著者

立木 徹 伏見 陽児 Tatsuki Toru Fushimi Yohji 茨城キリスト教大学生活科学部 千葉大学教育学部

出版者

茨城キリスト教大学

雑誌

茨城キリスト教大学紀要. II, 社会・自然科学 = Journal of Ibaraki Christian University. II, Social and natural sciences (ISSN:13426370)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.42, pp.269-285, 2008-01-01

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Nankichi Niimi's literary masterpiece, Gongitsune, serves as standard educational material for teaching Japanese in many Japanese primary schools. The protagonist is a little fox named Gon who lives on the outskirts of a village and plays pranks on the villagers. One day Gon releases fish from a net set by Hyoju, a villager, and steals Hyoju's, eels. After Hyoju's mother passes away, Gon realizes Hyoju caught the eels for his ailing mother and regrets stealing the eels. He then returns under cover to Hyoju's house with chestnuts and mushrooms in order to atone for his misdeed. When Gon sneaks into Hyoju's house, Hyoju misunderstands Gon's intent and shoots him. Finding the chestnutssoon after, Hyoju realizes Gon's gifts were for him. The narrative closes with Hyoju exclaiming "Gon, was it you who always brought chestnuts for me?" Some readers think that Hyoju understands Gon's intention of compensation for depriving Hyoju's mother of the eels. Read properly, Hyoju clearly does not understand Gon's intention and feelings and the misunderstanding occurs. Tatsuki & Fushimi (2003, 2004) conducted three experiments to reconfirm the erroneous interpretation of university students and attempt to correct the misinterpretation. Results suggested, however, that the subject's erroneous interpretation of Gongitsune did not improve and was not corrected. The purpose of this study was to attempt again to correct the misinterpretation, and the authors conducted three experiments. In Experiments 1, the student subjects presented and discussed their opinions. In Experiment 2, the authors explained that Hyoju's perspective differed from that of Gon. In Experiment 3, the investigators interviewed the subjects in a semi-structured method. The results suggested that the subjects still thought that Hyoju understood Gon's compensatory intention. The subjects' erroneous interpretation of Gongitsune did not improve and was not corrected. The authors determined the subjects' misreading of the text was result of reader's intuitive, sentimental reading and confusing the facts with their inferences.