Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Ing. Veronika Doláková
The Passive Voice in Business English Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.
2016
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
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Author’s signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová for her kind support and valuable advice.
Table of contents
1 Introduction ...... 1 2 Business English ...... 4 2.1 Development and importance of business English ...... 4 2.2 Definition of business English ...... 9 2.3 Business English defined by other concepts ...... 12 2.3.1 Business English in ELT and ESP ...... 12 2.3.2 Business English in ELF (BELF) ...... 16 2.3.3 Business English and English for Economics ...... 17 2.4 Style in business English ...... 19 2.4.1 Formal ...... 21 2.4.2 Accurate ...... 24 2.4.3 Positive ...... 24 2.5 Context in business English ...... 24 2.6 Verbs in business English ...... 29 2.6.1 Modal verbs ...... 29 2.6.2 Phrasal verbs ...... 30 2.6.3 Tenses...... 30 3 Passive voice ...... 33 3.1 Creating passive voice ...... 34 3.2 Using passive voice...... 35 3.3 Passive voice in business English ...... 39 4 Analysis ...... 46 4.1 Annual reports ...... 46 4.2 Objectives ...... 49 4.3 Data ...... 49 4.4 Results ...... 54 4.4.1 General overview ...... 55 4.4.2 Comparison: Active vs. passive ...... 66 4.4.3 Comparison: Countries ...... 76 4.4.4 Comparison: Industries ...... 84 4.4.5 Comparison: Countries within industries ...... 91 5 Conclusion ...... 103 Annual reports ...... 112
Works cited ...... 114 Dictionaries ...... 123 Lists...... 124 Appendix ...... 126 Résumé (česky) ...... 138 Résumé (English) ...... 139
1 Introduction
Business English can be considered as an emerging genre of English. As more and more people experience the everyday fierce need for ability to communicate in English, this business variety of English is quickly spreading and developing. The frequent use of English in business context also directly influences its complexity and comprehensiveness. Enriching business English by new expressions from different fields or borrowed words from other languages is almost regarded as a standard. We can even witness new business English sub-genres emerging from various situational contexts, with specific rules, metaphors and set expressions ascribed to concrete forms of communications (e.g. letters to business partners, marketing promotions and PR articles, presentations for shareholders, apology letters and many others). The use of
English also differs among different businesses or even among separate departments within one particular company. It is fascinating to watch how this genre evolves right in front of us.
In this era of a general effort to be competitive and effective, I consider the ability not just to speak English (meaning to be able to converse using the general language), but also to master or at least have some basic knowledge of English in one of its professional forms, to be a great asset. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of managerial positions leads to a higher demand for this specific knowledge. The use of English is now tested during job interviews even for positions where it has not been required couple of years ago and this situation leads to a desperate need of gaining the ability to represent ourselves (and our businesses) in an appropriate and impressive way on various markets.
For this reason I decided to focus on business English in my thesis. I believe that one of the crucial features that distinguish business English from its other varieties is the use of verbs. I decided to dedicate my thesis to the use of passive voice in business English with regard to two characteristics - the geographical origin of the company and the field in which it operates.
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These are the two basic questions I wanted to focus on and which also led to creation of my two preliminary theses I wanted to prove or disprove:
1. The use of passive voice in business English is different in texts created by UK and US companies.
2. The use of passive voice in business English is different in texts created by companies operating within different fields of industry.
For my research I have chosen freely accessible, authentic and relevant data. The analysis was performed on a set of annual reports created by ten selected companies. Each of these companies met the required criteria to comply with my research - five of them were of the UK and the other five of the US origin. Furthermore, each two of them were from a different branch of industry. Therefore the dataset covers publishing, automotive, electronics, tobacco and food sale industries.
Based on these annual reports I created a dataset of more than 18.300 verbal expressions (the complete dataset can be found on the enclosed CD). Each of these expressions was then ascribed the necessary attributes to create comparable sets. The criteria for the analysis were chosen with regard to the characteristics which are discussed in the sources dealing with the use of verbs in business English - the use of passive voice, the use of negative form, the use of modal and phrasal verbs, and the use of infinitives and individual tenses. With regard to these criteria I was able to perform the comparisons on four levels. First I compared the use of verbs between active and passive voice. After that I compared the use of passive voice with regard to the country of origin of particular companies, and then I compared the texts based on the industries in which the companies operate, and lastly I focused on the comparison of the UK and US texts within the particular industries.
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The structure of the thesis was created and adjusted to serve as a comprehensible presentation of the results of the analysis as well as to provide the necessary theoretical background. Second chapter deals with business English in general - what it is, how it is defined by other concepts, how it evolved, when it is used and what are its main characteristics. Third chapter provides an explanation for the creation and for the use of passive voice, with a subchapter directly focused on the use passive voice in business English.
The presentation of the results of the analysis then beings in chapter four which is structured with regard to the particular levels of the analysis mentioned above. The last part, chapter number five, comprises a summary of these findings.
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2 Business English
One has but to read the daily newspapers to realize how varied is English in its
applications. Your morning paper deals with widely diverse happenings in politics, war,
crime, sports, society, and business. (Davis and Lingham, 1921, p. 1)
If today somebody on our way to work or shop asked us to define business English, most of us would be probably able to generally outline some of its features. We all are aware of the fact that we live in an era of business and commerce, which might affect the necessity to be able to use and to understand some business or commerce-specific variety of English, and that this variety might be somehow different from the everyday English we know. Some of us (who maybe previously had a chance to encounter business English) could probably list some situations in which they believe business English would be used. It is highly unlikely, though, that we would be able to come up with a more detailed or precise description.
In this chapter I would like to summarize the information I believe is necessary to understand the concept of business English in general – how it evolved, how it can be defined, how it is positioned among other theoretical concepts regarding specialized language and also to introduce some of its features and situational contexts which may affect its form.
2.1 Development and importance of business English
Anyone familiar with modern commercial life will readily admit the importance of
written English in business. The mail-order houses and advertising agencies alone
annually transact business to the value of hundreds of millions of dollars by means of
written language. The daily mail of many corporations is so vast that it is delivered to
them in automobile trucks. Today it is difficult to think of a normal person who does not
need to write a business letter. (Davis and Lingham 1921, p. 6)
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This is not true any more, of course; or at least not absolutely true. In 1921, when this statement was created, the situation regarding business communication was different from today. Although nowadays we may be communicating more (in both spoken and written way), the use of new technical devices and applications has definitely reduced the piles of paper post. However, I included the statement here because it is also partly true, even today - without written communication companies would not be capable of performing almost any business activity or they would be at least severely paralyzed. Written business communication is therefore very important.
English ceratinly plays a significant role in general. According to Kosanovic and Milun (2013), it is not necessary to describe how English is important on a global scale since it has become a lingua franca and "its practical use nowadays is almost a prerequisite worldwide" (p. 95).
Graddol (2006) explains that English now has transformed into the fourth period of its evolutionary process (Modern English period being the first stage and so called Global English being the fourth). He describes the Global English stage as a period within which English is used in a postmodern world functioning as lingua franca and existing under new cultural and linguistic, political and economic circumstances. According to Talbot (2009), English is used as a communicaton tool evein in multinational situations: "It may not be the predominant language of the group, but it is the most likely to be understood by the majority - at least at a basic level
- so it becomes a powerful tool for communication and inclusion." (p. Xiii). Huhta (1999) compares language skills to a bridge, which helps to transport meaning between both individuals and whole cultures:
Sometimes the bridge may just barely support one’s weight, as when you manage to
get your shopping through by mimics and gestics in a foreign culture. Sometimes the
bridge will carry, and simply let the strangers through with the correct fare for tolls, but
wondering what the tolls were all about and why. Optimally the bridge will carry
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everything required and be recognized for how well it serves the clients and fits
perfectly in its natural environment. (Huhta, 1999, p. 17)
Ghadessy (1988) adds that "the language of buying and selling has existed for many centuries and has been changed and modified according to the specific needs of the users of such language." (p. 109). Also Louhiala-Salminen (1995) explains that language is important when creating and maintaining business partnerships, and this fact is supported by the strenght of emphasis which is placed on the necessity of communication skills in the qualifications of people operating in business. "They have to be able to make use of the language efficiently in order to achieve their goals; language is used as a tool, and the user has to know how to handle it in a particular business situation." (p. 12)
English has therefore become an important tool of communication among various groups and across several fields. One of the fields strongly affected by the necessity of lingua fraca existence is, of course, business. Without a common communication channel aimed at the target group it is difficult to expand to new markets or to find partners. So English used in business has become an object of interest not only for businesess, but later also for many scholars, who atempted to describe its features distinguishing it from the standard. The scholares focused on the situations in which business English is used, under what circumstances and how precisely. Despite of the current importance of English in the field of business, however, it is still acknowledged as quite a new topic in academic research. As Pierini
(n.d.) states, "one of the most striking characteristics of business English outside teaching is that research on the subject appears to have been relatively limited until two decades ago." (p.
110) According to Kerkeb (2013), the importance of English within international - or business - communication was caused mostly by the globalization and changes accompanying the start of
21st century.
