strategies and the Ideological Positioning of the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of Classroom Activities (Squires) Takashi'. s Narrative Original. 1. 5. 10. English. 月曜日の5限目「応用数学」を終えた僕は、友人と一・緒に英語の教室に向かった。教室に入ると、いつもとは違う席順で友人が座って. Having . いた。先生の話によると、ディスカッションのために新しく班を作るために適当に座っていてほしいとのことだった。ディスカッションを始める前に、何分間か、練習のようなことをした。そのおかげ. in a different . English . 20. teacher, wanted . together . my . seat than . thing . to the. new groups. . because . Before . for several . opinion . minutes, . As the result . を変えてやった。色んな人とディスカッションをするということは. areally . my own . to have . once, it changed good . When . your. memorized,. text. When . it was time. didn't . come . the discussion . out and I had ended. to the next pair. I thought . it was. thing that we had a discussion . people. . Moreover . pairs after . I had . stood . what . for my . done things . both . by . my . eye contact . discussion, . time . That . other I under-. do myself.. this time . it, next . with. watching . I shouldn't . discussion . memorized . it completely. . improve . discussion. giving . the text that I was sup-. memorized . was in difficulty. . some-. of this I was. was to present . for the real performance . member . the discus-. we had . that you had completely . and I memorized . well . he was going. we began . the feeling of an English . 暗記して発表するということで自分の文章を暗記した。本番になると、暗記したはずの文章が出てこなかったりで苦労した。一度ディスカッションが終わると次はペァ. ficiently . When sitting. that he. The real performance . Because . was . According . glad to grasp . different . friend . usuaL . to the. a friend. . it was that it was for discussion . like practice。. posed . class in. I headed with . the classroom, . sion, it was . own . Mathematics . Monday, . us to sit wherever . to make . とても良いことだと思った。また自分がディスカッションした後に他人のペアを見ることによって、自分のどこがいけないのかとかよく分かった。今回のディスカッションは暗記がもう一つ、完壁はなかったので、次回はしっかり覚え. 25. on . classroom . we entered . Gloss. my Applied . the fifth period . で英語のディスカッションの感じがつかめてよかった。本番のディスカッションは自分の意見を全て 15. finished . I hadn't I want . is one . sufto re-. way . to. and intonation.. ていてみたい。それがアイコンタクトやイントネーションの向上にもなると思う。. 30. The first thing of note is that each of the stories displays a similar structure. Both begin by setting the stage for the events that follow in which the authors present the context in which the discussion took place and how the teacher had reorganized the class into groups for the activity. Kenji's paragraphing narrative. clearer; however, even in Takashi's. the narrative markers. makes the division of the. single-paragraph. story the division of. into shorter episodes is easily identifiable by his use of various discourse. and transitional. phrases.. Following the setting,. counts the three steps in the discussion activity:. each of the narratives. re-. silent practice, round one, the final. discussion. Both the silent practice and round one were, as the narrators. tell us, in-. tended to be practice for the final discussion (homban), and in the conclusion, both narrators. remark. upon. how the activity. was beneficial. to their. ability. to have a. discussion in English and how they would use this classroom experience to improve their performance. in the future.. While story elements. of the narratives 79. appear quite similar,. when we look.

(14) Kinki. closer. at how they. narrate. these are two separate sence, the difference each individual each author. narrative. same. "narrating. author. acts". The process emerges. Journal. of creating. a difference. must. a perspective. and how experience. In es-. not only in how. in the narrative,. the events. because. "authors.". be located. the elements upon. precisely. by two different. of narrating. perspective. No. 6. we sense. produced. and sequences. a unique. subjectivity. English. events. the acts. selects. constructs. site where. the. between. eyes of the narrator.. University. as filtered. but how. through. is, as I will demonstrate,. is given social. meaning. the the. through. processes.. The Ideological Position of the Narrating I Desu/masu-da style alternation All of the 22 of the students'. narratives. shared many features at the structural. and content levels; however there was a clear distinction. between authors. who chose. the non-formal, plain da-style of narration versus those who used the formal desu/masu -style . One possible interpretation of this style choice might simply be that some students were expressing. politeness toward the teacher as the implied reader of their sto-. ries. However, if this was the case, then it would also have to be concluded that students. who did not use the desu/masu-style were acting in a culturally. way, something I had taught. which I had not witnessed in the previous ten months during which. these students.. been motivated. In other words, the style choice of students. by some other aspect of how the task was interpreted. the difference in style choice signaled some key difference in narrative In Japanese. narrative. had to have. by them, or that strategy.. discourse, an author must make a choice between using. the da-style or desu/masu-style. At the level of oral communication, ternation. inappropriate. the desu/masu-da al-. is generally a matter of politeness. Brown and Levinson (1978) define polite-. ness as a pragmatic. strategy. whereby the speaker attempts. according to this theory, one of the major functions within the Japanese politeness the interlocutors. to maintain. face; and. of the desu/masu-da style choice. system is to encode relative status differences between. and also to maintain. distance between interlocutors. who are not so-. cially close. However, when the narratives. in this study were examined more carefully, it. was found that a "face-saving strategy". interpretation. did not fully explain the data.. If it did, then it would have to be concluded that the majority reading the relationship. of the students were mis-. between the teacher and student. The key for understanding 80.

