Case and Voice properties of complex event nominalizations: A Voice-bundling approach

Expert guidelines recommend using active over passive voice to improve clarity in English academic writing. However, few systematic reviews synthesize research on reader outcomes from texts written in the passive versus active voice. This paper reviewed experimental studies comparing the effects of active and passive voice on reader comprehension in English academic writing. Methods: Following Prisma guidelines, database searches identified quantitative studies manipulating voice in academic texts and measuring differential impacts on reader understanding. 9 eligible studies were analyzed narratively. Results: Studies consistently demonstrated reduced readability, slower processing, and lower comprehension scores for passive versus active voice texts across reader groups and disciplines. On coherence ratings, grammatical errors, and comprehension questions, passive voice performed significantly worse. Conclusions: Strong evidence confirms active voice improves reader comprehension over passive in academic writing. However, strategic passive usage may still benefit writing on a situational basis. More research is needed on providing effective instruction to EFL students on selectively deploying active/passive principles. Originality: This systematic review is the first to synthesize major studies comparing active and passive voice impacts on reader outcomes in academic writing. The consistent experimental results provide an empirical basis for style guidelines favoring active voice for clarity.

Background: Expert guidelines recommend using active over passive voice to improve clarity in Englishacademic writing. However, few systematic reviews synthesize research on reader outcomes from texts writtenin the passive versus active voice. This paper reviewed experimental studies comparing the effects of active andpassive voice on reader comprehension in English academic writing. Methods: Following PRISMA guidelines,database searches identified quantitative studies manipulating voice in academic texts and measuringdifferential impacts on reader understanding. 9 eligible studies were analyzed narratively. Results: Studiesconsistently demonstrated reduced readability, slower processing, and lower comprehension scores for passiveversus active voice texts across reader groups and disciplines.On coherence ratings, grammatical errors, and comprehension questions, passive voice performed significantlyworse.Conclusions: Strong evidence confirms active voice improves reader comprehension over passive in academicwriting. However, strategic passive usage may still benefit writing on a situational basis. More research isneeded on providing effective instruction to EFL students on selectively deploying active/passive principles.Originality: This systematic review is the first to synthesize major studies comparing active and passive voiceimpacts on reader outcomes in academic writing. The consistent experimental results provide an empirical basisfor style guidelines favoring active voice for clarity.

In this paper, I investigate the properties of Romanian complex event nominals (CENs, after Grimshaw 1990) with respect to the realization of the external argument. The goal of such an attempt is two-fold. On the one hand, in view of the claim in Grimshaw that the process of nominalization is similar to that of passivization – to the extent that both suppress the external argument – a comparison between the verbal and the nominal domain will provide us with a better understanding of the conditions under which external argument PPs are licensed. On the other hand, on the assumption that external arguments are licensed by a Voice projection (Kratzer 1994), we can establish whether CENs in Romanian do project Voice. From the behavior of the infinitive and that of the supine, the two most productive CENs in Romanian, I conclude that the latter obligatorily projects a VoiceP, which licenses the external argument PP. The behavior of the former is ambiguous, so the licensing conditions for the external argument PP are dependent on the nature of the verbal root within the nominalization.

In the translation between English and Chinese, there are significant differences in sentence structure, grammatical features, rhetorical devices, expression methods, ways of thinking, and social and cultural factors between the two languages, which increase the difficulty of translation. Especially in English-Chinese translation, the similarities and differences in the usage of active and passive voice can easily lead to translation errors. In English, the passive voice is more regarded as a common grammatical phenomenon, while in Chinese, the active expression of passive meaning is more dominant. Taking Howard Goldblatt's translation of Rickshaw Boy as an example, through the analysis of the passive and active voice in English and Chinese languages with different structures, we can learn more about the similarities and differences between the two languages in order to improve the quality of translation.

The active voice helps the subject perform the action (in the above example, the urological specialist performs cystoscopy). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb rather than performing the action of the verb. Passive voice is common in scientific writing because authors in this discipline like to put more emphasis on facts (the research) than on subjects (who does the research). In passive voice, the subject, verb, and object are often placed away from each other, or in reverse order. Passive voice is fully acceptable, and often used in methods sections, but like many things in life, it is poisonous when it is done too much. No one is expected to write manuscripts entirely in active or passive voice, but the regular use of active voice improves readability of your manuscripts. You can often recognize passive voice sentences from: was xxx-ed; will be; have been; had been; and by. Once you suspect a passive voice sentence, check to see if your subject is performing the action. If not, you most likely have a passive voice sentence that could be better worded in the active voice. Allow your subjects to perform actions if it is appropriate, but do not force it when it is inappropriate. It can take time to train your recognition and editing of active and passive voice. A few reading suggestions at the end of this paper provide additional coverage of the topic.