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English is regarded as crucial for business for several reasons. Its necessity is directly influenced by the essentiality to remain competitive, but also by the complex international partnerships and proprietary relations among individual companies. As in Doláková, Voráček &
Zelená (2013): "So far isolated companies, focused mainly on design and improvement of local processes become parts of large international, multidomestic and multicultural bodies." (p.
83). Apart from positive aspects of these changes, the businesses must face new language- related challenges - being internally heterogeneous, they must still be capable to perform uniform communication towards their employees, partners, customers, shareholders and competitors, and at the same time remain flexible and do not allow their internal heterogenezis (or complexity) affect the overall competitivenes. "Language is a natural integrating and unifying element, which indisputably affects value for stakeholders, resulting both from tangible outputs and intangible cultural or intellectual contributions." (Doláková,
Voráček & Zelená, 2013, p. 83).
As Stan (2013) states, "English has become an indispensable skill in the international competetive global context." (p. 101). Stan further explains that without learning English we might not be able to participate in internatinal communication, and also that without effective use of English as a mutual communication device we may not be capable of performing financial and business transactions successfully. "That is, successful business depends on efficient, clear and coherent communication, operated in a multi-faceted process, involving people accelerating production of and exchanging information." (p. 101-102). Also Rogerson-
Revell (2007) in her study reveals that the evidence shows the growing influence of English as a lingua franca in Europe, as well as Kosanovic and Milun (2013) who claim that "if our students, as future members of the EU, are to reap benefits of an integrated Europe and be more competitive work wise in the global arena, the ability to converse and to do business in English is vital." (p. 95) Pilátová (2012) argues that apart from the fact that English is now in Europe regarded as an international language used in business (as well as in e.g. technology), "in
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Europe the spread of English went even beyond that and it is becoming the language that puts together the whole continent. Due to the integration of labor market of the European Union the need for one common language is crucial." (p. 19)
According to Graddol (2006) still more people are required to use English language at work.
Pilátová (2012) states that almost for everyone who intends to be successful in business the knowledge of English is regarded as an absolute must, which affects not only top corporate managements, but now also lower hierarchical degrees - such workers as foremen and others.
"The major findings showed that a growing number of business people need to have a solid command of English in their work, i.e. they have to be able to do business in English; thus the language is regarded as an inseparable part of their professional identity, and not a separate skill mastered by certain language specialists." (Louhiala-Salminen, 1995, p. 9) According to
Graddol (2000), economic development encourages the use of English language as a common medium: "Although an incoming company may not be headquartered in an English-speaking country, it will typically establish a joint venture with a local concern. Joint ventures (...) tend to adopt English as their lingua franca, which promotes a local need for training in English." (p.
32) Later on he comments also on the consequences for the employees of such businesses - the jobs in these new companies might be better paid and connected with a higher level of attractiveness for the applicants on one hand, but on the other hand they may require a certain level of language skills as a necessary prerequisite.
However, six years later in his other book, Graddol (2006) admits that in the future English might not be the only player in the field of business communication: "English is no longer the
‘only show in town’. Other languages now challenge the dominance of English in some regions.
Mandarin and Spanish, especially, have become sufficiently important to be influencing national policy priorities in some countries." (p. 62) Despite of this fact, however, it is clear,
8 that English is still indispensable for business comunication and as such is therefore also being influenced and adapted.
2.2 Definition of business English
The easiest way to find a definition is usually to consult a dictionary. My intention was to find out whether business English is such a set expression to be included in the dictionaries below:
Business English, n. = a style of English suited or adapted to use in business; (in later
use esp.) a form taught to people (usually non-native speakers) who wish to conduct
business in English. (OED Online, 2016)
Business English, noun = English in business usage, especially the styles and forms of
business correspondence. (Dictionary.com, n.d.)
Business English = no entry (Cambridge Dictionaries Online, n.d.)
Oxford English Dictionary (2016) in fact provided two explanations in one - business English is both a style of English, the features of which have been changed to serve the purpose of business, and at the same time a form of English taught to non-native speakers so that they are capable of understanding business discourse in English. Dictionary.com (n.d.) provided a more simplistic version, explaining that business English is mostly connected with business correspondence (which means that spoken business communication and written business forms other than correspondence are somehow overshadowed in this definition). Cambridge
Dictionaries Online (n.d.) provided no explanation for this term at all. Although the first of the definitions mentioned above may provide us with a picture of what business English might be, the other results are not as satisfactory.
Pilátová (2012) in her work dealing with a business variety of English states that the difficulties connected with the search for a correct, up-to-date and precise definition of business English might be related to the fact that (apart from other styles) business English is not usually taught
9 by universities, but by language schools, whose financial sources are often too restricted to conduct detailed studies and deeper analyses, which would be based on real use of English in business context. She also points out that the definition of business English is very often missing even in widely used business English textbooks. There are also disputes about to which category of skills the ability to effectively communicate in business should be included. As
Talbot (2009) writes:
People sometimes think of business writing as a ‘soft’ skill. In fact, you may see
communication generally classified as a soft skill, as opposed to the ‘hard’ skills of
finance, law, IT etc. But I think this description is misleading. After all, people drive
processes. And how do they do this? By communication. (Talbot, 2009, p. 4)
She then continues saying that calling business writing as "soft" might lead to the precondition that it is something that can be accomplished easily, which again is misleading. Quite the opposite. "Business writing can impact on the whole business cycle; it can win business, it can lose business and it can communicate the framework by which results can be achieved." (p. 4)
As summarised in Doláková, Voráček & Zelená (2013), language affects both internal and external activities of a business and this valid for both its written and spoken form. Language serves for exchanging information. Such process is essential for all important activities including control, cooperation, motivation, building company's reputation and other processes. "... improperly handled and unplanned communication may have negative consequences and may even be a source of conflicts." (p. 83)
According to Holden (1989), as adapted in Louhiala-Salminen (1995), it is surprising how little we know about the ways language is used in business context and under the competitive circumstances. He states that it is necessary to study the use of language in business not to only understand how it works as an aspect of business communication, but also how it afects modern life.
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One way to understand the concept of business English would be to use the definition provided by Davis and Lingham (1921), which was created 95 years ago but might still be valid:
"Business English is clear, concise expression applied to commercial transactions. It is the language which, in business intercourse, best conveys to the listener or the reader the exact idea in the mind of the speaker or writer." (p. 1) This definition teaches us that business message must be "clear" and "concise", but unfortunately does not say more about other characteristics of English used in business context.
We can, however, encounter few modern definitions for business English. The safest approach is to start with the situations in which (or the purposes for which) business English might be used. According to Talbot (2009), "English is a major language of commercial communication.
(...) Business English is the name given to the English used for dealing with business communication in English…" (p. 9) Another definition, provided in the work Šutariková (2013), seems to be more complete:
Business language is a type of register used in work and professional environment in
both oral and written form. It is used during meetings and negotiation, in e-mail and
phone communication, in various kinds of documents and in many other situations.
Business English is a variety of business language that has a dominant role in the
business communication not only among native-speakers. (Šutariková, 2013, p. 13-14)
Šutariková's definition corresponds with the one provided by OED Online (2016) in a sense that business English is a variety (form, style) of English, which is used in business context for variety of purposes, for which it is specialised and adapted, and that it might and might not be used exclusively by native speakers. The context and stylistic features of business English will be discused in greater detail in the following subchapters.
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2.3 Business English defined by other concepts
The concept of business English can be described also by its position among other English- defining concepts. Several scholars tried to define business English by means of differences and similarities among them.
2.3.1 Business English in ELT and ESP
Business English can be described with regard to its position within the concept of ESP (English for Specific Purposes). According to Otilia (2015), ESP is regarded as an important part of ELT
(English Language Teaching) and is aimed at and influenced by various fields of activity:
"English for Specific Purposes focuses on practical aspects derived from needs analysis, genre analysis and effective communication. The extraordinary growth of this discipline is also a result of the developments in economy, industry, commerce and communications." (p. 222)
Pierini (n.d.) adds that business English belongs to ESP and ELT and is also a component of applied linguistics. In addition to this division, Belcher (2009) in Dzięcioł-Pędich (2014) also introduces the concept of English for Business Purposes (EBP), which is a relatively new and also a prospering branch of ESP, reflected both in teaching and research.
This may help us understand more about the concept of business English. By calling it English for Business Purposes business English may be defined based on its usage - the term in fact covers all the possible business communicative situations in which this variety may appear. It is a part of ESP, which means it has some specific characteristics that distinguish it from generally used forms of English. It is also a branch of ELT which leads us to the conclusion that it is taught to non-native speakers of English. As we have seen in the previous chapter, however, business English is used by both native and non-natives speakers of English (Šutariková, 2013).