(15) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) the author's. choice of style was to be found in a closer examination. dals are employed by authors. in narrative. of how these mo-. discourse to manipulate. the distance placed. between the reader and the events of the story, and in doing so, create interpretive space for the reader. As one of the indicators of discourse modality, Maynard rators use the desu/masu-da alternation. as a manipulating. The da-style encodes a perspective that is internal. (1991) argues that nar-. device to organize narrative.. to the narrative.. The writer gives. the reader more direct access to the events in the story by vividly presenting. these. events as the speaker heightens. experienced. the narrator's. them.. The desu/masu-style,. on the other. hand,. of the information. to a narratee. with. role as a mediator. whom he/she has a specific social relationship. In homodiegetic authorial. narratives,. the use of the desu/masu forms can be seen as an. move to create an explicit level of communication. the reader. Moreover, it encourages. readers to "disregard. between the author. and. ... textual boundaries. and. view `real' world and `fictional' world as an unbroken continuum" (Fowler 1992, p. 7). "Fi ctional" here should be understood as a constructed or created narrative world that has similitude with the real world. By making these affinities. explicit the desu/masu-. style the author leads the reader closer to the world of the narrative her through. the perspective of the narrator. style, authors create narratives rator and the narratee reader. This suggests. structures. that encode a particular. that issues of status, authority. I would further sent reader. as author. Thus, by using the desu/masurelationship. that resembles the relationship. ered in any interpretation. by guiding him/. between the nar-. between a real life author and formality. should be consid-. of desu/masu-style narratives.. argue that the desu/masu-style by constructing. embeds the narrative. deeply within. with ideologically established. institutionally. an overtly pre-. demarcated. social. subject positions directly into the practice of. reading. By this it is meant that the da-style constructs events of the narrative. and. and the social relations. Whereas,. the desu/masu-style clearly establishes. writer-the. author. not only creates a narrator. a greater distance between the. between the reader a relationship. and writer.. between reader. and. subject but the projected narratee.. doing so, the reader is guided into a subject position in which his/her. In. interpretational. freedom is limited. The desu/masu-style as both a discourse modality and a politeness marker. impels the reader. into a certain. ideologically. framework. 81. circumscribed. interpretative.

(16) Kinki. Seeing. how these. University. English. two narrative. styles. uchi and soto also helps us to understand tional. worlds.. In contrast. ployed in conversation, a framing. closed. or shared. desu/masu-style. rated subject work. the reader. in which. the real world. tion (in contrast. Narrative. enables. power. an unchanging. pointing. of the author. self. Genres,. conversely. denotes. in a way that. emphasizes. reader's. experience,. it is personal. he/she. lexical. constructs. Reference. Here. final. the. choice. also. ing I takes boundary. and. element. contributes. for reading. shape. and. between. what. the author. and private narrative,. our efforts. of identifica-. meaning. but. to our. can serve to. legitimate. them.. at pinning. down. ideological. closure. and. meaning.. or being. unshared. or uncon-. the use of the da-style. is pre-. underwent. of the. for the writer,. the reader. gestures. is not part. and although. it is being. is given more latitude. in the way. meaning.. Personal. key importance. the. through. that. must. in the world,. that. to create. frame-. he/she. therefore,. institutions. through. the. prescribed. and making strategy. to others,. ideas of openness,. to the reader. which. and attach. a given text has for creating. sented. that. ourselves. in part. use. to the nar-. socially. as subjects. undermines. all, function. who. external. world,. This narrative. the. but it always. conveyed. with the reader. and. refer to en-. a historically-bound. of the narrated. inter-. upon the interpretive. one through. our stories. are de-. between. authors. specific. within. about. that. argue,. fic-. when used as. familiarity. from. we think. after. limit the potential. the story. us and others. groups. meanings. from a position. and reader.. by their. and desu/masu-style. to place boundaries. positions. of certain. The experience. I would. subjectivity,. outside. between. it can also by extension. positioned. licensed. us to speak,. The da-style. shared. strategy. The ways in which we narrate the. trolled.. Thus,. is overtly. the way that. maintain. thereby. individuals,. can only witness. to sympathy). also it structures. constructed. upon more subtle. to view the narrative. an ideologically past,. on the continuum. As uchi can denote. as well.. The reader. view the narrated. experience.. between. the reader. positions.. toward. distance. do so as a narrative. events,. takes. discourse.. experiences. field. By forcing. are plotted. the two perspectives. the distinction. or informal. No. 6. to the ways in which the da-style. device in narrative. locutors. Journal. how the. the that. Narrating will. to the. be considered creation. homodiegetic focalization diegetic. I. of a unified. narratives through. world. and. 82. in the. that the. code. of focalization. perspective. is how. in narrative.. is understanding. how. the narrat-. "I" is maintained. while. straddling. narrating. act.. Of.

