Transcript Passive Voice Presentationx

Form
Phrase Structure: pass  be . . . –en
Long Passive: the agent is expressed in
the by-phrase
Short Passive: the agent is unexpressed
The Passive with Tense and Aspect
Simple present passive: The dog is bathed outside.
With Modals:
The dog should be bathed outside.
With Present Progressive:
The dog is being bathed outside.
With Present Perfect:
The dog has been bathed outside.
With Simple Past:
The dog was bathed outside.
With Past Progressive:
The dog was being bathed outside.
With be going to for future: The dog is going to be bathed
outside.
Be versus Get
1. Be and get don’t function the same in questions:
Was Henry arrested?
Did Henry get arrested?
and negatives:
Henry wasn’t arrested. Henry didn’t get arrested.
We must include operator addition when using GET
in questions and negatives.
2. Get-passive can occur more readily with the
perfect progressives:
His plans have been getting sidetracked for years. Vs.
His plans have been being sidetracked for years.
Have
Have . . . NP . . . –en.  Note the different form due
to the intervening noun phrase.
Mark had his appointment cancelled.
This sentence can have two meanings:
Passive (Experiential): Someone else cancelled the
appointment; it was beyond Mark’s control.
Causative: Mark arranged for his meeting to be
cancelled.
Passive Only
What’s the difference between transitive and
intransitive verbs?
Transitive: Take an object Intransitive: Don’t take an object
Only transitive verbs may be in the passive voice.
Some passive sentences have no active voice counterpart:
President Obama was born in 1961.
? His mother bore President Obama in 1961.
Other verbs that occur commonly in the passive voice include but are
not limited to:
be deemed, be fined, be hospitalized, be jailed, be scheduled, etc.
Headlines:
Death row inmate is deemed mentally ill.
Extra police scheduled for occupied Tucson.
Dad is jailed for putting son in oven.
Meaning
The passive has a grammatical meaning: it focuses on putting the receiver of the
action in the subject position and the subject is thus acted upon. As Shibitani (1985)
states, the agent is “defocused”.
The passive requires a transitive verb; however, not every passive sentence with a
transitive verb is acceptable.
1. The more definite the subject, the better
A. This car was made by Toyota.
B. Cars were made by Toyota.
2. With stative verbs, the more indefinite the object in the by-phrase, the better
A. Adele’s song, Rolling in the Deep has been heard by everyone who listens to
the radio.
B. Adele’s song, Rolling in the Deep has been heard by Mary.
3. The more the verb denotes a physical action, the better
A. The boy was given an award by the principal.
B. The award was desired by the boy.
Meaning difference between
Active and Passive
Everyone in the room speaks two languages. vs. Two
languages are spoken by everyone in the room.
Few people read many books. Vs. Many books are
read by few people.
Moles dig tunnels. Vs. Tunnels are dug by moles.
Be versus Get
Get-passive, like Japanese passive, tends to be used adversely.
Get slapped, hit, whacked, trapped, snatched, punished, etc.
Get-passive tends to be used with verbs semantically related to:
Physical assault – get hit
Hindrance – get trapped
Transference – get snatched
Emotional or Mental strain – get punished
Get has lack of expressed agent and cannot replace be-passives with
non-dynamic verbs.
This bed had not been slept in. vs. This bed had not got slept in.
Get is usually associated with verbs that emphasize actions or
processes and are more likely to occur with adverbs of frequency.
The man continually got wiped out.
Middle Voice
1. The middle voice allows the subject of a sentence to be
the recipient of the action, but the morphology of the
verb to be in the active voice.
A. Her high C shattered the glass. (active voice)
B. The glass was shattered by her high C. (passive voice)
C. The glass shattered. (middle voice)
2. English allows a representation of processes in terms of
actions (active or passive voice) and happenings (middle
voice).
3. English uses ergative, or change-of-state verbs
(shatter) to express spontaneous occurrences.
Ergative verbs can occur in the passive, active, or
middle voice.
Use (1/4)
The function of the passive is to defocus the agent.
The passive is most frequently used when it is not known or
not important to know exactly who performs an action.
Rice is grown in India.
Our house was built in 1980.
This olive oil was imported from Crete.
Sometimes, we use the passive with the agent because we
want to focus attention on the subject of the sentence.
This rug was made by my aunt.
That rug was made by my mother.
The focus of attention is on two rugs.
Use (2/4)
The passive is used when the agent is not to be
mentioned because:
• It is redundant or easy to supply –
Over 2,000 different varieties of potato are grown in Peru.
• It is unknown –
Julie’s car was stolen yesterday.