So the position of business English (or EBP) within the concepts of ELT and ESP might therefore be as follows:
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English for Specific Purposes (ESP) English Language Teaching English for (ELT) Business Purposes (EBP)
Diagram 1: English for Business Purposes in ESP and ELT
Nagy (2014) also distinguishes between ESP in the context of teaching and the context of actual use:
Languages for specific purposes, or, in this case, English for Specific Purposes can be
dealt with from at least two perspectives: on the one hand, from a didactic perspective,
as ESP is a sphere of language teaching. On the other hand, we must approach the
issue of specialized language(s) from a linguistic viewpoint, as English for Specific
Purposes is a peculiar segment of language, with its major component – terminology,
to which some authors add the science specific grammar, i.e. linguistic issues and
particularities. (Nagy, 2014, p. 261-262)
Dudley-Evans and John (1996) also see business English as a subdivision of English for Specific
Purposes. Based on the previously conducted researches they conclude that ESP can be seen as a hypernym for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational
Purposes (EOP). They add that "EAP has until recently been the area of greatest activity and refers to the language and skills required by non-native speakers for the purposes of study, usually at tertiary level. In a sense EOP constitutes the rest of ESP, taking in any work-related
English language courses." (p. 1) Apart from this distinction, they also introduce the term
English for Professional Purposes (EPP), which they explain includes specific courses mainly for managers, oriented at business and technology. Hutchinson and Waters (1987), as adapted
13 in Javid (2013) or Nunes (n.d.), provide a "Tree of ESP", which represents the division among
EAP and EOP within English for Specific Purposes:
English for Science and Technology
English for Legal Purposes English for Academic Purposes English for Medical Purposes
English for Management, Finance English for Specific and Economics Purposes English for Medical Purposes English for Professional Purposes English for Business Purposes English for Occupational Purposes Pre-vocational Purposes Purposes Post-vocational Purposes
Diagram 2: Tree of ESP (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987)
From this diagram we can easily recognise the previously mentioned concepts and their interrelations. We can see that business English is included in English for Academic Purposes
(in the form of highly specialised language used in academic texts relating to such issues as
Management or Finance) as well in English for Occupational Purposes (or rather English for
Professional Purposes, where it is restricted to use of English in real business situations).
Dzięcioł-Pędich (2014) describes business English on the basis of common features shared amongst all specialised varieties within ESP and those features, which distinguish one variety from the other. He claims that business English requires specific vocabulary and a specific type of communication based on the particular context. What distinguishes business English from other varieties of ESP, Dzięcioł-Pędich continues, is exactly the context, the field in which it operates - particularly industry and business. According to Dudley-Evans and John (1996) it is possible to go further and to distinguish, based on the context, two other types of business
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English. According to them the term business English includes both general language (with appropriate features) used for general communication in business context, and more specific language, necessary for dealing with more specialised tasks (such as managing meetings and negotiations or writing reports). Therefore we could use also the terms English for General
Business Purposes (EGBP) and English for Specific Business Purposes (ESBP).
This partly relates to the problem pointed out by Nagy (2014) that English for Specific Purposes involves so many specific names and specific disciplines that it may cause difficulties in the future:
The first major issue is connected to the plurality of names given to what we call here
English for Specific Purposes. In English several terms are used, among which
specialized languages, special languages, specialized communication, technical English,
scientific English, English for special or specific purposes-ESP, English for Occupational
Purposes, Professional English or, more recently, Academic and Professional
Languages. (Nagy, 2014, p. 262)
Nevertheless, the role of business communication within ESP is undeniable. And as the importance of business English grows, it affects the whole field of ESP and secondarily inevitably also the field of English Language Teaching. Bojović (n.d.) concludes that that the growth of ESP might be accelerated (among other things) by the growing demand for form of
English that would have aspects utilizable in a specific profession. As in Otilia (2015): "The growth of ESP was influenced (...) by socio-political aspects such as US leadership after the
Second World War which contributed to the fact that English started to be considered the lingua franca of commerce, medicine, technology and business..." (p. 222). Although around
1990s English for Business and English for Economy used to be in the leading position within
ESP (together with English for Science and Technology), it is now being slowly replaced by new varieties, such as English for Information Technology or Internet (Nagy, 2014).
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2.3.2 Business English in ELF (BELF)
Another concept which is interconnected with communicating in business is the concept of
Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF). Wu (2013) explains that the term BELF is more satisfactory than the term business English when discussing business communication in
English: "BELF (Business English as a Lingua Franca or English Lingua Franca for Business
Purposes) is employed as a substitute for BE (Business English) because of the wider application of business English in international business communications among non-native speakers." (p. 130) He continues that a universal definition of business English still does not exist which may be due to the fact that its extent is multidisciplinary and leads to the variety of definitions. Wu explains that BELF is used not only in finance or economics, but also in other industries, such as law, tourism and advertising. Similarly to Dudley-Evans and John (1996), Wu then proposes distinguishing the two branches of BELF - ELF GBP (English Lingua Franca for
General Business Purposes) and ELF SBP (English Lingua Franca for Specific Business
Purposes).
Wu is not the only scholar who uses the term BELF in his research. Also other scholars, such as
Nelson (2006) or Rogerson-Revell (2007) in their analyses work with this term. Rogerson-
Revell, although she works with BELF, also uses the term English for International Business
(EIB). With regard to the circumstances of using English within business she distinguishes among two possibilities. English can be used either by native speakers (therefore English as a
Mother Tongue, EMT) or by non-native speakers (therefore English as Lingua Franca, ELF). In the diagram below she demonstrates how BELF, ELF and EMT can be intertwined within an international business communication, with all the overlapping places presenting the spheres of influence by various mother tongues which are then reflected in ELF and EIB:
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German as a Mother Tongue (GMT) English as a English as a Mother Lingua Tongue Franca (EMT) (ELF) English for International Business (EIB/BELF) French as a Mother Tongue (FMT)
English as a Lingua Italian as a Franca Mother (ELF) Tongue (IMT)
Diagram 3: English for International Business (Rogerson-Revell, 2007)
Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen (2013) who focused on the concept and development of
BELF in their work, present the position of BELF within general business competence (adapted from Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta, 2011):
Business knowhow
Competence in BELF
Multicultural competence
Global communicative
competence
Diagram 4: Model of global communicative competence (Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta, 2011)
2.3.3 Business English and English for Economics
Pierini (n.d.) takes a different point of view. He employs the discourse analysis to distinguish between Economic Discourse (ED) and Business Discourse (BD). From ESP perspective he
17 differentiates between English for Economics (EE) and Business English (BE). Pierini also explains that ED and EE, as well as BD and BE, are closely related to general discourse (or general English), because the specialised and general discourse "are not two different languages but the same language used in different ways and contexts." (p. 116) In his work he also provides a list of common features of GD/GE, ED/EE and BD/BE, so that it is possible to simply compare the characteristics of each of the two, and at the same time provides a comprehensive and logically organised list of characteristics of business communication features (p. 117):
General Economic Business
Language is used in all Language is used in limited ways and Language is used in limited ways and ways and contexts contexts (e.g. academia) contexts (e.g. workplace)
General English is used Economics is the theoretical support Business activities (commerce and to designate the and explanatory apparatus of finance) are the practical English language that Economic English implication of Business English has no special content and is used to It is an academic and scientific code It is a professionally-oriented communicate in used at specialist and interspecialist language or a work language mainly everyday life and level addressed to a wider public and not situations, from very necessarily to specialists simple contexts to It involves a high degree of very complex ones specialization and specific It is divided into genres and nomenclature subgenres due to the manifold activities it includes Its main purpose is informative, so it excludes any aesthetic and emotive It may involve a high degree of element specialization and specific nomenclature depending on the Its main lexical features are: genres and subgenres considered
Monoreferential vocabulary: it Its main purpose is practical because allows for conciseness and semantic it is the interface between the public transparency (disambiguation) and the producer or people who come together for the purpose of Abbreviations and acronyms are very doing business. It may emphasize common aesthetic and emotive elements
Peculiar rules in word-formation: as Its main lexical features are: in most scientific languages new words are often derived from Latin A smaller specific vocabulary and and Greek less stringent rules in word formation and text structure
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depending on the genre Peculiar and rigid text structure Main norms may be conciseness, Main norms are conciseness, precision and appropriateness (e.g. precision and appropriateness letters) but some genres are different (e.g. brochures, buyer- Register is formal seller interaction) and based on persuasive language and rhetorical devices
Register is often formal but it may depend on the genre
Table 1: The distinctive features of Economic Discourse, Business English and General English (Pierini, n.d.)
This list of characteristics relates directly to the following subchapter dealing with styles in business English.
2.4 Style in business English
Among the present functional varieties of English such as journalese, scientific English,
legal English, etc., business English has been with us longer than any of the other
varieties. The language of buying and selling has existed for many centuries and has
been changed and modified according to the needs of the users of such language.
(Ghadessy, 1988, p. 110)
As the importance of communication within the business context grows, many scholars have attempted (and are still attempting) to describe the purpose and the main features of business
English and its deviation from “the standard”. Business English has been thus studied from various aspects, ranging from common collocations in business English, metaphors in business
English, phrasal verbs or politeness principle in business English, business English as a corporate language, how business English is influenced by non-native speakers, the choice of the communication medium or the technological advancement, functions of small-talk, the aspects of business English teaching and tips for students, or structures of business English teaching materials.
