000081024 DIFFICULTIES OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOΙ UNIVERSITY IN STUDYING PASSIVE VOICE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR LEARNING THEM EFFECTIVELY (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM NHẤT NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI ĐẠI HỌC HÀ NỘI KHI HỌC THỂ BỊ ĐỘNG VÀ GỢI Ý ĐỂ HỌC H

000081024 DIFFICULTIES OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOΙ UNIVERSITY IN STUDYING PASSIVE VOICE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR LEARNING THEM EFFECTIVELY (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM NHẤT NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI ĐẠI HỌC HÀ NỘI KHI HỌC THỂ BỊ ĐỘNG VÀ GỢI Ý ĐỂ HỌC HIỆU QUẢ)

HANOI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

GRADUATION PAPER

DIFFICULTIES OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI

UNIVERSITY IN STUDYING PASSIVE VOICE AND SUGGESTIONS

FOR LEARNING THEM EFFECTIVELY

| HANOI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

oll -

_ 91021

Supervisor: DANG DINH THIEN, M.Ed

HANOI, MAY 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude towards my supervisor, Mr Dang Dinh Thien, M.Ed., senior lecturer of English Department, Hanoi University This

graduation paper would not have completed without his useful suggestions,

enthusiastic and valuable support and encouragement

I am also particularly indebted to the Management Board of English Department, Hanoi University for the permission to implement the paper

Thanks are due to my dear classmates and friends for their help and encouragement

Also, I am grateful to students of English Department, Hanoi University who have enthusiastically filled out the questionnaires

Last but not least, my profound thanks go to my beloved family who have constantly supported and inspired and encouraged me during the time I carried out this study

ABSTRACT Passive voice has played rather an indispensable role in academic prose particularly in written forms: hence English language learners who get involved in this language find

no way to make avoidance of passive construction However passive voice has also been one difficult part of grammar which creates the most difficulties to students

Those difficulties are related the variety of passive structures and the categories of

verbs which can take part in passive voice

From that reality, this paper is conducted to bring readers to some background

knowledge of English passive voice, the common troubles that students frequently confront during learning process and more importantly-some useful suggestions at the

end Nevertheless, passive voice is a very large topic so I cannot cover all My main

concentration is on previous studies on English passive voice, passive-related

problems and solutions for better learning results My paper, though, is unable to make an entirely complete overview of English passive voice; it will hopefully be of some help for first year English majors at Hanoi University

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS AcknowledgemmenI «<5 s< s4 x11 0001010101001 01000811000110800101010 i ADStract ccccssscsrecsrrersssccecnescncnenseseesensssnencssscsneacsssnsnsosssnsosansassanessnossasssssassosesesoesesseses ii Table of Content .sscsssessecsessessesseenescesssssenssesesnseensneneneneesanesseaneneneseneneseseenensenaes iii

List of abbreviations .ccccccscssssessessssesscsssscsesscssssensssensssenssssasseenesssasesenseenees vii

1,1 Rafionnal «HH 000100000000000000000000000000000000000n000 1 1.2 Aiinis Gf tế SEMỦY: coccceocscnsiciAin nhện Giáng ghấggggàg Giá ghế ggagts4:16g55SưE4GàBu2áS41 49643846446 2 1.3 Research questions cscscsessssessesesssnesseessseesseensescnssneneseencsssaesneassneacenenseneneenes 2 1.4 Significance and scope Of the Study .c.sssssecsssssesscsenseessesesesessessensesensseensenes 3 1.5 Organization of the Stud y ccscssssssssssessssencsseneseesensenssecnsassesncessneensasensnseneees 3 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

241-THFQdN€(ÌfĂcsosiiseeeseiiiniisiasdlAtaSLi511154651415934563103816388061361646016.46150406144ui4.046 5 2.2 Previous studies on paSSỈV€ VỌC€ «sen 0001610101100 5 2¡2:1-.DEGRNILGHsasnsasnesanisasniiasinioiiridicEE445512161861815656458506515681489304801400554058060800802800 5 2.2.1.1 Voice in English