• The speaker/writer is being tactful –
Apparently, we were given the wrong information.
• The speaker is being evasive –
A huge error was made on the report, so our group
received a poor letter grade.
Use (3/4)
The passive is used when the nonagent
(recipient of the action) is:
- more closely related than the agent to the theme of the text
e.g. scientific writing
- a participant in the immediately preceding sentence
Lorenzo arrived in Paris as a down-at-heel political refugee
without friends or money; luckily for him, France at that
time was ruled by an Italian . . .
** The passive is used more in some genres than others.
Passives are more frequent with scientific or journalistic
writing than it is with fictional and conversational English.
Use (4/4)
Include the agent when:
It is new information –
Sam’s house was robbed by the man who escaped
from prison.
It is nonhuman –
The pool is cleaned throughout the day by the vacuum.
It is a well-known personage and should be included as
propositional information –
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written by
Mark Twain.
Activity
With a partner, discuss why the agent is or is
not included in the following sentences.
• My shoes were made in Italy.
• The Mona Lisa was painted by de Vinci.
• While Marty was walking down the street, her
purse was snatched by a young man.
• The bank was robbed yesterday.
• Margaret was given some bad advice about
selecting courses.
Common Difficulties
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK
UNYp_Bc0g
1. When to use the passive voice
2. Adjective vs. Passive
3. Middle Voice
When to use the Passive Voice
(1/2)
A. Most languages in the world use different
voices to put different constitutes in
initial position.
In the Bantu languages, the passive voices
are used if the agent is inanimate and the
receiver is animate.
e.g.) The election bothered Nancy.
Nancy was bothered by the election. (o)
When to use the Passive Voice
(1/2)
B. The subject is negatively affected by the
action portrayed in the verb(Adversative
passive voice).
Japanese students may puzzle over when
to use the passive voice in English.
e.g.) John
ga
ame ni fur-are-ta.
John (topic marker) rain by fall.
John was fallen by rain.
Adjective vs. Passives (1/2)
• A past participle can function as a passive verb
and adjective in a sentence.
• How to distinguish the passive participle from
the adjective at a sentence-level?
The use of by with a noun phrase to mark an
gent in the passive voice.
e.g.) The beans were refried by someone (passive)
(adjective)
Adjective vs. Passives (2/2)
Not all adjectival and passive participle pairs
are pronounced the same.
The suspect was alleged to have taken the
money. /əlédƷd/
The alleged thief…
/əlédƷid/
Middle Voice (1/3)
• English allows a representation of processes in
terms of actions and happening. In other words,
English uses active, passive, and middle
voices in order to express processes.
• English uses ergative, or change-of-state
verbs to express spontaneous occurrences.
Middle Voice (2/3)
Ergative verbs( meaning change-of-state)
Cooking
Physical movement
Involving Vehicles
Etc.
Bake, boil, cook,
defrost, fry, roast,
thicken, etc.
Move, rock, shake,
spin, swing, turn,
etc.
Drive, fly, park,
reverse, run, sail,
etc.
Shatter, age, begin,
bend, break, burst,
change, close, cool,
condense,
decrease, develop,
etc.
-I’m baking a cake.
-The cake is baking.
-They cake is being
baked by her
friends.
-The boy spun the
top.
-The top spun.
-The top was spun
by the boy.
-She drove the car.
-The car drives well.
-The car was driven
all the way to
Tallahassee.
-Someone broke
the window.
-The window was
broken.
-The window broke.
Middle Voice (3/3)
The middle voice can also be expressed by
intransitive verbs that take the focus of the
process as subjects. However, they do not
occur in the passive voice since intransitive
verbs have no transitive counterparts.
Intransitive Verbs
Occurrence
Inherently Directed
Motion
Description
Happen, occur, take place
Arrive, fall, rise, emerge,
go
Appear, disappear, vanish
The incident occurred
before anyone knew what
was happening.
The dough rose.
The trail disappear into
the woods.
Difficulties related to
Middle Voice (1/3)
A. When the “change-of-state” sentences are preferred to passive
sentences?
1)
When the focus is on the change of state and the agent is irrelevant.
The bank closes at 5. p.m.
2) When the writer’s or speaker’s objective is to create an aura of
mystery of suspense. That is, when things seem to be happening
without the intervention of an agent.
We were sitting quietly after dinner, when suddenly the door opened.
3) When the subject is something so fragile or unstable that it can
break, change, dissolve, and so on without any apparent intervention
on the part of any agent.
Left hanging on the fence, the red balloon suddenly burst.
