Part 2: Verbs
Active and Passive Voice
Examples
Dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is news. [active voice]
Man is bitten by dog; dog is bitten by man. [passive voice]
Definition
Many English verbs, especially action verbs, can be written in the active voice or the passive voice. In the active voice, the subject of the verb is also its Agent: the participant that does the verb. In the passive voice, the Agent is moved out of the subject position, and the subject is the Goal (the patient in traditional grammar, the participant that the verb acts upon) or less often the Recipient (the participants that receives the action of the verb). This is all much easier to demonstrate than to explain:
|
Subject |
Verb |
Direct Object |
Indirect Objects or Circumstances |
|
Friar Lawrence Agent |
gives active voice |
the poison Goal |
to Romeo. Recipient |
|
The poison Goal |
is given passive voice |
XXX |
to Romeo (Recipient) (by Friar Lawrence). optional Agent |
|
Juliet Recipient |
is given passive voice |
the poison Goal |
(by Friar Lawrence). optional Agent |
Notice that:
The functions of the words (Agent, Goal, Recipient) don’t change in the transformation from active to passive voice because the literal meaning of the sentences does not change (SFL calls this the experiential meaning).
The Agent is optional in the passive voice; it moves to the by phrase and is usually omitted.
The form of the verb changes from gives (action) to is given (passive) – that is, be plus the past participle (-en/-ed form) of the main verb.
Each sentence has a different subject (Friar Lawrence, the poison, Juliet), which has a different effect; this especially affects the cohesion, or flow, of the text (SFL calls this the textual meaning).
Here’s an easy way to identify the passive voice: if you can add by zombies* to the verb, then it’s passive; otherwise, it’s active:
A battle was fought (by zombies, so passive!).
The class ended (not *by zombies, so active!).
*OK, you can use by anything, but zombies are much more memorable.
Form
The passive is formed using the auxiliary verb be in any tense + the past participle of the main verb. Recall that the past participle is the -ed form of regular verbs, and often the -en form of irregular verbs. In practice, the passive is only commonly found in a small number of tenses and forms as shown in this table:
|
Form |
Active |
Passive (be + past participle) |
|
Present simple |
The prologue introduces the families. |
The families are introduced (in the prologue). |
|
Present perfect |
Romeo has killed Tybalt! |
Tybalt has been killed (by Romeo)! |
|
Past simple |
The Capulets held a dance. |
A dance was held (by the Capulets). |
|
No-one can find Romeo. |
Romeo cannot be found. |
|
|
to- infinitive |
Friar Lawrence is ready to marry the couple. |
The couple are ready to be married. |
So, when you are dealing with a passive verb (it has passed the by zombies test), to figure out the tense you have to isolate the form of be and ask what tense it is. The verb be is highlighted in the table above. The passive voice will always end with a past participle (introduced, killed, held, found, married): this does not necessarily mean the verb is in a past tense! Always look at the form of be to determine the tense.
Careful!
Intransitive verbs have no passive form (they don’t have a Goal or Recipient that can become the subject of a passive verb). For example, we cannot say:
*bad things are happened
*crime has been existed
*the plane was arrived
There are other types of passive, which you can read about in these links: the “impersonal” passives; passive with get; stative passives (X is located in …).
Certain intransitive verbs (technically known as ergative or non-accusative verbs) are sometimes confused with passive voice, but they’re not actually passive. SFL calls this the middle voice – e.g. the fire killed five people (active); five people died (middle); five people were killed (passive). When the verb is in the active voice, we have a pretty good idea who did what to whom. When the verb is in the passive voice we know something was done, but we don’t always know by whom. When the verb is intransitive (ergative), we only know that something happened: the price changed; the Titanic sank; interest rates have risen.
Functions
Has anyone ever told you to avoid the passive voice? That’s not necessarily good advice. In reality, English users mix both active and passive voices in many types of text. You can find examples of passive voice on this page and on the pages of virtually any book or website that warns you against its use! However, it is unusual to find a text that is dominated by the passive voice because readers and listeners eventually get frustrated waiting to hear who did these things.
As a teacher, you need to understand the difference between active and passive voice because:
- passive voice is often misidentified and incorrectly criticized
- the difference between a clause in the active and passive voice can have a huge impact on its interpretation and effectiveness
- passive voice is a common source of confusion for MLLs
Some common functions of the passive are:
- to improve cohesion in a text
- to focus a sentence on the Goal or Recipient of a verb and to de-emphasize the Agent
- to remove an unnecessary, unknown, or vague Agent (e.g., someone, people, students, no-one, etc.)
- to adopt an impersonal tone, which is important in some texts that Explain, Inform, or Argue.