2 Didii2) PASSIVE VOICE swsvsessvessocssscaasccvecesevenssvszescosevescevsstennaasieensTenasreNueNNeTeTTIeN 6 2.2.2 Kinds of verbs can be used in passÏVe VỌC€ -. <c<ssecceseeeeesee 8 Ơ:2/2a1"TTaTISTHWE tVÊVDĐ ¡¿sssxnt146611066010506 15101383551519645500560045143516610666/3510616650008 8 2.2.2.2 Some statiV€ V€TES HH HH rưy 9 2.2.3 Classification «eo 0011101100100100100010101001011e 10 2.2.3.1 Ag€ntÏV€ pASSIVES HH re 10

iii

2.24.5 Modal verbs itt passive: VOICE csissssssossscosnsconoserenvecesacessvonsvsosevaseest 16 2.2.4.6 Get- passive

2.2.6 Previous research about the difficulties in learning passive voice

CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES -.-ee<eeeeeer 27 3.1 Introdtuiction -.os-<-s s5 nh 16131563800664806080809084040000030400000040100000040000 27

3.2 Subjects

3.3 Instrumentation .scccsssssssseesssesssssceeeseseseseeesscaeencacaesesssesssennenenensnsessessesees 28 3.4 Procedures .ssscccsssssssssssssscssssscnsesasosscossresessusecesscecseneasaracaeseasansneneacosnesenseses 29

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .-. .-‹<<-<5- 30

4.1 Imtroduction cssssccsscsccscscscssscsccsersossssveesenecorsssesssenenenseesenecveusvceenenesencevessseoters 30 4.2 Findings

4.2.1 First-year English majors” opinions on passive VoÏce 30

iv

4.2.1.1 Students awareness of importance of passive voice in the English lẬfiEÙSBntbtbstttatttildtipiGIGIRQEGNEIGNUNHIHHRIHAEORIINNtLitHiiimeaaei 30 4.2.1.2 Students` frequency of using passive voice in studying process

31

4.2.2 Passive voice -related difficulties in studying process

4.2.2.1 Students” lack of confidence in using passive VOICE ee 33

4:2.2:2 Students” other dihicultiesivicsscccccsssscsssvssscvessiescseevesscsesseveasesves 36

4.2.3 Reasons for difficulties in learning passive voice

4.2.4 Students’ suggestions for learning passive voice effectively 38

4.3 DiSCUSSiON <0 Sàn nh TT 0 0010800040600 0080080 39

4.3.2 Passive voice-related difficulties in studying process - 40 4.3.2.1 Students’ lack of confidence in using passive voice 40 4.3.2.2 Students’ other difficulties ccccesecseseeeseseesesesteseseseeeseeeeeeneees 4] 4.3.3 Reasons for difficulties in learning pasSIV€ VOIC€ c.cececcce 45 4.3.4 Students` sugp€stiOTS ch re 47

413:5:SDffifẨIBEV trryetgttitttttttfitÐiilGKIIWGHGIWEIERIOSRSSdĐIfiAesuunasi 48

CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS . -5Ă7<S<<SSEiiesrserersee 50 5.1 Summary of Major Findings .ssssssssessssscsssesssecsesnescsesscnssscssencesencesenenees 50 5,2 Suggestions .c.csscssccoserserssssssesssossssesesanssoeessssecbesscneseceeseessscoseseneensasencasensessnesees 50

5.3 Limitations of the study

5.4 Suggestions for further study .ccessecesssssssseeneenscscssaseneeasensseensseeeeneensonsnes 53 5.5 COnCIUSION .cssessssssessssssssssssessssecseseesesesasscseseneencaeenencaeassecneasensasensneensneenenenes 53

APPENDIX 2 HH HH0 1011010111111 0111110111e ke 59 REFERENCES che rnrerrriee 60

vi

List of Figures and Tables

Table 1 Tenses and aspects in the passive voice

Table 2 4 tenses are not usually in English 0se «<-<<<<e<seseese 15

Table 3 Frequency continuum of passive VOICE sssssererssererseenenensneseeeeeeees 23 Figure 4 Students’ attitude towards the importance of passive voice in the