As many international scholars and editors currently advocated to use more active voice and less passive voice, this new trend aroused many Chinese reaearchers to conduct a comparative study on voice distribution in English abstracts between Chinese and foreign countries. To explore the voice distribution in English abstracts in Chinese and foreign power papers, we randomly sampled 200 English abstracts respectively from international and domestic power papers and analyzed the voice distribution in the abstracts. The results show that Chinese writers and translators tend to use more passive voice than foreign writers, especially in English-speaking countries, while the latter more frequently use active voice in their writings. To futher this study, the following gives a detailed explaination of the reasons of the results. summary, to better exchange mutual latest achievements in power industry, it is crucial to keep pace with international new trend, obey international common practice, particularly the rules in English abstracts writing. Index Terms - power papers, English abstract, voice distribution, active voice, passive voice 1. Introduction Abstract is an indispensable part of a paper, which even can decide the paper whether can be included. In the process of including scientific papers by international retrieval systems, the English abatract is regarded as a key to success. For instance, EI Compendex including papers is decided by English abstract and keywords(1). This shows how important the abstract is. Meanwhile, as a key industry in China, the development and research of power have to keep track of international new trend, and its English abstract is a crucial hub for communication between domestic and abroad. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the English abstract of power papers. Divided into active and passive voice, the proper use of voice is one of the key factors in the writing of papers. The famaous linguist Quark pointed out that the frequency of using passive voice in English science and technology is ten times higher than that of active voice(2). The passive voice is regarded as one of the characteristics of scientific papers. However, with the constant changes of language, the era of passive voice dominatied in English has changed. International researchers start to advocate widely use active voice in scientific and technological papers.

This research report presents the results of research on the markedness of active and passive voice in Indonesian. The purpose of this study was to determine the markedness of active and passive voice in Indonesian and their implications. The theory used in this study is the concept of markedness proposed by Waugh and Lafford (1994: 2378) and Croft (1990: 64). This research was conducted qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the study are as follows. The active voice in Indonesian is an unmarked construct, that is, a simple, productive, context-insensitive, more universal sentence, and easier to understand. The passive voice in Indonesian is a marked construct, that is, a more complex, less productive, context-sensitive, more particular sentence, and harder to stand. This markedness has implications for grammar and language learning. For grammar preparation, active voice explanations should be the basis for passive voice explanations so that the rules for forming both types of sentences are easy to understand. For language learning, active voice should be learned first and then passive voice so that both types of sentences are mastered more easily by language learners.

Actively Passive: Understanding Voice in Academic Writing

Bulungan Language as one of the langugaes in North Kalimantan Province has scattered speakers in 8 sub-districts. As language with scattered speakers made Bulungan Language get less attention from language researcher dan linguist to describe it thoroughly. Bulungan language has active voice and passive voice as part of its grammar which has not been studied furtherly yet. Then, the rseracher take this chance to discuss active voice and passive voice in the Bulungan language in this study. This research employed qualitative descriptive research. The data used in this study was oral data directly taken from the native Bulungan speakers. The data collection technique used in this study was by listening technique and the note-taking technique. This study revealed that the active and passive voice of the Bulungan language had different markers but same passive voice property across languages.

This research tested hypotheses that news media often report violence against women (VAW) in passive-verb format and that this leads readers to be more accepting of VAW than reports using the active voice. In Study 1, 1,501 verbs from news stories were classified as having active or passive voice. Passive voice use for both VAW (rape) and nonsexual violence (murder) was greater than for comparison verbs. Findings of a follow-up semantic differential study suggested that these verbs'negativity could account for the results. In a third study, 54 college students read mock news reports on rape, battery, robbery, and murder, rated victim harm and perpetrator responsibility after each, and completed scales of attitudes toward sexual violence. With passive voice, males, but notfemales, attributed less victim harm and perpetrator responsibility for VAW than with active voice. Both females and males showed more acceptance of VAW with passive voice use.

The paper deals with use of active and passive verb forms in journal articles from the field of chemical engineering with focus on heavy metal ions removal from water. Three hypotheses about use of passive and active voice were formed and tested on six scientific journal papers in the above mentioned field - three experimental and three theoretical. The data were gathered using a comparative analysis of active and passive verb forms with a share of statistical analyses. Hypothesis 1 "In scientific papers from the field of chemical engineering passive voice is more frequent than the active voice." is not valid as the active verb forms outnumber the passive verb forms though not significantly. Hypothesis 2 "Passive voice is much more common in Methods and Discussion sections than in the Introduction or Results sections." can only be applied to experimental papers and is valid as the passive verb forms outnumber the active ones in the particular sections. Hypothesis 3 "There is no difference in usage of passive and active voice in theoretical and experimental scientific papers." is not valid as in experimental papers the passive verb forms outnumber the active ones, on the other hand, in theoretical papers this statement does not apply.

