Passive Constructions in Academic Writing: Investigating the Information Status of Literature Review in Non-native Speakers' Theses

Abstract

Many EFL learners view active and passive voice as interchangeable in all contexts. This inaccurate perception perhaps results from learners' understanding of passives only from a structural perspective. Relatively few EFL learners learn passives from a functional perspective. Influenced by the focus on function and purpose in discourse (Swales, 1990; Tarone et al., 1981), this study examines the use of passives and the information status in the literature review section of research writings. The data collected in this research is a corpus of theses written in English by Taiwanese graduate students in the field of applied linguistics. The three research questions guiding this research are as follows: 1) What is the frequency of occurrence of the passive voice in the literature review section of nonnative learners' master's theses? 2) Which verbs are most frequently used in the passive voice? 3) Are there general principles governing voice choice and functions of the passive voice? The results show that verbs frequently used in the passive deal with the methods examined and findings reported and the functions of the verbs do not vary greatly across different research topics. In addition, finite short passives have the highest frequency of occurrence out of the four passive constructions. As for the information status, finite short/long passives frequently occur in Given-New and New-New patterns while nonfinite short/long passives often appear in Given-Given and New-New patterns. Lastly, the positions of the four patterns where passive constructions are embedded are also analyzed in the student writers' literature reviews. The conclusion is that passives do not occur in text randomly. Under genre constraints, the occurrence of passives is closely related to the information status. Their use is affected by the discourse patterns.