English language .scscsssesssssessssesssesssssesssesessssesenesesesesesesesessesseesrsearessenenereeerseee 31 Figure 5 Students’ frequency of using passive voice in studying process 32 Figure 6 Students’ lack of confidence in using passiVe VỌ€e - 33 Table 7 Reasons for students’ confidence and lack of confidence in using passive

Figure 8 Students’ evaluation towards the level of difficulty they have 35 Table 9 Students’ difficulties in form, meaning and use, pronunciation and MCI ONY ssissccsssesesesessasecsasssisasecesescasascasasdesesencennessasnssenssssesssnieassuscexassbusasseaassieriaieeses 36 Figure 10 Reasons for students’ difficulties in learning passive voice 37 Table 11 Students’ solutions for learning passive voice effectively .+ 38 Table 12 Students’ answer to the test and mistakes in verb forms 0+ 42

Table 13 Students’ answer to the test and mistakes in pronunciation 45 Table 14 Students”" answer to the test and mistakkes . -‹-«<-<- 46

vii

List of abbreviations HANU: Hanoi University

GRADUATION PAPER DIFFICULTIES OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI

UNIVERSITY IN STUDYING PASSIVE VOICE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR LEARNING THEM EFFECTIVELY

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

As the development of human beings, English has become a means of international communication that makes people connect closer English is widely the officially spoken languages all over the world that draws attention of many linguists; hence language mastery is one of demands and desires of most English learners However, it

is not easy to acquire this because many kinds of barriers can cause difficult for learners and grammar is proved to be the biggest trouble

Grammar plays an integral part in learning English, which is regarded “the sound,

structure, and meaning system of language” (Chin, 2000) It is all considered to be a solid foundation to develop language skills including reading, listening, speaking and writing Thus, in order to improve our language in general and English in particular,

we need to improve our grammar, which is, fortunately something that can be learnt successfully on our own

Among many grammatical points in English, passive voice stands out as one of the very popular and important You can easily find them used in different kinds of material namely books, novels and academic writing in general Therefore, in order to fully master this language, or, in other words, to make English your language, passive Voice is the target you should aim for

However the passive construction is also considered as the very confusing and

difficult part to the language learners This problem is really serious towards the

Vietnamese learners when they learn passive voice

Much important and difficult passive voice is there have not been many studies

conducted on them Most materials are just simply compiled with different forms of

passive voice and thus are not of much help to students in term of study method or serve as only reference sources when needed

All those things invigorated the researcher of this paper to carry out an intensive study into English passive voice During working on the passive, considerable

knowledge about them has been gained It is hoped that what is written here will be of some help for those who are still striving with the virtually endless loads of passive voice Moreover, the students will be provided with a deeper insight into its theorical knowledge and its applications and some suggestions to cope with this kind of

grammar so that they can be confident to use the passive construction fluently as part

of their language

1.2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are to investigate the significance of passive voice in English

grammar, the difficulties that first-year English majors face during learning process

and suggested measures for them to overcome such problems

nw What are problems that students face during studying and using process and their reasons for?

w How do the students overcome the difficulties in learning passive voice?

In order to answer the specific questions above, the researcher first reviews the

literature on passive voice in terms of definition passive form and classification as well as common difficulties with the passive Based on theories in the literature, the researcher carries out a survey to explore the awareness of English and problems of the first-year English majors at HANU in learning this aspect of grammar Finally, the

researcher gives some suggestions to deal with such problems

1.4 Significance and scope of the study

The study will be useful for students who want to be successful in English language and then using with the focus on those with deep knowledge acquisition Moreover, the result of the study can be used as stimulant information to conduct further research

on passive voice since this paper discusses passive voice only

1.5 Organization of the thesis

The thesis comprises of five chapters To begin with, Chapter One is the introduction with the presentation of the rationale, objectives of the study, research questions, significance and scope as well as organization of the study

It is followed by Chapter Two-the literature review-which gives an overview picture and general analysis of the previous studies, books, articles relating to the topic Next comes Chapter Three introducing the methods and procedures of the survey the researcher had done for the purpose of this study Chapter Four presents the preliminary findings and data analysis with lively illustration of charts and tables The discussion appears right after the presentation of the findings Chapter Five also the

final one gives a brief summary of the study Some useful recommendations given by solutions proposed by students themselves will also be introduced The research will then come to a conclusion

