J. Thomson and V. Martinet 1986: 304, there are some of uses of
position. The subject is acted upon and is thus “passive”. Indeed, Shibitani 1985 has shown that the passive “defocuses” the agent.
20
There are some situations that can be used a passive voice rather than an active;
21
- When the agent is not known, „people in general‟, is unimportant, or is
obvious. Using a passive allows us to omit the agent by leaving out the prepositional phrase with by.
- In factual writing, particularly in describing procedures or processes,
we often wish to omit the agent, and use passives. -
In spoken English, we often use a subject such as people, somebody, they, you, or we even when we do not know who the agent is. In
informal English, particularly writing, we often prefer to use a passive. -
In English, we usually prefer to put old information at the beginning of a sentence and new information at the end.
- It is often more natural to put agents subjects which consist of long
expressions at the end of a sentence.
The English passive can be used to report adversity as well; the passive in English has a wider distribution than in many other languages. Nevertheless,
the passive is the marked voice; English speaker normally select the agent as subject and use the active voice.
A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet 1986: 304, there are some of uses of
passive voice;
22
- When the actor is not clear:
The rubbish has not been collected Your hand will be X-rayed
20
Marriane Celce-Murcia, The Grammar Book, An ESLEFL Teachers Course, 2
nd
ed., New York: Heinle and Heinle Publishers, 1999, p. 347
21
Martin Hewings, Advanced Grammar in Use: A self-study reference and practice book for advanced learners of English, Jakarta: Erlangga, 2001, p. 60
22
A. J Thomson and A. V Martinet, A Practical English Grammar 4
th
Edition, London: Oxford Unversity Press, p. 304
The streets are swept everyday
- When the actor is not known:
The minister was murdered You’ll be met at the station
- When „people‟ is the object of the active verb:
He is suspected of receiving stolen goods. People suspect him of ....
-
When the subject of the active sentence is pronoun one: One sees this sort of advertisement everywhere would usually be expressed:
This sort of advertisement is seen everywhere. In colloquial speech, we can use the indefinite pronoun you and an
active verb:
You see this sort of advertisement everywhere. But more formal English requires one + active verb or the more usual
passive form. -
When the doer of action is not interesting:
The house next door has been bought by a Mr. Jones.
If, however, we know Mr. Jones, we would use the active:
Your father’s friend, Mr. Jones, has bought the house next door.
- The passive may be used for an ungrammatical sentence. This is
usually done by avoiding a change of subject: When he arrived home a detective arrested him.
Would be better expressed:
When we arrived home he was arrested by a detective.
-
The passive is sometimes use for psychological reasons.
A speaker may use it to disclaim responsibility for disagreeable announcements:
EMPLOYER: Overtime rates are being reducedwill have to be reduced.
The active will, of course, be used for agreeable announcements:
I am We are going to increase overtime rates.
-
For the have + object + past participle construction, I had the car re- sprayed.
There are three specifics time when we want to defocus the agent;
23
- The passive is used when the agent is not to be mentioned because of it
is redundant or easy to supply, it is unknown, very general, the speaker or writer is being tactful, and the speaker is being evasive.
- The passive is used when the non-agent is more closely related than
the agent is to the theme of the text. -
The passive is used when the non-agent is a participant in the immediately preceding sentence.