Passive voice in English: defending a misunderstood grammatical construction

¶ … awkward statements or sentences are not awkward just because of the utilization of passives but because they are clumsy, pretentious or wordy.

Generally, languages have a broad range of instruments for impersonalisation, topicalisation, and detransitivisation. Passivisation is one of the instruments (Givon, 1981). Passives play significant roles in the English language and recommendations to not using them signify not fully comprehending these crucial roles. Much of the issues surrounding the opposition to the use of passives from teachers, editors and writers is nothing more than folklore that has not clearly investigated various reading and writing problems. Many so-called awkward statements or sentences are not awkward just because of the utilization of passives but because of other reasons; sentences that use them are clumsy, pretentious, or wordy. Most criticisms against the use of passives are not founded on linguistic theory and most of the time such criticisms assume the crucial role played by passives in communication. A couple of uses of passives are not appropriate, being ambiguous, vague, or in some cases downright deceitful (Allan, 2009). These uses of passives result in a bad name for the construction or voice. Such uses have become the weapon used by prescriptive grammarians in their fight against complete use of passive voice. I cautiously suggest that there is very little likelihood for there to be a cost to the processing of passives. This is because due to the high speed at which the mind processes clauses, any variations in readability must then be miniscule. Thus, I suggest that variations are not important when compared to the benefits or advantages that suitably used passives bring about to readability. Moreover, properly used passives may indeed enhance readability particularly when the interest for the passive subject is more than that for the active subject and when passives function to link sentences and clauses (Allan, 2009).

Body

Definitions of passives often assume an agreement with the constituents of the sentence that they rest on. The passive construction is at times viewed as an operation that rearranges the sequence of core arguments. According to authors Keenan and Timberlake (1987) passivisation is a rule that decreases valency, signifying the key role played by valency in voice, while, Perlmutter and Postal (1974) suggest that passive voice is a tool from moving noun phrases around the subject position (Allan, 2009)

Wordy: Wordy sentences are those that utilize too many words of no use that in the end only serve to clutter writing. Good and effective writing is direct and uncomplicated; it utilizes the simplest possible word that communicates the same meaning. Wordiness hinders clarity (Wordiness, n.d.). Author Rhodes (1997, p. 89) argues against the description of passives as wordy. In her work she refers to Warren (1981) who examined sixty four style guides and reported that nineteen of them described the passive voice as wordy (Allan, 2009). Rhodes opposes the argument taken by these nineteen style guides and backs her opposing argument with an active-passive sentence construction:

(4) a. We analyzed the samples.

b. The samples were analyzed.

I disagree with Rhodes, in that she chooses a curtailed passive example (b). An exact equivalence of meaning of passive and active sentences would involve the introduction of more words in the former version either a preposition or an auxiliary (Allan, 2009). Therefore, I agree passives are wordy.

Awkward: Awkward sentences are those that you know there is something wrong in the sentence but you can really tell what it is. Awkward sentences are often those that are wordy. Author Walpole (1979) is however against this idea. His argument against the fact that additionally words are often used in complete passives resulting in awkward sentences does not justify the utilization of passives. Passives do make a minimal contribution to awkwardness and wordiness, or no contribution when they act to delete the agent. Actually a wordy agent makes worse offender (Allan, 2009), as author Williams (1994) illustrates:

(6) a. Once this design was created for our project, it was fast applied to others.

b. Once those who worked on the design developed it for our project, others could quickly apply it to theirs.

Removing the agent as in the passive (6a) makes for a more sensible statement (Allan, 2009).

Unclear: Being unclear suggests that the sentence is confusing due to contradicting information or poor utilization of language (English Language and Useage, 2012).Complicated language that confuses entails numerous concepts such as jargon, nominalizations, double negatives, embedded clauses and vagueness. According to author Allan (2009) inappropriate use of passive voice does contribute to vagueness, however there is no intrinsic relationship between the elements of complicated language and passives and I agree with his sentiments.

"Offenders will be prosecuted to the upper limits of the law."

This passive construction clearly illustrates who the true character is and the person who will do the prosecution (Bad Passive Voice, n.d.).

Weak: "weak" is not being effective and as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary (n.d.) it is the act of failing to produce the desired result. The issue is about people using the term "passive" on every piece of writing that they do not care for. They see a phrase that is devoid of some sort of "brightness" or strength that they can't really figure out and they call it "passive" (Pullum, 2014).