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One of the features authors usually refer to is the style of business English, especially with regard to the formality, accurateness or positiveness. As has previously been mentioned, Davis and Lingham (1921) argued that the purpose of business language is to carry the meaning from the speaker to the listener, which means that when creating the business text we always must be aware of the target audience. In addition to that, Nathan (2010) provides an overview of major choices we need to make in order to choose the right style (and to make the intended impact on the receiver of the message):
Style is also understood as reflected in dichotomies such as personal and impersonal,
direct and indirect, professional and technical, being influenced by choice of lexis, use
or non-use of personal pronouns, nominalisation and use of 'it-phrases', choices made
between active or passive voice, as well as in text format and layout. (Nathan, 2010,
47)
Regarding styles in English, Knittlová (1990) in Oros (2006) presents an overview of the most common styles used in writing:
Business
Administrative Legal
Directive Technical Scientific
Educational Popular
Instructive Matter-of- fact Styles Newspaper Style
Journalistic Style of Headlines Functional Styles Style of Advertisements Informative BelletristicBelletristic Aesthetical Publicistic Styles Essay Style Colloquial
Diagram 5: Functional styles in English (Knittlová, 1990)
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From the diagram above we can see that Knittlová ranks Business style among administrative, technical and matter-of-fact styles. According to Gal'perin (1977), as referred to in Oros
(2006), the most principal features of administrative style in general "is a special system of terms, clichés and set expressions." (p. 9).
Oros then continues explaining that these sets of expressions and terms vary among individual fields - i.e. finance or legal language. According to Pierini (n.d.), currently there are various alterations of business English, based on specific fields of business activity: "English for banking, English for the tourist industry, English for accounting, English for marketing, English for human resources, and so on." (p. 110) Pierini also explains that each of these particular variations has a specific set of expressions, but despite of that they share common aspects, because the overall goal is always the same - to sell the product, idea or service.
2.4.1 Formal
The issue of whether to use a formal style or whether to tend to be rather informal in business writing has been already discussed by many scholars. Louhiala-Saminen (1995) explains the importance to follow the trends in the development of daily used business English in English teaching and not to just remain focused on the rigid norms which may be far from reality. In her book Drop me a fax, will you? she describes the major changes of business English after new technologies were introduced, whereas many teachers of business English were still giving extensive lectures on a formalized structure of business letters and obligatory phrases.
Giménez and Skorczynska (2013) in their work describe daily business communication, where the professional neutral register "is sometimes raised, becoming more formal and detached for certain purposes (...), and at other times, this register relaxes, becoming more casual and informal." (p. 84) They further explain that more formal language tends to be used for example distinguish among hierarchical positions of the participants and, on the other hand, less formal register has the power to persuade or encourage the receiver of the message.
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Leech and Svartvik (2002) in Stankov (2013) were concerned about the description of formality, stating that formal written message is very often created in an impersonal style, which allows the creator to use passives and abstract nous instead of any personal references.
According to Míčková (2007):
Formal style presents information and ideas politely and carefully. Long, complex
sentences with polysyllabic international words and classical vocabulary predominate.
The impersonality of the language is acquired by the use of passive voice constructions
and the third person noun phrases. (Míčková, 2007, p. 10)
Main differences between formal and informal style, as far as their purpose and elementary features are concerned, can be found in Giménez-Moreno (2010), as adapted in Giménez-
Moreno and Skorczynska (2013). They are summarized in the overview below:
Informal (casual) style Formal (ritual) style Showing commitment, involvement and Showing deference, neutrality and objectivity closeness 1. Personal expressions 1. Impersonal expressions 2. Active verbs/expressions 2. Passive verbs/expressions 3. Direct speech 3. Indirect speech 4. Ordinary reporting verbs (e.g. 4. Specific reporting verbs (e.g. mention) say) 5. More elaborate connectors (e.g. 5. Ordinary connections (e.g. so) furthermore) 6. General expressions (e.g. man) 6. Precise expressions (e.g. technician) 7. Emotive/subjective, attitudinal 7. Neutral/objective terms (e.g. inform) expressions (e.g. guess) 8. Latin terms and standard formal 8. Phrasal verbs and informal expressions idiomatic expressions 9. Detailed and concrete expressions 9. Contractions, abbreviations and without contractions using “fast language” nominalisation and modifiers 10. Straight statements and direct 10. Politeness, caution and mitigation commands markers
Table 2: Formal and informal style (Giménez-Moreno, 2010)
McLean (2011) offers a more detailed description of the means by which the speaker or writer may achieve formal or informal style:
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While it is generally agreed that bureaucratic forms can obscure meaning, there is a
debate on the use of formal versus informal styles in business communication. Formal
styles often require more detail, adhere to rules of etiquette, and avoid shortcuts like
contractions and folksy expressions. Informal styles reflect everyday speech patterns
and may include contractions and colloquial expressions. (McLean, 2011, p. 456)
However, he later adds, that the particular choice always depends on the managers as they are the creators of the messages - some of them may disagree with contractions in formal writing, some will regard so called "serial comma" as a standard and some "will make a general recommendation that you should always keep it professional." (p. 456) Wilson and Wauson
(1996) also note that every document is created with regard to the particular context (or document type) and at the same time reflects the attitude of the creator. These two factors then influence the overall tone (or style) of the document.
According to Michel (2008), the formality / informality of the text are related to the type of the document in which it is used or presented. "Some business documents and topics require more formal language than others. (...) For example, documents such as briefing notes, proposals, operational reports and scientific / research reports will require more formal language than (...) emails to colleagues" (p. 8). Stankov (2013) states that the situation in which the text is used is essential for the formality or informality of the text – e.g. for formal letter, according to Stankov, it is suitable to use formal words and to use modal verbs.
It is obvious that the style does not remain the same through the years. Language is a living organism which changes and adapts to its environment. As has been already discussed, it may be affected by technological advancement, context, speakers’ attitudes and their mother tongues. Louhiala-Salminen (1995) summarizes the changes in business English in the following way: “… the language had changed: it is less formal, efficient, to the point, and not pure British
23 or American English, but a mixture of different elements that could be called, e.g., Euro
English." (p. 9)
2.4.2 Accurate
According to Davis and Lingham (1921), business language should contain only "accurate, clear and concise" statements (p. 9). Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen (2013) describe aspects of business language using words such as "directness, clarity and politeness" (p. 31) and ranks these qualities among success factors when communicating in business. Wilson and Wauson
(1996) states that style of a business text should be "confident, courteous and sincere" (p. 11)
They add that the language used in business English should be always non-discriminatory and the level of text ought to be chosen with regard to the audience. "In addition, your writing should focus on the benefits to the reader." (p. 11)
2.4.3 Positive
Pilátová (2012) in her work under the heading Tips to be followed in business writing offers a selection of most useful pieces of advice to help students create accurate business texts.
Among them there is one simple recommendation - to avoid negative language. "In any course book of business English is highly recommended to use positive language. Negative language can confuse even native speakers." (p. 24) Pilátová then continues with an explanation that
English language has a specific rule, based on which two negatives in an English sentence in fact mean positive information, whereas in some other languages the second negative might be used to increase the intensity of the first one. Pilátová further explains that in some cultures negative sentences might be considered impolite or even aggressive.
2.5 Context in business English
Because business life presents problems and situations different from those of social life,
we find that, when composing messages designed to fit the special problems and
situations of business, we adapt English to those specific situations. Although we employ
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words, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, we weave a different pattern from that
woven by the writers of essays, conference papers, editorials, and works of literature.
(Ghadessy, 1988, p. 111-112)
As is obvious from the previous chapters, one of the factors affecting the style of business
English is the situational context in which the text is created and used. This context involves the attitudes of the creator of the message, as well as the purpose fo the text, its content and intended recipients; all these aspects affect and shape the form of business English. Ghadessy
(1988) continues providing an explanation that the content of busines writing usually involves practical aspects, such as product prices, terms, sales and others. Although Ghadessy’s work is focused mainly on business letters, he offers a description of the written form of business
English which can be applied to all its written forms in general: “In business writing the use of language must be governed by the results aimed at; it must be designed to create the proper impression upon the recipient, and thus to evoke the proper action, response and result.” (p.
112) Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen (2013) concluded that business English competence, which requires both specialised knowledge and specific skills, is heavily bound by the context and the participants of the business communication.
Individual contexts of business communication can be organised according to the following list of communication areas within a company (Yli-Jokipii, 1991, p. 62):
• corporate communication
• organizational communication
• managerial communication
• administrative or governmental communication
• technical communication
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The style and form are therefore subsequently adjusted to the conventions usual within each particular area. Yli-Jokipii (1994), as adapted in Louhiala-Salminen (1995), offers also a simplified diagram of general forms of business language. Each of the final forms is a subject to different stylistic rules (p. 26):
forms
reports
non- proposals interactive
advertisements
business others language face-to-face spoken telephone interactive postal written electronic
Diagram 6: Forms of business language (Yli-Jokipii, 1994)
In his work, Cortes (2010) reveals that based on the variety of the activities performed by each particular business there is also a variety of different genres within the business language.
According to Cortes, business letter is one of the most common types of written business text.
However, Davis and Lingham (1921) state that "business writing is not limited to letters. There are circulars, reports, catalogues, advertisements, and various other means by which the buyer and the seller gain the attention of each other through written language." (p. 6) Pierini (n.d.) ranks among the most frequent contexts attending meetings, creating documents for intra- and extra-company purposes, everyday communication among colleagues, processing contracts, negotiating and making phone calls. Pradubpongse and Thatsanathep (n.d.) in their analysis focused on finding the most important English business skills revealed that reading activities included e-mails, manuals, IT articles, instructions and letters, listening comprised of
26 conversing, telephoning, discussing, holding meetings and presenting, and speaking on the other hand involved conversing, discussing, telephoning, presenting and negotiating. Finally, among the most used business writing skills Pradubponse and Thatsanathep rank writing e- mails, letters, proposals, reports and manuals. (p. 4)
Another set of criteria to assess the most frequently used communication contexts was selected by Huhta (1999) in her analysis of Language/Communication Skills in Business (p. 94):
- Talking about oneself and one’s - Fault analysis, solving problems
work - Tutoring a new employee
- Travel - Reading manuals, instructions etc.
