Grammar in academic texts (2)
Daniel Gerrard
daniel.gerrard@cjv.muni.cz
Homework: noun phrases
The passive voice
Passive Pub Quiz (1)
1) In which register is the passive most common?
a) Academic writing
b) Conversation
c) Fiction
d) News
2) In RPs* from which discipline is the passive most common?
a) Biological sciences
b) Physical sciences
c) Social sciences *RP = research paper
Passive Pub Quiz (2)
3) In which section of a RP is the passive most common?
a) Introduction
b) Discussion
c) Methods
d) Results
Passive = 25% of
all finite verbs in
academic writing
(Biber et al., 1999)
2%
(Štěpánek, 2018)
Rewrite the sentences with the verbs in bold in the
passive.
a) We should reject this conclusion for two reasons.
b) We would never have published this book without
additional financial support from the Nansen Institute.
c) Experts presented and discussed a total of ten
innovative papers during the two-day workshop sessions.
d) To preserve originality of thinking, we have kept editing
of all chapters to a minimum.
(Štěpánek, 2018)
(Swan and Walter, 1997)
(Swan and Walter, 1997)
Frequent passive verbs in academic writing
made, given, done, taken, used, found, seen, called, concerned, said,
expected, put, told, known, set, left, held, asked, brought, prepared,
based, described, determined, involved, needed, considered, shown,
paid, forced, sent, drawn, kept, lost, reported, thought, treated,
understood, carried, required; achieved, associated, defined,
expressed, measured, obtained, performed, related; applied,
calculated, chosen, compared, derived, designed, developed,
discussed, examined, explained, formed, identified, illustrated,
introduced, limited, noted, observed, presented, recognised,
regarded, replaced, represented, studied, suggested
(Biber et al., 1999)
Verbs that occur mostly in passive voice
+90%: aligned (with), based (on), born, coupled (with), deemed,
effected, entitled (to), flattened, inclined, obliged, positioned,
situated, stained, subjected (to)
+70%: approved, associated (with), attributed (to), classified (as),
composed (of), confined (to), designed, diagnosed (as), distributed,
documented, estimated, extracted, grouped (with), intended,
labelled, linked (to/with), located (at/in), plotted, recruited, stored,
transferred, viewed
(Biber et al., 1999)