Exploring the Comprehension Process of Nonliteral Utterances and Some Implications for Automaticity

THE ISSUE of the comprehension process of Ll indirect speech acts has long been debated among philosophers, linguists, and psychologists (cf. Levinson, 1983; Bach & Hamish, 1979). Specifically, their debates have been centering on the role of literal sentence meaning in processing indirect speech acts performed in native languages: is the intended illocutionary force of the indirect speech act identified indirectly from its literal sentence meaning or directly from the locution without interpreting its literal meaning first? An attempt has also been made to explicate the role of literal meaning in comprehending idioms and metaphors in native language situations both theoretically and empirically (cf. Gibbs, 1980, 1982, 1986; Ortony et al., 1978; Swinney & Cutler, 1979; and others). Here, a question arises as to how the same issue has been treated in the area of comprehension of L2 nonliteral utterances. Are L2 learners comprehending nonliteral utterances made in their target language in the same manner as native speakers? Are L2 learners computing the literal sentence meaning in comprehending L2 nonliteral utterances? In this paper, an attempt will be made, first, to review how researchers have been dealing with the ways in which a hearer is said to arrive at his/her interlocutor's intention when the latter is making nonliteral utterances-indirect speech acts, idioms, and a metaphors-in both L1 and L2 situations. Then, in the subsequent section, I will make a further attempt to present a design for a study of comprehension process of L2 nonliteral utterances in order to deepen our understanding in this area

Multiple reactions for the asymmetric synthesis of unusual amino acids

Unusual amino acids, such as γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) derivatives and hydroxy amino acids, are known to have worthwhile physiological activities on the mammals or are used as chiral building blocks in the chemical synthesis of other compounds. So far, we have been screening microbial enzymes in order to develop novel biocatalysts useful for various kinds of bioproduction process. In the course of the screening, a variety of enzymes were found to catalyze unique reactions acting to amino acids and the related compounds. Therefore, we suitably combined these biocatalysts and chemical reactions to make multiple reaction systems, by which several unusual amino acids were obtained with high steric purity. Optically active dicarboxylic acid monoamides (chiral half amides) such as (R)-3-(4-chlorophenyl)-glutaric acid monoamide [(R)-CGM] are easily converted into corresponding chiral 3-substituted GABA derivatives by a coupling of Hofmann rearrangement. Some chiral 3-substituted GABA derivatives are used as important medicinal drugs. Chiral half amides are available via desymmetric hydrolysis of prochiral cyclic imides. For the reactions, stereoselective imide-hydrolyzing enzymes (imidases) are necessary to obtain chiral half amides effectively. Then we searched microbial imidases for desymmetric hydrolyze of several cyclic imides. As the result of the microbial screening, Burkholderia phytofirmans DSM17436 was found to have the imidase activity hydrolyzing a cyclic imide, 3-(4-chlorophenyl)glutarimide [CGI], into (R)-CGM with 97.5% ee. An imidase of B. phytofirmans was purified through a classical column chromatographic separation method. The identified enzyme, BpIH, has similarity with an allantoinase of Pseudomonas fluorescens and a 5-benzyl-2,4-thiazolidindione-hydrolyzing enzyme of Brevibacterium linens C-1. Consequently, bioconversion of prochiral CGI into (R)-CGM was achieved with a yield of 99% and 99% ee with the recombinant E. coli cells expressing BpIH. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Transferibility of Indirect Request Strategies

This study is intended to examine the transferability of five indirectness strategies realized by the "conventions of usage" of Japanese indirect requests when Japanese learners of English realize English indirect requests in four situations. Subjects representing two proficiency groups (beginning/intermediate (Low ESL Group) and highly advanced (High ESL Group)) were asked to undertake an acceptability judgment task for five indirect request expressions in Japanese and English, respectively, for each situation. The transferability rate was computed for each indirectness strategy for each situation by subtracting the acceptability rate of the English indirect request from the acceptability rate of the corresponding japanese indirect request. The obtained transferability rate was considered as representing the "psycholinguistic markedness" of each strategy, which determined its language·specificity /neutrality. The results clearly indicated that contextual factors played a major role in determining transferabilities at the pragmatic level. Furthermore, some proficiency effects on the transferabilities of those indirectness strategies were identified. Based on those findings, further attempts were made to explore what kind of contextual factors were most likely to affect transferability and to pursue a possible explanation for obtained results of proficiency effects on the transferabilities of the indirect request strategies

依頼負担度の数量化に向けて : 第二言語語用論研究における実験対象場面の有効性の実証と選択

第二言語語用論研究における実験方法は、コミュニケーション研究で用いられる実験方法と共通する点が多い。どちらの実験でも、被験者に対し調査対象の場面を提示し、そこで使われる最も適切な言語表現を発話あるいは紙面に記入させるという方法を採る。しかし、コミュニケーション学の領域では、被験者に対象場面を提示する前に、その場面を構成する場面因子（対話者の地位・対話者間の親密度・発話行為上の負担度等）が被験者の知覚を正確に反映しているかどうかを、別の同等の被験者群を使って確認するところから始まる。つまり、実験者と被験者の対象場面（場面因子）に対する知覚が基本的に違っていれば、その実験結果は被験者の調査対象項目に関する実態を正確に伝えているとは言えないのである。第二言語語用論研究では、このような対被験者の実験対象場面の有効性を予め実証しておくという前実験段階での配慮がほとんど為されてこなかった。本研究は、「依頼発話行為における負担度」という場面因子に焦点を当て、この第二言語語用論研究方法上の不備点を改良すべく試みられたものである。具体的には、日本人英語学習者を被験者とし、負担度が異なる英語依頼場面において日本語の依頼慣用法がその程度転移可能であるかを探る実験を想定した。そして、「依頼における負担」という抽象概念を数量化することによって被験者から見た依頼場面の負担度を統計的に実証し、研究目的に最も適切で且つ依頼負担度において被験者の知覚を正確に反映した依頼場面の選定を試みた