- Social situations (introductions, - Reading company documentation
small talk) - Writing e-mail messages, faxes;
- Routine telephone calls notes
- Client contacts - Writing memos, reports,
- Hosting visitors, visiting companies documents
- Solving EDP-problems - Giving a presentation
- Describing a process or a working - Meetings, negotiations
method
- Discussions on deliveries,
installation, maintenance
Another way to assess the context of a business communication is the approach considering the hierarchy. As Graddol (2000) defines in his book, there are two types business language used in work:
The first type of working language is the one used in communication between people
that are at the same level. They usually use vocabulary and language that is specialized
to their field. Although they do not create special dialect or variety of English but their
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language forms the same type of discourse community. The difference is usually at the
level of formality or in different style. The second type of working English language is
used when communicating with people outside of this community, usually when
speaking to customers or public. This type of language occurs in service industry. The
language follows certain pattern when speaking to clients. (Graddol, 2000, p 43).
Regarding the audience and purpose of business writing, its relationship has been defined already in 1921 by Davis and Lingham in their book Business English and Correspondence: “The ultimate purpose of business letter or business writing is, as has been said, buying or selling. In business he who can accomplish his purpose surely and swiftly is the successful business man.”
(p. 4-5) More up-to-date list of targets of business (written) communication is provided by
Talbot (2009), as summarised by the respondents of her analysis:
- to inform or record
- to cascade information
- for compliance
- to seek information
- to write specifications
- to achieve a standard
- to write reports with recommendations
- to persuade
- to promote services
- to engage interest and involve
- to get the right results
- to sell
- to support customers
- to improve life for customers
- to eat, breathe and live our vision (p. 4-5)
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2.6 Verbs in business English
Business is about action, and many of the words associated with business are verbs.
(Evans, 2000, p. 8)
Several scholars and authors mention the specificity of the use of verbs when describing business English - the use of modal verbs, phrasal verbs, and also application of various tenses.
The conclusions presented in this sub-chapter will be later compared with the results of the analysis.
2.6.1 Modal verbs
Modal verbs are often described as an important aspect of business English. Someya (1999), as adopted in Someya (2010), states that "business English is characterized by a high frequency of modal verbs and that in fact constitute one of the most important keywords of business
English lexicon." (p. 1) According to Marmaridou, Nikiforidou & Antonopoulou (2005), as adapted in Bilíková (2010), modal verbs (together with indirect speech) are used to achieve politeness in the communication. Stankov (2013) found that modal verbs are a means to achieve formality in business correspondence. He also states that each of the modal verbs has a different function with regard to the modality of the text (i.e. each of them may help to achieve different level of formality.) McLean (2001) notes that "modal auxiliary verbs (may, might, could, can and others) are considered to be verbs that explain mood." (p. 181). He provides a list of modal auxiliaries with their common meanings (p. 182):
Modal Auxiliary Use
Can Expresses an ability or possibility
Could Expresses an ability in the past; a present possibility; a past or future
permission
May Expresses uncertain future action; permission; ask a yes-no question
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Might Expresses uncertain future action
Shall Expresses intended future action
Should Expresses obligation; ask if an obligation exists
Will Expresses intended future action; as a favour; ask for information
Would States a preference; request a choice politely; explain an action;
introduce habitual past actions
Must Expresses obligation
Ought to Expresses obligation
Table 3: Modal verbs (McLean, 2011)
From this overview we can understand the reasons for the choices of particular modal verbs in business English, since each of them is used for presenting different information or in a different situation.
2.6.2 Phrasal verbs
Boháčová (2011) in her work describes the use of phrasal verbs in business English. She states that there are many of them used in various types of business communication, including written forms, such as letters, faxes and e-mails, and spoken forms communication, such as negotiations. She explains that phrasal verbs "are frequently used in everyday spoken and written English and often have an informal style. (p. 3) Later she continues: "Concerning the usage of phrasal verbs in English, they are mostly used in informal or spoken English but occurrence in formal English is not exceptional." (p. 12) McLean (2011) recommends reducing the use of phrasal verbs, since they may be hardly understandable for non-native speakers of
English.
2.6.3 Tenses
Vogel (2011) in his analysis of one of the form of written business English, namely annual reports, states: "In contrast with the theoretical sources, characterising official styles as
30 stereotypical in terms of grammatical (syntactic) forms used, the corpus of annual reports has revealed that the variety of verb tenses is rather wide – the present, past, future, and present perfect are the most frequent tenses, mostly with simple aspect." (p. 3) He continues that the use of tenses in the analysed reports corresponds with their generally recognised functions:
- the present simple tense refers to current states and descriptions of the company´s
policies, methods, overall situation
- the past simple tense refers to past actions (performed in the preceding period)
- the present perfect tense refers to unfinished actions or states
- the future simple tense reports on anticipated development and plans (p. 3)
Regarding the particular functions of individual tenses we can refer also to the book written by
Seefer and Guffey (2008) named Business English (p. 174 - 181):
Perfect tenses
- used to show actions that are already completed, or perfected.
- present-perfect tense - actions that began in the past and have continued to the
present
- past-perfect tense - past actions that took place before other past actions
- future-perfect tense - actions that will take place before other future actions
Progressive Tenses
- are used to show continuous or repeated actions
- present-progressive tense - ongoing actions that are happening presently
- past-progressive tense - ongoing actions that occurred in the past, usually as another
action was taking place
- future-progressive tense - ongoing actions that will take place in the future
Present Tense
- expresses current or habitual action
- may be used in constructions showing future action
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Past Tense
- shows action that has been completed
Future Tense
- shows actions that are expected to occur at a later time
LeBlanc (2001) further adds a note regarding incorrect use of tenses in business English - we always should use a proper tense, and if not specifically required by the context, we should not mix tenses within sentences (or paragraphs).
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3 Passive voice
It can be literally surprising to see the lively discussions that can arise from a topic such as whether passive voice should or should not be used in business English; sometimes they can get very figurative or even emotional. In this chapter I would like to focus on the passive voice in general - how to recognize it and what are its main uses - and then to outline some of the arguments supporting or rejecting the use of passive in business English.
As already Svartvik (1966) has noted in his book On Voice in the English Verb, the passive has become an object of interest for many scholars:
"The study of the grammatical category voice has enjoyed considerable popularity over
the last few years. In fact, voice has probably received greater attention from linguists
than ever before in the history of English scholarship." (Svartvik, 1966, p. 1)
Thompson (2013) in his article Harmonising the Passive explains that if we need to describe some event, in English it is possible to choose between active and passive voice, with the latter being further divided to be-passives and get-passives. He continues that there are numerous theories, nevertheless, the sources cannot provide with us with a short explanation of the functions of these two groups. Rejtharová and Skálová (1981) regard the passive voice one of the typical aspects of professional language, compared to the conversational style, in which the use of passive voice is not that frequent.
Crystal (1997) as adopted in Ariana (2011) describes the passive voice in the following way:
The passive voice is a grammatical construction in which the subject of a sentence or
clause denotes the recipient of the action rather than the performer, that is, a category
of verbs that is related to what thing or person is acting and what thing or person is
being acted upon. (Ariana, 2011, 154)
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According to Alexander and Close (2009), the general difference between active and passive voice is that when the verb is in the active form, the subject is the person performing an action. When the verb is in its passive form, the action is not performed by the subject, but to the subject. He also adds that passive voice is a common device in English language, but it has its special uses, therefore it cannot be regarded as an equivalent to the active voice. In fact, active and passive can be regarded as replaceable only based on so called truth conditions, as in Palmer (1988):
We often wish to say that a sentence may be passivized without change of meaning.
What is meant is that there is no true difference in the truth conditions - that if the
active is true so is the passive. Where this is so we shall talk of "voice neutrality".
(Palmer, 1988, p. 86-87)
3.1 Creating passive voice
To recognize the passive voice in a text it is necessary to become familiar with the process of its creation. In English the passive is created by using an auxiliary (be or get) and (usually past) participle of a verb (Ariana, 2011). Alexander and Close (2009) provide an overview of four ways how to form the passive and provides examples (p. 241 - 246):
1. a tense of be + past participle
- the food is/has been/will be + cooked
- the food is/was being + cooked
2. modal + be/have been + past participle
- the food may be/have been + cooked
3. infinitive: to be/to have been +past participle
- the food is to be / was to have been + cooked
4. -ing form: being / having been + past participle
- being / having been + cooked
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More details about how to recognize, understand and use passive or how to transform sentences from active to passive and vice versa can be found for example in Crystal (1997),
Leech (2006), or various Longman grammars, such as Alexander and Close (2009), Biber,
Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan (2007) or Foley and Hall (2008).