(17) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) As has been extensively ted in Japanese.. written upon, personal. pronouns are commonly omit-. This does not mean, however, that the language lacks any way of re-. ferring to oneself and others.. When speaking. of one's "public self" watakushi, boku,. atashi indicate the speaker's social position vis a vis the addressee. One's private self, on the other hand, does not require any marking. of social hierarchy,. and is indicated by. the use of zibun. As Genette's narratological. approach argues, all of the elements of a narrative. combine to create a unified perspective through which the author manipulates. the way. in which the events can be viewed by the reader. We have seen that the desu/masu-style creates an interpretive. space in which both the author and reader are guided into spe-. cific ideologically-prescribed. roles. The act of reading. these types of narratives. are. therefore processes through which the reader is called upon to identify with a historically-bound. subjectivity. of the narrative.. through. In contrast,. which he/she is to construct. meaning of the events. the da-style leaves the narrative. space open. Thus, the. reader is allowed more direct access into the mind of the author. By using this narrative strategy,. the reader creates a space in which sympathy. of interpretation,. can develop in the process. but the reader is given more freedom to construct. specific meanings. from the events recounted in the narrative. In both of the narratives ing ways of using personal. under examination reference that. here, we can recognize two differ-. conform. with the interpretation. desu/masu style choice. Based upon our knowledge of Japanese, da-style narrative,. we would expect that a. which employs plain forms of verbs, would employ personal. ence that was less formal, such as boku, whereas desu/masu-style narrative versely use watashi, or more formal types of predication. narratives, creating. world in which real world social positions. desu/masu-style we find use of watashi. In contrast,. refer-. would con-. When we look at the two. we see that this expectation holds to be true. Kenji's narrative a narrative. of da-. in Takashi's. strategy. of. is encoded in the. da-style narrative,. he. begins by using the more informal personal referent boku which severs the real world relationship. between the reader and writer, and instead constructs. ship between a narrator. as distanced experiencer and narratee. a fictive relation-. as similarly distanced. reader. In addition to the personal referents watashi and boku, we also notice that self is referred to as zibun by both Kenji and Takashi. Unlike watashi and boku, zibun does not reflect either person or gender, referential. identity 83. is determined. by the text itself..

(18) Kinki. Zibun is bound 1990). Hirose. to the subject (2002) argues. point.. The first. aspect. of the speaker. the other. hand,. University. with. that. which. as the subject. it is coreferential. of thinking. both. (Kuno,. personal. or consciousness.. self," or the self that. and can be projected. projected. is what Hirose. refers. on another. the speaker person.. to as the "duality. lows for the individual. to view self as other. zibun is used to create. emphasis. (Nariyama,. No. 6. and conversely. or to indicate. a shift. 1973; Shibatani,. and situational. zibun. This zibun is the "private. or her consciousness on another. Journal. zibun expresses. of these is logophoric. is the "objective. English. view-. self" which. is an. Viewpoint. zibun, on. dissociates. from his. This ability. of zibun to be. of objective. self." This al-. view others. as self. Often. in the. speaker's. perspective. 2003).. Summary Withinthe texture. of a narrative,. I would argue that there will be a tension,. what Genette calls isotopy, between these two viewpoints. Any narrative ply be either [+/- distant] there is a continuum.. (to borrow the language. Each narrative,. of structural. will not sim-. linguistics),. rather. as Genette reminds us, needs to be judged upon. the specific code of focalization which it develops. Between the extremes of identification and sympathy. there may be various types of narratives. in which greater tensions. are present in the way that the author allows access to the events of the narrated All of the elements, not only the three that we have looked at here, contribute particular. past. to the. code of any narrative.. Conclusion At the beginning qualititative. of this paper it was implied that the collection and analysis of. data must be matched with appropriate. we saw how the principles of narratology read student-produced. narratives.. outline how non-empirical. research methods. In this paper. can provide a firm grounding. from which to. Although in many ways this article was intended to. methods can be employed to analyze qualitative. data, it was. also hoped that by doing so it would be clearer how classroom activities are very much tied to students institutions. subjectivity and how they perceive of the learning process, educational. and their roles in them.. How then can the approach to analyzing. learner-produced. narratives. presented. in this paper enlighten some of the perennial issues within SLA? As language learning impacts directly upon subjectivity,. the classroom 84. is the social arena in which these.