References and Appendix are attached to the end of the thesis The References lists all names of books, journals, articles, internet sources used in the study The Appendix includes questionnaires and a test for students and the test’s results

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter is assigned to give a particular review on some aspects of English

passive voice which are definition, classification, passive form, its usage, and

common mistakes in learning passive voice However, in order to have an overall view about passive voice, we need to know about the category of Voice in English Accordingly, the presentation of a list of passive voice definitions proposed by

authors and researchers will be introduced with an aim to provide a basic

understanding of English passive voice Next is followed by the classification bases, uses of passive voice, and then the final part will reserve space for the previous studies on common difficulties in the process of studying passive voice

2.2 Previous studies on passive voice

2.2.1 Definition of Voice and Passive voice

by the predicate verb” There are two voices in English, the active voice and the passive voice

According to Quirk’s definition which is cited in Classification and SLA studies of passive voice by Wang (2010), voice is a grammatical category which makes it

possible to view the action of a sentence in two ways without changing the reported facts

voice is “the way the relationship between the subject and object of the verb can be changed without changing the meaning of the sentence” From that idea, Werner and Nelson (2007) give more detailed information that the voice “does change the focus

of the sentence” If in the active voice, the focus is on the doer of the action, in the passive voice, the focus is shifted to the receiver of the action

From the authors’ above mentioned ideas and general knowledge about the category

of Voice in English, we move on the main content: passive voice

2.2.1.2 Passive voice

According to the note with a view to better understand the English passive voice given by some authors including Truong, Thien and Phuong (2008) in the book, “A Grammar of the English language” (p.117), “English is a "subject-verb-object ” language and that common alternatives to the S-V-O order are S-O-V and V-S-O, and the English language views every noun a exhibiting a semantic function in the

relation to the verb” They also mentioned in there, the English sentence has two focus positions, subject, the main focus position and object, the secondary focus position Although all of the passive sentences serve the same function of expressing the relationship between them, we often find that among linguists, they give different definitions and expressions of such relationship

First and foremost, dated back to the time, Liberman (2009) lets us know the time

when passive voice, a grammatical term, whose first use in English, according to the OED was about 600 years ago, in the 16th century:

1450 (41397) Prowl Old Test in Bible (Wycliffe L.V.) (Camber Mm

II 15) xv 57 A participle of a present tens either preterit, of active voids either passive, may be resoled into a verb of the same tens and a coniunccioun copulatif

Since then, passive voice has been increasingly developed by users

Now, looking back to the definition of a group of authors Gordon and Krylova, in terms of the active voice, it shows that the person or thing denoted by the subject of

the sentence is the agent (the doer) of the action expressed by the predicate verb, that

it acts, for example, “Why have you done it?” In contrast, the passive voice serves to

show that the person or thing denoted by the subject of the sentence is not the agent

(the doer) of the action expressed by the predicate verb but is the object of this action

by the action of the verb

In English and other European languages, the passive voice is defined in terms of morphology, syntax, and semantics Tuan (2010, p.97) cited Radford’s definition (1981) that, in line with traditional descriptive grammar, the term “passive voice” refers to the placement of the object at the subject’s position, together with the

emergence of the passive morphemes

The two authors Corson and Smollett (n.d) at University College Writing Centre stated that in English, all sentences remain in either active or passive voice In detail, they show that in an active sentence, the person or thing responsible for the action in the sentence comes first while in a passive sentence, the person or thing acted on

comes first and the actor is added at the end, introduced with the preposition "by" The passive form of the verb is signaled by a form of "to be”

From another viewpoint Wang (2010, p.945) stated that passive voice is not a

derivative of active voice, which is the outcome of people's different meaning

expression Passive voice describes the whole process of certain event from the

patient's point of view It is a marked form of voice He also adds that “there are three markers in passive voice, be, -ed and by which has its meaning and significance

respectively” Consequently, this statement and explanation from this book help me

understand and give more information about passive voice clearly

Here are some examples:

The committee discussed the report (Active)

The report was discussed by the committee (Passiv

Kolln (1990)

A man took away the mad dog (Active)

The mad dog was taken away (Passive)