3.2 Using passive voice
The general recommendations for where to use or not to use the passive voice can be found in many sources and although the core remains more or less the same, they can slightly vary in the formulations created by individual authors. Bovee and Thill (2007) clearly conclude that the choice of the writer whether to use or not to use passive voice definitely affects the overall tone of the message. Foley and Hall (2008) summarise that "we use passive forms for reasons of style and of clarity, as well as of meaning." (p. 104) They provide an overview of generally acknowledged situations in which the use of passive voice is suitable (p. 104):
- if the subject of a verb is new information, we often make the verb passive so that the
new information comes at the end
- If the subject of a verb is a long phrase or clause, we often make the sentence passive
so that the long clause comes at the end.
- when the agent is not known
- when the agent is obvious from the context or from general knowledge
- when we wish to avoid mentioning the agent
Based on the work of Wilson and Wauson (1996), passive voice is used when the writer needs to shift the attention to the person (or an object) which was affected, or, when the subject is not as important as the rest of the sentence. Alexander and Close (2009) provides a summary of contexts in which passive is required or recommended and, on the other hand, where it should be avoided (p. 241 - 246):
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- spontaneous and deliberate use of the passive- in fluent English, passives occur
naturally and spontaneously, without a conscious change from "active" to "passive". In
fact, active equivalents would be hard to produce for some sentences.
- the passive is sometimes deliberately chosen in preference to the active, especially
when speakers do not wish to commit themselves to actions, opinions, or statements
of fact of which they are not completely certain
- the passive for focus- we use the passive when we wish to focus on a happening which
is more important to us than who or what causes the happening - or where there is
simply no need to mention the doer
- avoiding vague words as subject- we always prefer the passive when we wish to avoid
using a vague word as subject
- conversely, the passive may be avoided (where we might expect it) when we wish to
make what is described personal
- the passive is used in English where other European languages might prefer an
indefinite pronoun subject
- some typical contexts for the passive - formal notices and announcements, press
reports, headlines, advertisements, notices, scientific writing (to describe "process")
A corresponding characterisation was offered by Palmer (1988). He concludes: "It is far from clear why or when the passive is used." (p. 86) The major justifications for the use of passive indicated by Palmer are as follows:
- we use passive in the situations when the agent is not known or not specified -
Palmers states that this especially common in scientific texts. These are so called
agentless passives, "the most useful device for not providing irrelevant or undesirable
information." (p. 86)
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- we use passive when it is required to place a specific noun phrase in to the subject
position in a sentence - according to Palmers this is an effective device used in
narratives, referred to as thematisation.
- we use passive in the situation when the agent is too long (consisting of more words,
or phrases joined by and). "The passive is to some degree a device for placing long and
weighty agents in final position." (p. 87)
- we use passive more often with perfect or modal verbs than with progressive forms
(and according to Palmer also perfect progressive forms in passive are almost
impossible).
Dušková (2006) adds that the progressive form of passive voice is used usually in present and preterite. She also states that use of other progressive forms, such as has been being + past participle are possible to use, yet they are very rare and usually not accepted by the speakers
(Dušková, 2012). In her book describing English for professionals and academics she also explains that the accepted progressive forms of passive verbs are used in the same contexts as active form would be used (Dušková, 1971). We will get back to the frequencies of use of particular tenses used in the passive in section 4.4.2.
Foley and Hall (2008) emphasize that passive voice can be used also in formal English, very often in order to (p. 104):
- focus on the issues rather than on the people involved (this is very common in
academic and scientific English)
- describe rules and procedures
- describe commercial, industrial and scientific processes
- describe historical, economic and social processes
Biber et al. (2007) claim that passive voice might be very often used in professional writing: "In many kinds of written expository prose, especially academic journal articles, passive
37 constructions can be extremely frequent, with whole passages being written in the passive voice." (p. 476) According to Wilson and Wauson (1996), the passive is sometimes regarded as a standard also in technical writing, because (as has been already discussed) passive voice enables the writer to put more emphasis on the process or the achievement than on the performers themselves.
Ariana (2011) in her work focused on the specific problems accompanying translation of passive in economic text between two different languages. As she explains, "The scientific discourse abounds in passive construction; the emphasis is usually put on the action itself, on the person or thing that suffers from the action or on the results of the action." (p. 154) She also supplements her explanation with a list of the most frequent cases of agentless passive
(and again, her overview corresponds with the works mentioned above). For the purpose of simplicity I am leaving out the examples (p. 154):
- the agent is not important, the emphasis being on the object
- the agent is unknown
- the speaker or writer intends to make a statement impersonal
- the agent is obvious
- the agent is a long phrase
With regard to the scientific genre, however, Ariana continues clarifying that "the passive voice is especially used when there is a need to be diplomatic or want to avoid personal pronouns to create an objective tone" (p. 154), which is common in this type of text, especially in such cases where the agent is to be unknown, for whatever reason. She then reveals that in spite of today's general boosting of active voice in scientific and specialized writing (and especially in economic studies) for its greater transparency and agent-emphasis, historically it was not always so. Not so many years ago passive voice had been encouraged, because it helped to achieve a required level of objectivity in the text. According to Ariana, scientific writing today demands using passive in these situations:
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- when the focus is on events or achievements, rather than on agents (as required
especially by genres such as formal notices, instructions or descriptions of processes)
- when the agent is not to be mentioned deliberately (e.g. the issue of responsibility)
From her text it is also obvious that these contexts (especially the latter) are very often employed also by politicians. Ariana calls this "one of the most famous political uses of the passive: to hide blame or obscure responsibility". (p. 154 - 155)
3.3 Passive voice in business English
Writing advisers have been condemning the English passive since the early 20th century.
(...) The references to passive constructions in the vast body of work on English grammar,
usage, style, and writing are unremittingly negative. Passives, we are told firmly, over
and over again, should be shunned. A diverse assortment of unpleasant maladies will
afflict your work, it is claimed, if you use passives: your writing will become weak, dull,
vague, cowardly, bureaucratic, and dishonest. (Pullum, 2014, p. 1)
The previous subchapter focused on the general rules of using and avoiding passive voice and partly also on the particular requirements of scientific style. This subchapter, however, will present also several concrete recommendations provided mainly by authors of business
English textbooks.
Ariana (2011), describing the scientific style, explains that it is efficient to employ such a writing style that allows no misunderstanding. One of the possible means to such an achievement is the minimisation of the passive voice. "Although the passive voice is sometimes necessary, often it not only makes the writing dull but also can be ambiguous or overly impersonal. (...) Often passive voice is simply more awkward, less direct and less clear..." (p. 154 - 155) According to Gilling's (2013) findings, active voice is preferred, because passive voice "might suggest indifference or a lack of responsibility." (p. 10) This seems to be a generally accepted practice also in many of the current business English textbooks. As Liu and
39
Zheng (2014) write, many of the contemporary scholars advocate the use of active voice against the use of passive. The short extracts presented below support this tendency:
- Whenever possible, use active voice to let the subject perform the action. (…) Passive
voice should be used when communicating bad news. This avoids negative overtones
and personal criticism. (Michel, 2008, p. 30)
- Active verbs should be used rather than passive verbs, because usage of “to be” and
passive verbs makes sentences less energetic. Active verbs make sentences more
“active”, as the name suggests. It is more likely to convince readers that the writer
really cares and the readers can believe in him, if he uses active verbs. (Rentz, Flatley
and Lentz, 2011, adapted in Sedláčková, 2014, p. 14-15)
- In recent years, many foreign scholars and researchers advocate the use of the active
voice, make the article more concise and clear, and keep in line with the mainstream of
international academic development. (Liu and Zheng, 2014, p. 41).
- Passive writing is wordy, roundabout, and sometimes downright confusing. To avoid
this infectious disease, learn how to spot passive verbs and make them active. (United
States Air Force Academy, n.d., p. 18)
- Write passively only for good reason. (United States Air Force Academy, n.d., p. 20)
- Sentences with passive-voice verbs often create confusion, because the subject of the
sentence does not perform an action. (...) Use strong active-voice verbs in place of
forms of to be, which can lead to wordiness. Avoid passive voice when you can.
(McLean, 2011, p. 318-319)
- A sentence written in passive voice is the shifty desperado who tries to win the gunfight
by shooting the sheriff in the back, stealing his horse, and sneaking out of town. (…)
Passive writing is popular in business because it helps the writer avoid responsibility
and remain anonymous. Customers are suspicious of writing that evades responsibility.
40
Employees and managers distrust ideas that appear more vague than strong. (Roberts,
n.d., online)
- Passive Voice: Why It Is Evil and How to Recognize It. (Wheeler, n.d., online)
- Avoid passive voice: minimize the use of "to be" verbs. Use action verbs. (LeBlanc,
2001, p. 16)
- Name the performer of the action to make it easier to identify the subject and avoid
the passive voice. (Wilson and Wauson,1996, p. 52)
- Passive voice is not wrong grammatically, but it can be cumbersome, lengthy, and
vague. In most cases, the active voice is your best choice. (Bovee and Thill, 2007, p.
131)
- There was a time when many business documents were written in third person to give
them the impression of objectivity. This formal style was often passive and wordy.
Today it has given way to active, clear, concise writing, sometimes known as “Plain
English.” As business and industry increasingly trade across borders and languages,
writing techniques that obscure meaning or impede understanding can cause serious
problems. Efficient writing styles have become the norm. (McLean, 2011, p. 455)
- In general, try to use the active voice. It produces shorter, more vigorous sentences.
