科学・技術英語の教育III : 文型の出現頻度とその使用形態

概要

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To make it easier for students to read and understand scientific papers, textbooks, etc, it is very important to know how verb patterns and sentence patterns are actually used. To discover this, we analyzed the frequency of verb patterns used in 12 samples of scientific writing and 3 non-scientific articles extracted from Newsweek magazine. Our classification of sentence patterns is based on the "32 verb patterns" set in OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY (1989). We also examined whether the subjects of the sentences were human or not, and whether the active voice or the passive voice was used more often. What we've learned from the data obtained through our analyses is as follows. The verb patterns and frequency of such patterns used in scientific writing were about the same as those in Newsweek magazine. But the use of these patterns was very different between Newsweek and the scientific writing samples. The subjects of the sentences in the latter were mostly things, and the verbs in them were more frequently used in the passive voice. As a result of the comparison of the data, it could be said that as for sentence patterns, the teaching of general English has been, and can be, the basis of that of English for specific purposes. We should also take into consideration the different uses in various specialized fields when we teach verb patterns and sentence patterns.
1992-01-30