Dixon (2002)

The butler murdered the detective (Active)

The detective was murdered by the butler (Passive)

Wang (2010)

2.2.2 Kinds of verbs can be used in the passive construction

2.2.2.1 Transitive verbs

Only transitive verbs can have passive constructions because the grammatical subject

of a pas

ive verb corresponds to the object of an active verb

Active: The construction company in Station Road employs 300 people

Passive: 300 people are employed by the construction company in Station Road

Intransitive verb:

Active: Something happened

The cat ran away

There is no passive sentence equivalent

2.2.2.2 Some state verbs

Those verbs can be used in the passive such as believe, tent, know, like, love, understand, ete

eg This city is known as a historical witness

However, not all of the state verbs can be passive such as have, lack, be, belong, seem,

ete

eg They have a guitar

But NOT: A guitar is had by them

They can be if they are either action verbs or state verb, namely cost weigh, and

measure.

They can be passive only when they are action verbs

eg Action and active: The decorator measured the wall

Action and passive: The wall was measured by the decorator

State: The wall measured 3 metres

But NOT: 3 metres was measured by the wall

2.2.3 Classification

The passive construction has been classified in many different ways However, I will mainly mention Quirk’s classification that is summarized in the “A Grammar of Contemporary English” (1972) cited by Wang Also cited by this author, Granger has classified it into seven categories, namely, passives, adjectival pscudo-passives, verbal pseudo-passives, mixed be + V-ed combinations, usually passive category, peripheral combinations and stative combinations; however, this way is more complicated, therefore, I will not mention in this thesis

2.2.3.1 Agentive passives

Agentive passive involves with expressed agent and without expressed agent

The difference between the next two is that the former has a personal, the latter a non-

personal agent:

(1) My father made this violin

(2) The results hardly justify this conclusion

With expressed agents:

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(3) Coal has been replaced by oil

This is a passive with two possible active transforms depending on the interpretation

of the by-phrase

(4) Oil has replaced coal

(5) (People in many countries) have replaced coal by oil

Sentence (4) is an active transform like (2) with a non-personal agent: (5) is an active

transform where the by-phrase has been given an instrumental interpretation

(by=with) Consequently an active subject must be supplied

Without expressed agents:

(6) This difficulty can be avoided in several ways

Sentence (6) exemplifies the most common type of passive, which has no expressed agent, or agentless passives which account for more than 80 percent of passives in English

The agentive passive with expressed agent is also called short long passive, hence the other passive without expressed agent is short passive

2.2.3.2 Quasi-passives (Mixed passive)

(7) We are encouraged to go on with the project

(8) John was interested in linguistics

The passive sentences (7) and (8) represent a “mixed” class whose members have both verbal and adjectival properties They are verbal in having active analogues:

11

(9) (The results) encourage us to go on with the project

(10) Linguistics interested John

2.2.3.3 Non-agentive passives

(11) The modern world becomes more highly industrialized and mechanized

Sentence (11) has no active transform or possibility of agent addition, because no

“performer” is conceived of The participles have adjectival values: compare industrialized-industrial and mechanized-mechanical Besides a number of such

“resulting” verbs ending in —ize (organize, Americanized, etc.), this class includes

“existing” constructions, as in:

(12) The house is already sold

The corresponding active of which is not (13) but (14)

(13) (The agent) already sells the house

(14) (The agent) has already sold the house

In this case, voice transformation involves aspectual shift from present to present

perfect While it is clear that (11) and (12) are not “passive” in the sense of sentences,

they still satisfy the formal passive requirement and, as in the case of (12), often have

an “indirect” voice relationship We will therefore call this class “non-agentive passive/intensive active complement constructions”, recognizing that “The house is already sold” \t is related both to agentive passive “The house has already been sold”

and to the intensive (active) complement construction

2.2.4 Form

This part of the thesis is mainly based on Oxford guide to English grammar by

Eastwood (2002)

2.2.4.1 The general form

A passive verb has a form of be and a passive participle (BE + -EN) Be is the same tense as the equivalent active form The passive participle has the same form as a past participle: taken, seen, discussed, and decorated

The committee discussed the report (Past simple) Passive voice:

The report was discussed by the committee (Past simple of be + passive participle)

From that, Kolln (1990) sums up the passive transformation that involves three steps:

1 The original direct object becomes the subject

Nv Be + -en is added to the active verb

3 The original subject becomes the object of the preposition “by” The third step is optional; the passive sentence is grammatical without the prepositional phrase

This formula is also generated simply by another writer, Wang (2010) as following: Active: Noun phrasel + active verb phrase + noun phrase2

Passive: Noun phrase2+ passive verb phrase + (by noun phrase)

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2.2.4.2 Tenses and aspects used in the passive

The following table is a complete list of verbs that show tenses and aspects used in the

Present simple am/ is/ are + PP Large numbers of people are

killed on the roads

Past continuous was/ were being + PP Three men were being

questioned by detectives last night

Past perfect simple had been + PP The drugs had been loaded onto

the ship in Ecuador

Future simple will be + PP The house contents will be

auctioned a week on Saturday

However, in British English especially in American English, there are 4 tenses which are not usually in use According to BBC Learning English “it is possible to form the passive with other verb forms, such as the perfect continuous ones, but usually it is better to avoid these forms because of their complicated and inelegant structure.”

Those tenses will be shown in Table 2

Present perfect

| continuous

have/ has been being + PP The drugs have been being

loaded onto the ship in Ecuador

had been being + PP The drugs had been being

loaded onto the ship in

| will have been being + PP

This cake will be being

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Negative: The drugs were not found by the police

The house contents won’t be auctioned a week on Saturday

Question: — How were the drugs found?

Will the house contents be auctioned a week on Saturday?

2.2.4.4 Prepositional phrases

There are great deals of verbs in English that require a prepositional object These verbs are also used in the passive; the subject of the passive corresponds then to the prepositional object The adverb or preposition comes after the passive participle e.g The tree was cut down last week

The poor child is always being made fun of

2.2.4.5 Modal verbs in the passive

Present Formula: Modal verb + be + passive participle

e.g Stamps can be bought at any post office

Animals have to be prepared every day

Problems with reservations should be reported to the restaurant manager Past Formula: Modal verb + have been + passive participle

e.g It is possible that the train could have been delayed

The bill ought to have been paid weeks ago

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The plane might have been delayed due to the bad weather

2.2.4.6 Gef- passive

- A passive construction is formed with the verb ger instead of be

e.g The vase got broken when we moved

She got fired last week

The ge/- passive is sometimes considered informal, and it has a more limited use than

be for formal academic writing It expressed action and change, not a state It often refers to something happening by accident, unexpectedly or incidentally We do not use for major, planned action

- The get- passive is used some idiomatic expressions

There wasn't enough time to get washed (wash oneself)

-This kind of idiom should be common than wash myself

- An adjective in -ed also can be used after get

(She became involved in an argument.)

2.2

7 The passive with have and get

Get and have are also used in a causative sense that means “cause someone to do something Have takes a bare infinitive and ger a to-infinitive in the active

The passive equivalent is have/get + object + passive participle

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eg Active: [have the stylist cut my hair

I get the stylist to cut my hair

Passive: / have my hair cut

I get my hair cut

2.2.4.8 The passive with verbs of reporting

There are two special patterns with verbs of reporting which are:

(1) It + passive verb + finite clause

eg Active: They say that elephants have good memories

Passive: It is said that elephants have good memories

Elephants are said to have good memories

The pattern (1) is often used in news reports where there is no need to mention the

source of the information

e.g It was reported that the army was crossing the frontier

Some common verbs of this pattern are admit, declare, serve, reveal, consider, feel presume, say, believe, etc

The verbs can be used in the pattern (2) are assume, discover, intend, prove, show, believe estimate, know, report, suppose, etc

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The infinitive can also be perfect or continuous or it can be passive

e.g The army was reported to be crossing the frontier

The prisoner is known to have behaved violently in the past

2.2.5 When to use passive voice

It is restated that the terms active and passive describe the relationship between the

subject and the object (Kolln, 1990) If in the active voice, the subject is active or is doing something, in the passive construction, that relationship between subject and

verb is different: the subject is doing nothing The former subject of the active verb, if

it is still mentioned in the sentence, remains the agent or actor in the passive, and is separated by “by” From that fact some authors confirmed that a passive sentence in