(Ellman 2014, p. 23)
- The passive voice liquidates and buries the active individual, along with most of the
awful truth. Our massed, scientific, and bureaucratic society is so addicted to it that
you must constantly alert yourself against its drowsy, impersonal pomp. (Baker, 1985,
as adopted in Pullum, 2014, p. 2)
However, not all authors fight the passive voice with such a drive. Although majority of businesses today use less passive in their writing (Talbot, 2009), not all business English textbooks fully reject it. On the market there are such business writing manuals which provide information in which situations it would be required or recommended to use passive voice. It
41 should be noted that the reasons correspond with the rules applied to the use of passive voice in general.
An interesting finding was pointed out by Seefer and Guffey (2008). They draw a distinction between active voice, which - according to them - is "direct and forceful", and therefore writing employing the use of active voice is "vigorous and effective"; and a passive voice, which is preferred in a situation when it is needed to avoid mentioning the doer of an action.
Writers of business and professional communications strive to use the active voice; in
fact, it is called the voice of business. (…)Because the passive voice can be used to avoid
mentioning the performer of the action (…), the passive voice is sometimes called the
voice of tact. (Seefer and Guffey, 2008, p. 152 - 153)
They conclude that directness achieved by the use of active voice is today generally preferred and passive voice might be desired in situations requiring tact and indirectness. In the table below this attitude is provided also by Bovee and Thill (2007), with example sentences included. He claims that when used in general situations, passive voice may make a dull impression, but when used appropriately, it helps avoid "accusatory and self-congratulatory" expressions:
In general, avoid passive voice in order to make your writing lively and direct.
Lively and direct in active voice Dull and indirect in passive voice
The new procedure was developed by the The operations team developed the new operations team. procedure.
Legal problems are created by this contract. This contract creates legal problems.
Reception preparations have been undertaken by Our PR people have begun planning a reception our PR people for the new CEO’s arrival. for the new CEO.
However, passive voice is helpful when you need to be diplomatic or want to focus attention on
problems or solutions rather than on people.
42
Accusatory or self-congratulatory in active voice More diplomatic in passive voice
You lost the shipment. The shipment was lost.
I recruited seven engineers last month. Seven engineers were recruited last month.
We are investing the high rate of failures on the The high rate of failures on the final assembly line final assembly line. is being investigated.
Table 4: Active and passive voice (Bovee and Thill, 2007)
The same approach is then applied by Míčková (2007), who argues that use of passive contributes to the overall objective tone of the writing, and helps avoid repetition of the subject or identification of the performer (due to responsibility issues or because they are unimportant, obvious or known from the context). She concludes, however, that "in general memorandums and reports formal passive constructions still preserve". (p. 8)
According to Quirk and Crystal (1985), as quoted in Liu and Zheng (2014), the passive voice occurs ten times more often in scientific writing than in general language. Dumin (2010) argues that the problem with passive voice is that the main idea might not be clear to the reader at the first sight, or might be hard to follow, which can cause difficulties in the decision making process. Cortes (2007) provides another point of view, discussing that creation of passive is one of the most basic concepts used in economic and business writings, and it is also used as a means of communicative politeness (together with modal verbs and conditionals). Cortes explains that by the use of passive voice it is possible to mitigate threatening acts. Stankov
(2013) on the other hand concludes that using active voice is more polite, because it is more direct and the writer then sounds more self-confident; regarding the formality, however, using passive voice is more suitable.
Wilson and Wauson (1996) provide another simple rule to help distinguish where to use active and where passive voice: "Use the active voice to describe what a reader should do, and use the passive voice to describe actions being performed." (p. 11) Bovee and Thill (2007) advise to use passives when communicating bad news, to sideline the performer or to make the text
43 give an impersonal impression. I like especially the advice given by McLean (2011) stating that the choice often depends on the experience of the writer and the situation:
Overall, business communication resources tend to recommend active voice as the
preferred style. Still, the styles themselves are not the problem or challenge, but it is
how we use them that matters. A skilled business writer will see both styles as options
within a range of choices and learn to distinguish when each style is most appropriate
to facilitate communication. (McLean, 2011, p. 45)
In the handbook titled Writing in English: A Practical Handbook for Scientific and Technical
Writers (European Commission, n.d.) we can find an overview of most widely used passive tenses in scientific and technical writing, together with tips for their use (p. 61):
- present passive - is used when describing a process or procedure or when making
general statements of fact
- past passive - is used when reporting a particular procedure concerned with only one
situation in the past
- present perfect passive - is used in the introduction, when referring to things related
to what has happened, or has been said, recently.
- passive with modals - is used commonly in technical and scientific writing
To contribute to this point, it would be convenient to once again mention Palmer (1988), who found that "(passive) is rare with the progressive than with the perfect or the modals (and this may account for the near-impossibility of the passive perfect progressive)." (p. 87)
To conclude this sub-chapter dealing with the question whether or not to use the passive voice in business text, and if yes, under what condition or bringing what consequences, I would like to mention one of the conclusions reached by Vogel (2011):
Despite the expected high frequency of occurrence of the passive voice in formal
documents, the active voice truly dominates, as the agentive subject of sentences is
44 frequently the company, the Group, the Board, and many abstract nouns denoting economic and financial indicators and other business concepts, such as sales, profit, portfolio, strategy, goal, aim, acquisition, competition, consolidation, etc. The obvious expression of roles in the act of predication is preferred to impersonality normally achieved by passivisation. (Vogel, 2011, p.3)
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4 Analysis
The preceding chapters were concerned with the theoretical base of understanding business
English, passive voice and their intersection. Main features and characteristics of business
English have been discussed, as well as the context in which this variety is used and how the context affects the form of the language. Now it is clear how four types of passive voice are created, when to use them and how passive voice may affect the overall style of the text, both in general and specialized discourse. In this chapter I would like to present the results of the analysis carried out on a business English text, more specifically on the form of annual reports.
4.1 Annual reports
First it is necessary to define the position of annual reports within the field of business English and to explain some of its main characteristics. To start with a definition, we can understand annual reports in the way Vogel (2001) described this genre in his analysis:
"Company annual reports may be considered as a separate genre of the occupational
variety identifiable as the language of business or, more broadly, the language of
business and administration, and in the relation to the English language as Business
English. They consist of several individual types of text with their own specific purposes
and conventions; however, these all display the characteristic features of the variety.
(Vogel, 2001, 1)
Vogel then continues explaining the purpose of an annual report. The main purpose of the document is to provide objective information regarding the field of activity and products, plans for future and assessment of past periods. However, the report is at the same time performing other functions, such as building company's name (self-promotion), assertion and persuasion.
The readers of such reports are the company's partners, such as shareholders and investors, but also its competitors, staff, financial analysts and others.
46
Another definition of annual report and its recipients was provided by Šutariková (2013):
An annual report is a comprehensive body of text providing mainly information about
company's activities, its financial situation, future expectations, and information on
company's management. However, it can be also perceived as means of company's
communication with its stakeholders. (Šutariková, 2013, p. 6)
Šutariková adds that the reason companies pay such an attention to the preparation of these reports is that they can be also used as a marketing tool. According to A guide to understanding annual reports (2014), the main purpose of such an annual report is to help shareholders (both the present and potential) and other capital providers to decide about the allocation of their (financial) sources. It includes information about the company, its strategy and activities.
Regarding the content, annual reports can be (generally speaking) divided into two sections - tabular and non-tabular (Vogel, 2001). Non-tabular sections offer information about business achievements, try to make a good impression on the reader and to encourage loyalty. Tabular sections, on the other hand, aim to provide objective information "in a clear, accurate, explicit and concise manner. Therefore, more vagueness, lexical and semantic variety occur in non- tabular parts of annual reports, compared with explicit and stylistically austere tabular sections. (p. 1)
Annual reports have a (more or less) standardized structure:
Corporate benefactors (...) expect to find information in a certain order within the
document. This makes it easier for you to organize the information for your annual
report. However, this also challenges you to make the text concise, conveying
important information in few words. Pictures, which create visual interest, must be
selected carefully to deliver the impact you want. (The Enterprise Foundation, 1999, p.
3)
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Generally accepted structure of an annual report includes four main parts, including the director's report, the corporate governance report, the financial report and the auditor's report. (CPA Australia, 2014)
The content of annual reports also affects the style of the text. Since the main purpose is to provide objective information, formal style (i.e. impersonal and objective tone) is recommended as accurate. However, "since the referential function is not the only consideration in this genre, personality also occurs in its specific subgenres which are either written from an individual´s perspective or address the readers." (Vogel, 2009, p.3) Vogel also continues that based on his own research there is a variety of tenses used, mostly present, past, future and present perfect tense. He also confirms, that LeBlanc's (2001) recommendation not to mix tenses within paragraphs is observed also in annual reports. Vogel provides the summary of his findings regarding the use of particular tenses and their role within an annual report. He concludes that their functions in business communications correspond with their usual grammatical functions (p. 3):
- the present simple tense refers to current states and descriptions of the company´s
policies, methods, market situation, etc.
- the past simple tense refers to past actions (performed in the preceding year)
- the present perfect tense refers to unfinished actions or states
- the future simple tense reports on anticipated development and plans
Vogel also found out that the verbs used in annual reports seem to show signs of repetitiveness.