Difficulties related to
Middle Voice (2/3)
4) When it is natural to expect to occur (based on
physical, social, or psychological laws).
The ice on the pond melted earlier than usual.
5) When there are so many possible causes for a
change of state that it would be misleading to
imply a single agent.
Prices increased due to a variety factors.
Difficulties related to
Middle Voice (3/3)
B. Which verbs are ergative?
Many of the old buildings in the center of town have
recently demolished. (X)
C. Intransitive verbs cannot occur in the passive voice.
The accident was happened last night.
D. Wrong instruction: Some Chinese students have been
taught that sentences with grammatical subjects that are
not the agent require the passive in English. Students
will need to learn about the middle voice.
Demonstration #1
Intermediate ESL Students
Overboard (1987)
Confrontation between Joanna and Dean
Demonstration #2
Intermediate ESL Students
The City of Placentia –
Then and Now
What has been changed?
Then
Now
[Adapted from (Pearse, 1981)]
What has been changed?
Then
Now
[Adapted from (Pearse, 1981)]
What has been changed?
Then
Now
[Adapted from (Pearse, 1981)]
What has been changed?
Then
Now
[Adapted from (Pearse, 1981)]
Suggested Activities
1) Presentation Phase for Low Intermediate Students
Discuss and elicit various jobs that are done at a hotel.
“Are/Is the … every day?” “Yes, the … is/are … everyday.”
a.
b.
c.
d.
make beds
clean rooms
check reservations
serve dinner
e. prepare breakfast
f. serve drinks
g. wash dishes
h. prepare bills
2) Practice Phase for Intermediate Students
Give students a list of well-known products and have them discuss where they
are made/produced/created/sold/etc. This is great introductory activity
because the agent is less important or unnecessary in these sentences. This can
also be used to teach the past passive. (e.g. "Where are Nike shoes made?"
"Where is vodka produced?" “Where was Facebook invented?”) [Adapted
from http://www.inlingua.com.ve/ ]
vodka, Guinness, tequila, sake, BMW cars, Honda cars, your t-shirt, baklava,
french fries, shish kababs, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.
Suggested Activities
3) Practice Phase for Intermediate Students
Who discovered/wrote/invented/directed/etc. these things? (You may want to
create a third column with verb choices to help match the items.)
Put students into groups and have them discuss each of the items below and
match them with the inventor/director/writer/etc.
(e.g. “Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Flemming.”)
[Adapted from http://www.inlingua.com.ve/ ]
1. Penicilin
a. Tchaikovsky
2. Mona Lisa
b. Alexander Fleming
3. Jurassic Park
c. The Beatles
4. Swan Lake
d. Vincent Van Gogh
5. Romeo and Juliet
e. Leonardo da Vinci
6. Telephone
f. Christopher Columbus
7. Yesterday
g. Charles Dickens
8. North America
h. Steven Spielberg
9. Oliver Twist
i. William Shakespeare
10. Sunflowers
j. Alexander Graham Bell
Suggested Activities
4) Production Phase for High-Intermediate/Advanced Students
Show students a few pages of the newspaper. Show them that not only is the
passive voice used in the headlines, but throughout the stories as well because
the event itself is commonly more important than the actors. Then, have
students break into pairs or small groups and invent a crime or a story that
might appear in a newspaper. When they come up with the main details, they
can write the article or do a newscast of what happened.
5) Production Phase for High Intermediate Students
Discuss your childhood: (Although these questions are written in the passive voice
[implying that maybe your parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/etc. could have done
these things], students can answer in various forms. e.g. “My dad let me stay up late, but
my mom sent me to bed early.”) [Adapted from http://www.inlingua.com.ve/ ]
•Were you allowed to watch TV in bed?
•Were you sent to bed early?
•Were you allowed to eat sweets before meals?
•Were you given an allowance?
•Were you allowed to choose your own clothes?
•Were you told to do your homework before
watching TV?
•Were you allowed to play in the streets with your
friends?
•Were you asked to help clean the house or cook?
Suggested Activities
6) Practice Phase for Intermediate Students
Have students compare what jobs are usually done in their countries by men
and women. Students fill out the worksheet individually. Then they must find
someone in the room from a different country, compare answers, and report
back to the class. (e.g. "Small children are usually taught by women.” “Houses
are usually built by men.")
[Adapted from http://www.inlingua.com.ve/ ]
Jobs
Teaching small children
Building houses
Driving buses
Cutting women’s hair
Cutting men’s hair
Driving taxis
Designing clothes
Cleaning office buildings
Selling cars
Repairing cars
Working as a nurse
Men
Women
Both