Authors in the health sciences are encouraged to write in the active voice in the belief that this enhances comprehensibility. Hence, the purpose of this study was to compare objectively measured and subjectively perceived comprehensibility of texts in which one voice or the other was highly prevalent. Objectively rated comprehensibility was obtained by presenting 161 2nd-year chiropractic students with questions pertaining to 2 methods sections of biomedical articles, each presented in its original form with high prevalence of the passive voice, and in a manipulated form with all main verbs in the active voice. The difficulties and sensitivities of questions were compared for the 2 forms of each text. Comprehensibility was obtained by asking students to rate the comprehensibility of authentic sentences from biomedical manuscripts and matched manipulated form in which the voice of the main verb had been changed. Differences in comprehensibility between the 2 texts were assessed with a dependent t test. There were no significant differences in the difficulties or sensitivities of questions pertaining to the 2 original texts written in the passive voice versus the active voice ( p > .35 for all comparisons). Students rated sentences written in the passive voice as marginally more comprehensible than sentences written in the active voice ( p = .003 per 2-tailed paired t test). The texts written in the active voice were not more comprehensible than texts written in the passive voice. The results of this study do not support editorial guidelines that favor active voice over passive voice.

The article is devoted to the agent valence of voice forms of state verbs. It should be noted that, the expression of the relationship of movement, the state directed to the subject and object, is one of the main and important functions of the semantics of the verb. Voices totally cover the verbs. The verbs of state in the Uzbek language in their extra-linguistic substratum express certain processes connection with nature and society, flora and fauna, biology, physiology and psychology of human being. State verbs in the sentences are realized in the active, reflexive, compulsive, passive and mutual voices. State verbs with integral seme «duration», «result of movement», «execution», «movement», «skill», «imagery», «biological», «physiological» and «psychic» – are realized in speech mostly in the active voice. The agent of this verbs finds expression in the character of the object. The agent of some state verbs with the integral seme «result of movement», «execution», «imagery», «physiological» and «psychic» do not appear as functions of the object in sentence. Agent's non-objectivity, but only its subjectivity, follows from the transitivity of certain state verbs. The agent of some transitive state verbs with the integral seme «execution» and «psychic», even though they have own object, they are not only the producer (source) of the state, but also the object of the produced state. The possibility of combining state verbs with a direct object, that means, their transitiveness deserves special attention. State verbs with the integral seme «execution», «physiological» and «psychic» are realized in the sentence in a reflexive voice. Agent is an object in all cases. Verbs with the integral seme «duration», «result of movement», «movement», «biological», «physiological» and «psychic» are realized in speech in a compulsory voice. Agent here is not considered an object. State verbs with an integral seme «result of movement», «execution» and «movement» in a passive voice form have an agent valence. Here is shown the relationship object with state, which is the main, the most important, while agent is in secondary pose. The activity of the last one is weakening. This is the essence of the passive voice. State verbs with an integral seme «duration», «execution», «skill», «physiological» and «psychic» are realized in constructions in a mutual voice. The agent is revealed in the nature of the object.

This paper applies CDA (critical discourse analysis) to display the hidden relationship between language and power in the discourse of the media; it focuses on the issues which are related to the use of passive or active voice, and tries to investigate which forms of voice are used (passive or active). Data have been collected from three different news texts on the subject of Iraq War Logs. The data have been analysed by using the framework model of Fowler et al. [6] and the findings have been discussed within the framework which is provided by Fairclough, N. [4]. The results show that there is a hidden relationship between language and power in the discourse of the media. Access to the media discourse is limited to specific people only, while other people lack this access. Moreover, the types of voice (passive or active) that are used in different texts determine which sentences are more powerful.

Voice is a grammatical aspect, which is divided into active and passive. However, it occurs in languages and in translation with different surface structures. The present paper is a descriptive study that attempts to describe the behaviour of active & passive voices in translating from Arabic into English and French to compare differences and similarities and to establish the effects of this linguistic factor on the modeling of translation. The analysis is done on some existing literary translations from Arabic into English and French and data reflective to the problems and occurrences of voices are collected throughout the texts under study. Then, the data are identified, categorized, and analyzed in the source texts and target texts. The results indicate that passive occurrences are more in the English text than in the French and Arabic texts and that there are a lot of similarities between Arabic and French as far as voice is concerned. The conclusion is reached that the active and passive voices are determined by these factors: language peculiarity in terms of structural constraints, tendency, and translator’s latitude in terms of norms, which the translator must pay attention to for a better functionality in translation. Keywords : Active voice, Passive voice, Language peculiarity, Translation, Comparativeness, Translation modeling