English is not an automatic transformation of an active one (Dixon, 2002) Similarly,

two other authors, Gordon and Krylova commented that “the Passive is not the Active The two constructions are not parallel in their use and sever different purposes”

From those points of view, some pioneering studies by Dixon (2002), Webster (1989), Gordon and Krylova (1980) and many other authors provide us with some guidelines referring when to use passive voice Therefore, some uses of passive voice are listed

as the followings:

2.2.5.1 As a general rule, the passive construction is used when there is no need to mention the agent of the action Besides, when the speaker does not know exactly who the subject was, the identity of the subject is not considered important or unknown, or the subject can be easily understood from the situation or even because it happens to be any number of identified people, passive is also preferred to be used: e.g a) Rice is grown widely in Vietnam (by Vietnamese farmers)

19

b) Mary was invited to dinner at their house every Saturday night (by people living in the house)

c) In industry coal is now used mush less than before

Talking about no need to mention the agent of the action in above cases, Gordon and Krylova pointed out that “the passive voice makes it possible to shift the focus of attention onto other parts of the sentence in them”

In other similar cases, it is added that heavy use of the passive is a feature of certain styles: in scientific English it avoids bringing in the first person pronoun (Dixon, 2002) For example, an experiment was devised to investigate would be preferred than | devised an experiment to investigate Occasionally, the particular personal skills and ideas of researcher do play a role in his work, which would rather be emphasized and honestly acknowledged than express who the first person subject is

e.g a) Carbohydrates are produced by green plants in the presence of light and chlorophyll

b) The electron was discovered a very long time ago

However, in some cases, in order to make the highlight of the doer of the action, it is

necessary to indicate the agent and then a by-phrase is used for it

eg Other possibilities were talked of by some of my colleagues

In this case, a corresponding active voice can be used instead

2.2.5.2 Sometimes when the doer of the action is kept secret; in another word, some writers take great pains to avoid mentioning the subject, but make a statement sound

objective without revealing the source of information for a purpose the writers will apply the passive voice:

e.g a) It was rumored that his wedding party would be held this weekend

b) Last night Peter was attacked so badly that he must be taken to the hospital

2.2.5.3 When the writer is more interested in the action than the person who did it, or

in other words, he wants to emphasize the receiver or focus on the result of activity: e.g Six people were killed by the tornado

It is pointed out by Dixon (2002, p.302) that the passive construction involves a participial form of the verb which functions very much like an adjective, it forms a predicate together with copula be or get This participle is also used to describe the result of activity, or in other words, the passive may be used in order to focus on the result (However, “be” is the unmarked form and may be used with a wider range of

verbs than “get”)

2.2.5.4 When the writer want to retain in the same grammatical subject in successive clauses, although the function of the noun phrase changes from agent into theme: e.g George Foreman beat Joe Frazier, but he was beaten by Muhammad Ali

This use is also explained more clearly in “A new approach to English grammar, on semantic principle (Dixon, 2002) According to him, English has a straight-forward syntactic rule whereby, it two consecutive clauses have the same subject, this may be omitted from the second clause, e.g John took off his coat and then (John) scolded

Mary However when two coordinated clauses share an NP which is in subject

position in one and in object position in another, the omission is impossible If in the sentence, John took off his coat and then Mary scolded John, the final John cannot be

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omitted In such circumstances, the passive voice should be used, so the sentence may become: John took off his coat and was then scolded by Mary “John” can be omitted without changing the meaning The NP which would be in O relation in an active transitive now becomes subject of the passive Therefore, the passive form can be

used to avoid an awkward or ungrammatical sentence

2.2.5.5 When the passive is more appropriate than the active It usually happens in complex sentences:

hypothesis as Bogen, Paivio, Cohen and Witkin suggest that students learn in distinctively different ways

Would be better expressed:

The result of this second language learning experiment tends to confirm the hypothesis that students learn in distinctively different ways as suggested by Bogen, Paivio, Cohen and Witkin

Truong, Thien, Phuong (2008) explained that in this context, the passive is more appropriate than the active, because the hypothesis, which is the theme and also the

NP of primary importance, can be fully stated before the writer mention the source authors or agents, who are of secondary importance here

2.2.5.6 When the theme is given information and the agent is new information

Boy: What a lovely scarf!