(19) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) subjectivities. are formed, maintained. and contested. Where that classroom is located,. the culture in which it is situated and the individuals that inhabit that classroom all interact. with each other and influence the way in which subjectivities. are constructed. and how language is acquired. Both of the student-authors clude that the discussion activity. whose narratives was challenging. were presented in this article conand beneficial to their learning. English. How the process of learning impinges upon subjectivity, significantly. in the two narratives.. however, contrasts. Takashi, in drawing the reader into the narrated. past, decouples the reader from the real life reader-author reader to sympathize. of. with the narrator-hero.. Takashi. relationship by reducing. and frees the. the distance be-. tween the reader and story makes his own feelings about the discussion activity public. By extension. the reader feels that the author. approaches. the learning context as. a place in which he can develop his own language ability through interacting. as an in-. dividual with others. Kenji, on the other hand, resists allowing the reader to have direct access to the narrated. past, and maintains. the real life reader-author. and forces the reader to identify with that reader position. The narrative vate conversation has greater. between institutionally-situated. impact on Kenji as an institutionally. subjects.. relationship becomes pri-. The discussion. defined student,. activity. and his language. ability is bound with that identity. In addition to the investigation. of tasks, narratives. can also be used to create a. richer and more complex knowledge of various SLA processes. For example, Squires (2007, 2008) has shown how motivation cational institutions. to learn a foreign language is created by edu-. and specific ideologies that these institutions. cific topics within SLA, such as acquisition communicative. of grammar. support.. or vocabulary,. competence could also be areas of narrative. More spe-. acquisition. of. research in the future.. References Althusser,. L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. (B. Brewster,. Trans.). Surrey:. New Left Books. Atkinson, D. (2002). Toward a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition. Modern Language Journal, 86, 525-545. Bal, M. (1985). Narratology: An introduction. Toronto; University Brown,. P. & Levinson,. of Toronto Press.. S. C. (1978). Politeness: some universals in language usage.. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Press. 85.

(20) Kinki. Bruner,. University. English. Journal. No. 6. J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge,. MA: Harvard. University. Press. Currie, M. (1998). Postmodern narrative theory. Houndmills, England: Pa'grave Macmillan. Doughty, C., & Long, M. (2003). SLA and cognitive science. In C. Doughty and M. Long (Eds.). The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 866-879). Oxford: Blackwell. Fowler, E. (1988). The rhetoric of confession: shishosetsu fiction. Berkeley: University. of California. in early twentieth-century Japanese. Press.. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse. (J. E. Lewin, Trans.) Oxford: Blackwell. (Original work published. 1972.). Gramsci, A. (1991). Prison notebooks. 3 vols. (J. A. Buttigieg, University. Ed.) New York: Columbia. Press.. Hirose, Y. (2002). Viewpoint and the nature. of the Japanese. reflexive zibun. Cognitive. Linguistics, 13, 357-401. Maynard,. S. (1993). Discourse modality: subjectivity, emotion and voice in the Japanese lan-. guage. Amsterdam:. John Benjamins.. Kuno, Susumu. (1978). Danwa no bunpoo. Tokyo: Taishuukan. Marx, K. (with F. Engels). (1998). The German ideology. Amherst,. NY: Prometheus. Books. (Original work published 1845). Nariyama,. S. (2003). Ellipsis and reference tracking in Japanese. Amsterdam:. John. Benjamins. Norton,. B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change.. London: Longman. Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity,. investment,. and language. learning.. TESOL. Quarterly, 23(3), 9-31. Shibatani,. M. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Squires, T. (2008). A materialist. approach to reading learners' narratives. Press.. (part 1). Kinki. University English Journal, 1, 103-118. Squires, T. (2009). A materialist. approach to reading learners' narratives. (part 2). Kinki. University English Journal, 3, 65-86. Todorov, T. (1968). Introduction to poetics. (R. Howard, Trans.) Minneapolis:. University. of Minnesota Press. Ushioda,. E. (2001). Language. tional thinking.. learning. at university:. Exploring. the role of motiva-. In Z. Dornyei and R. Schmidt (Eds.). Motivation and second language. acquisition (pp. 91-124). Honolulu: University 86. of Hawaii, Second Language. Teaching.

(21) FocalizationStrategies and the IdeologicalPositioningof the Author and Reader in Learners' Narratives of ClassroomActivities(Squires) and Curriculum. Center.. Volosinov, V. N. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. (L. Matejka & R. Titunik, Trans.). Cambridge, Vygotsky,. University Press. (Original work published 1929).. L. S. (1986). Thought and language. (E. Hanfmann. Cambridge, Williams,. MA: Harvard. MA: MIT Press. (Original work published. M. & Burden,. Cambridge University. & G. Vakar, Trans. & Eds.). 1934).. R. (1997). Psychology for language teachers. Cambridge:. Press.. 87.

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