Passive Voice for ESL Learners

Dear readers,

In this post I wish to discuss passive voice from a different perspective Every sentence must have a point of focus . The speaker's or writer's attention or interest is held by a particular element in the clause , and this may be called point of focus. For example, in the sentence

Shakespeare was born at Stratford

the focus could be on any element , depending on the context . If the sentence was answer to the question"Who was born at Stratford?'the focus would be on Shakespeare .Generally speaking, the focus of a normal English sentence is on the last lexical item It carries new information This is known as the Principle of End-Focus. End-Focus is signalled by tonic accent .The last lexical item carries end-focus unless it has to be brought forward by the requirement of the context


Passive Voice & the Principle of End -Focus

In passive construction the clause elements are manipulated in such a way that the active subject receives end-focus .The motivation of the writer who prefers the passive alternative is to confer focus on the active subject by bringing it to the end of the sentence where it can receive end-focus . Look at these sentences

Tom fed the kittens

If Tom is to be given focus ,the writer can use the passive construction

The kittens were fed by Tom

This gives us another perspective on passive voice. It is a syntactic device to give focus on the active subject by bringing it to the end of the sentence where it can receive end-focus .However, in conversational English tonic accent can achieve the same effect in a much more economical way!

ESL Learners are generally not aware of this aspect of passive voice . They look upon passive construction as an interchange of the positions of the subject and the object. They do not see it in relation to focus

I will continue the discussion in my next post

Thank you