Girl: Thank you It was given to me by Pam 2.2.5.7 Applications of English passive voice

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According to the statistics studied in Longman grammar of spoken and written English by a group authors including Leech, Finegan, Johansson, Biber, and Conrad (2002) it is useful and most common by far in academic prose occurring about 18500 times per million words, occurring in news about 12000 times per millions words, Therefore the passive voice is sometimes recommended or even required in such writing because the rationale for using the passive voice in scientific writing is that it achieves “an objective tone” or the tone of detachment and impersonality- for

example, by avoiding the first person that it helps to establish

Also according to a group of teachers cum writers, Truong, Thien, Phuong (2008,

p.120), they mentioned that the English passive voice is encountered by far most frequent in scientific writing and that it is least frequent in conversation or spoken

discourse (Table 3)

Least number of passives Medium Highest number of

words

conversation & fiction journalistic writing scientific writing

Table 3 Frequency continuum of passive voice

2.2.6 Previous research about the difficulties in learning passive voice

As cited by Hinkel (2002), the uses of passive structures are common in academic

writing (Talmy, 1988), and advanced learners are often expected to produce written texts that utilize passive forms However, they are in reality a highly complex matter

of the English language, causing a numerous syntactic and semantic pitfalls to

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learners These difficulties are in relation to both the form and the way of usage and

pronunciation (Roe, n.d)

First and foremost, the problems with passive voice have to do with form Because learners often do not use passive verb phrases in correct forms, much of the

instruction associated with the passive voice includes the derivation of passive

structures from active It is pointed out by Roe that although many learners can

understand the passive form of be + past participle verb form in a text as long as they have already studied the tense and aspect of the particular construction being created, they still make common verb form errors He also gave out such errors made by his

students as:

My house was building in 1920

Nothing is doing for poor people

Besides, there are also some of the most common form errors which take a number of

different forms and while the list below is by no means exhaustive, it presents the most frequent For example, learners use incorrect formation of the past participle: They were eated or mistake of replacement of the past participle by the present participle: The door is opening by the button Noticeably, being confused both order and form of auxiliaries is one of those mistakes, namely “He was had been taken.”

Secondly, meaning and use prove further obstacles The most common errors relating

to meaning and use stem from a misunderstanding of how and when to use the passive voice Often learners do not want to use the passive because it is seen only as academic or scientific writing, which is fostered by many course books that only gloss over the structure and teach it only in terms of its academic uses, according to Parrott (cited by Roe) However, sometimes passive voice is still in daily conversation when users want to emphasize the receiver or focus on the result of activity

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Another misuse is between transitive versus intransitive verbs Roe points out that student often misuse transitive and intransitive verbs, stative verses non-stative verbs Many students cannot tell the difference between them that transitive verbs can have passive constructions, which kind of verbs can take an object For example “arrive”

is an intransitive verb, and has no object However, learners can make mistakes when forming a sentence like “She was arrived at the train station.”” Another for this kind

of errors is “He was dead by a criminal.” Similarly, this problem is further worsened

by the differentiation between stative and non-stative verbs It is necessary to demonstrate to learners that the passive is meant to show that the subject of the

passive construction must somehow be ‘affected’ by the verb Thus, he showed the reality that, many students after learning and practicing the passive in class will try and apply the passive construction to every transitive verb they encounter, without being aware that many stative verbs cannot be readily converted to passive voice

Lori is resembled by her father

Five dollars is cost by the parking fine

As mentioned above, stative verbs can help form the passive when they are action

verbs

Then one of the most difficult areas is the correct use of the agented and agentless forms The problem of the overuse of the agent is exacerbated by course books which typically only show passive constructions with the agent present Thus, students only recognize the form when the by + agent is presented and therefore only uses passive constructions with that form, thereby creating inappropriate, uncomfortable or

unnecessary sentences such as:

I was told you were leaving us for another job by John (possibly

uncomfortable)

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