英文中主动与被动语态的使用辨析

1、英文中主动与被动语态的使用辨析Active and Passive Voice:Whe n you are active, you do somethi ng. Whe n you arepassive, thi ngs happe n to you. This is the same con cept as the active and passive voice in senten ces. In the active voice, the subject performs the action described by the main verb. In the passive voic

2、e, the action described by the main verb is done to the subject.Example 1a, active voice:The service team collected the parts.(subject: service team ; main verb: collected )Example 1b, passive voice: The parts were collected by the service team.(subject: parts; main verb: collected )In example 1a, t

3、he subject did the acti on, so the sentence is active. In example 1b, the action was done to the subject, so the sentence is passive. To determine whether your sentence is active or passive, first find the subject and the main verb. Then ask, Is the subject doing the verb? If the an swer is Yes, the

4、 n the sentence is active. If the an swer is No, the sentence is passive. If we describe this con cept as a formula, we get this:S V = active voice (the subject does the acti on)V S = passive voice (the action is done to the subject)Grammatically, the active voice looks like this:Subject - Verb - Ob

5、ject (i.e., Who did what to whom?).On the other hand, the passive voice uses the object as the subject of the verb, result ing inSubject/Object - Verb (i.e., To whom was it done? ).By using the object as the grammatical subject, a passive voice sentence makes the information convoluted and complex,

6、and the reader will be less likely to respond to it. Additi on ally, the meanin gful subject will n ever be the grammatical subject in the passive voice, which means the reader wont focus on the pers on or thi ng doing the actio n.Defin iti ons:Main action: The main action described by the sentence,

7、 what the sentence is about. Meanin gful subject: The pers on or thi ng doing the main acti on.Grammatical subject: The word in the subject positi on in the sentence.In n early every sentence, the active voice results in more direct writ ing. However, the passive voice has a purpose, too. Next, well

8、 look at the reas ons for each voice.Reas ons for active voice:The main reas on for using the active voice is that itdirectly answers the readers question, Who did what to whom? It provides that information and in that order. As a result, the reader can more easily understand and remember the idea y

9、ou wish to com muni cate.Other reas ons in clude the follow ing:1. The active voice is more likely to use the meaningful subject as the grammatical subject and the meanin gful acti on as the main verb.2. Senten ces in the active voice are more en gagi ng because somethi ng is perform ing an actio n.

10、3. Active voice senten ces are gen erally more con cise.4. The active voice emphasizes active verbs.In brief, the active voice follows the pr in ciples of direct writi ng.Reas ons for passive voice:The passive voice may be appropriate for two reas ons:1. To de-emphasize the pers on or thi ng doing t

11、he action, and2. To shorte n the grammatical subject.First, the main reason for using the passive voice is to hide or de-emphasize the meanin gful subject (the pers on or thi ng that did the main acti on described by the senten ce). I nstead, the passive voice emphasizes the pers on or thi ng on whi

12、ch the action was performed, as see n in 2a and 2b.Example 2a, passive, emphasizes the material : The material was first developed in the laboratory by researchers from Oslo.Example 2.b, active, emphasizes researchers : Researchers from Oslo first developed the material in a laboratory.In both examp

13、le 2a and example 2b, the main action is developed ,making researchers the meaningful subject. Whereas the active voice sentence in 2b uses the meanin gful subject as the grammatical subject, the passive voice sentence in 2a does not. If the writer wishes to focus on the material, and if the researc

14、hers are not importa nt (or not at this point in the docume nt), the writer might prefer the passive voice.Scientific writing, regardless of the field, does not require the passive voice. This also applies to dissertation writing. The active voice is perfectly appropriate for describing the research

15、 methodology. The purpose of the research methodology is to describe what the researchers did to collect and an alyze the data. Thus, the researchers are correct to use the active voice whe n describ ing their actions. In stead of writ ingThe data were collected from six species of house sparrows,Th

16、e researcher can writeWe collected data from six species of house sparrows.However, in many cases, the writer can revise the sentence to use the active voice without men ti oning the researchers, as see n here:Six species of house sparrows provided the in itial data for an alysis.Second, the sec ond

17、 reas on for using the passive voice is to simplify and shorte n the subject of the sentence so that the main verb is closer to the begi nning of the sentence and easier to find, as see n below.Example 3a, active voice sentence:The decisi on whether to solicit for and hire anew pers onnel man ager o

18、r to outsource those functions to an exter nal age ncy con sumed valuable work time. (subject: 21 words)Example 3b, passive voice sentence:Valuable work time was con sumed by thedecision whether to solicit for and hire a new personnel manager or to outsource those fun cti ons to an exter nal age ncy. (subject: 3 words)If we remove all the descriptive words from example 3a, it reads, The decisi oncon sumed time. Example 3a uses the meanin gful subject ( The decisi