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4.2 Objectives
In my analysis I focused on the description of the use of passive voice in business English, particularly in annual reports. I wanted to assess the use of passive voice in annual reports based on two different criteria - the origin of the company and the sector in which it operates.
Therefore the main questions to be answered were:
• Does the passive voice show different characteristics in annual reports created by
companies settled in UK from the annual reports created by companies settled in
American countries? (I.e. is there any difference between annual reports written in
British and American English?)
• Does the passive voice show different characteristics in annual reports created by
companies operating in different fields?
To find this out, I created a set of comparative criteria based on previous researches regarding annual reports and business English in general. The criteria were as follows:
• frequency of passives used in the text
• frequency of modal verbs used in the text
• frequency of phrasal verbs used in the text
• frequency of tenses used in the text
• variability of verbs used in the text
• frequency of negative forms used in the text
4.3 Data
I have chosen on-line freely accessible annual reports of the required characteristics to serve the purpose of the analysis. The selected reports are of comparable lengths, written between years 2008 - 2015 and with strong non-tabular sections, which provide sufficient amounts of texts and include more styles. To create a representative set of data which would provide
49 enough information to answer the two basic research questions, I have used the following annual reports (listed below in the alphabetical order):
Company: Altria Group, Inc.
Activity: Tobacco (manufacture and sale of machine-made large cigars)
Text: 2014 Annual Report
Location: Richmond, US
Company: Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P.
Activity: Publisher (print and digital teaching and learning solutions)
Text: Annual Report 2012
Location: Stamford, US
Company: Ford Motor Company
Activity: Automotive (sales of vehicles, parts and accessories)
Text: 2013 Annual Report
Location: Dearborn, US
Company: Imperial Tobacco Group PLC
Activity: Tobacco (cigarettes, fine cut and smokeless tobaccos, papers and cigars)
Text: Annual Report and Accounts 2015
Location: Bristol, UK
Company: J Sainsbury plc
Activity: Grocery (retail food chain)
Text: Annual Report and Financial Statements 2011
Location: London, UK
50
Company: Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc.
Activity: Automotive
Text: Annual Report 2013 - 2014
Location: Whitley, UK
Company: Oxford University Press
University of Oxford
Activity: Publishers (academic publishing)
Text: Annual Report of the Delegates of the University Press 2014/15
Financial Statements 2013/14
Location: Oxford, UK
Company: SuperValu Inc.
Activity: Grocery (retail food, supply chain services)
Text: Annual Report: Fiscal 2008
Location: Minneapolis, US
Company: Universal Electronics Inc.
Activity: Electronics (control technology solutions, manufactures remote control
products)
Text: 2014 Annual Report
Location: Santa Ana, US
Company: TT Electronics plc
Activity: Electronics (electronic components)
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Text: Annual Report and Accounts 2014
Location: Surrey, UK
Below is an overview of how the reports were categorized for the purpose of the analysis:
Activity UK US
Automotive Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc. Ford Motor Company
Electronics TT Electronics plc Universal Electronics Inc.
Food sales J Sainsbury plc SuperValu Inc.
Oxford University Press Publishers Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P. (+ Oxford University)
Tobacco Imperial Tobacco Group PLC Altria Group, Inc.
Table 5: Categorisation of annual reports
To represent UK publishing I actually used two texts since the annual report relating to Oxford
University Press did not provide a sufficient quantity of verbal expressions. The report of
Oxford University could be used, because it partly also refers to the Oxford University Press.
The total corpus comprised of more than 18.300 verbs. The balanced ratio of UK texts to US texts is represented in the graph below:
Chart 1: Representation of countries
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The UK companies are represented by the share of 49,7% of verbs, 50,3% of all verbs represent the US businesses. The representations of particular industries were around 20% in order to achieve a representative set of data:
Chart 2: Representation of industries
Also the individual businesses were represented evenly in the data set:
Chart 3: Representation of companies
The results of the analysis are presented in the following section.
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4.4 Results
This chapter provides an overview of the findings of the analysis performed on the previously introduced set of annual reports. Subchapter 4.4.1 introduces different types of texts which occurred in the reports. The following parts (subchapters 4.4.2 - 4.4.5) then present and explain quantified results of a four-level comparison of the data, based on the selected criteria and with regard to the groups of reports compared. The findings are represented by graphs with the related frequencies being presented in the Appendix section. The complete set of the data can be found on the enclosed CD. The graphs in the following sections correspond to this colour pattern:
Data relating to the frequency of passive voice Data relating to the frequency of negative form Data relating to the frequency of phrasal verbs Data relating to the frequency of modal verbs Data relating to the frequency of infinitives Data relating to the frequency of tenses Data relating to the frequency of verbs Data relating to the data distribution (mentioned above)
The comparison was performed at four levels to correspond to the objectives set previously in section 4.2:
• Comparison of active and passive voice
• Comparison of UK and US texts (i.e. comparison between countries)
• Comparison of automotive, electronics, groceries, publishers and tobacco texts (i.e.
comparison among fields of activity)
• Comparison of UK and US text within the individual fields (i.e. comparison of countries
within industries)
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4.4.1 General overview
In this section I provide general findings such as the frequency of passive voice, negative form etc. throughout the complete dataset. The results provided here are therefore not exclusively related to any company, industry or country, but they might be regarded as representative of the whole genre of business English.
Chart 4: Overall frequency of passive voice
The comparison of active and passive verb frequencies in the complete dataset has shown that in more than 82% cases the verb was in active voice, whereas passive voice was used in less than 18% cases. This may be explained by the tendency to reduce the use of passive voice as was previously explained in chapter 3.3. It may bring us to the conclusion that active voice indeed has the lead in business English nowadays, and that all the recommendations regarding the use of passive presented in section 3.3 are obeyed by the authors of the annual reports.
We could easily conclude that by omitting the passive the authors probably try to make the text more lively, personal and close to the readers. However, 18% is still quite a share to believe that the passive is used where it is actually needed and not definitely omitted. At this point I would like to again refer to McLean (2011) who concludes that active voice should be preferred, but passive might be still considered as an opportunity and should not be
55 condemned completely, and that the use of passive voice depends on the skills and experience of the writer and the preferences of the field and the company. To demonstrate the use of active and passive voice I include also examples taken directly from the analysed reports:
Active: "We now have 21 million customer transactions a week and have a market share of
over 16 per cent. Our large stores offer around 30,000 products and we offer
complementary non-food products and services in many of our stores." (J Sainsbury
plc, 2011, p. 3)
Passive: "Individual markets are generally defined by country, each with unique customer
needs, distribution channels and sales strategies." (Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P.,
2013, p. 8)
To put it simply, the use of active and passive corresponds to their functions as they were discussed in chapter 3. Passive voice is used mostly where the doer of the action is obvious, does not have to be necessarily known or is not as important as the other part of the information provided. Active voice is, generally speaking, used in the reports in the parts describing activities that will be, are being, or were performed by the company, by its employees, partners, shareholders, competitors or other entities which are somehow connected to the company's function.
The use of negative forms of verb has been also discussed in the previous chapter. We have seen that the general recommendation for business English is to prefer the positive form when communicating or creating a written text. This tendency can be well supported by the data:
56
Chart 5: Overall frequency of negative form
Whereas 97,5% of verbs used in the text were in positive form, only a little share of 2,5% relates to the use of negative form. This tendency was explained previously by Pilátová (2012) as an attempt to make the text more understandable (because the use of negative form may sometimes confuse the readers or listeners, even the native ones), and also that the use of negative in English is generally tied by complicated rules. In addition to this, I also believe that the use of positive form in this case might have other reasons which are more pragmatic. If we consider the purpose of the annual report (to convince the audience about the qualities, strengths and achievements of a particular business), by using a negative form, presenting some negative information to the reader, the immaculate picture of the company in the eyes of the reader might be slightly (indirectly, but still) threatened. As we will see later, this problem is also closely related to the type of verbs that are mostly used in business reports
(i.e. verbs such as continue, provide, increase or support, that means verbs expressing activities that might be regarded as positive in business). I would say that given the character of the information that is to be provided in a business report, the reason for the use of positive forms of verbs comes right from its core.
57
With regard to the analysed reports, other purpose to include negative statements is to express and explicitly state a certain obligation which, however, is not required. By using these expressions the company releases itself from potential unsupported expectations. Below I demonstrate how the negatives are used in both active and passive sentences:
Active: It is not possible for management to predict or assess the impact of all factors on the
business, or the extent they may cause actual results to differ materially from those
contained in any forward-looking statements." (Universal Electronics Inc., 2014, p.
18)
Passive: "We are not obligated to update forward-looking statements to reflect unanticipated
events or circumstances occurring after the date the statement was made."
(Universal Electronics Inc., 2014, p. 18)
Chart 6: Overall frequency of phrasal verbs
With regard to phrasal verbs, the analysis revealed that their use is rather limited. As we have already seen, Boháčová (2011) concluded that phrasal verbs in business English are not that scarce, adding that they occur in both spoken in written business English, they still have the hallmark of informality and also that they can be found in the formal texts. The graph above shows that this might be partly true, but the statement of McClean (2011) would be probably
58 more accurate. He says that the use of phrasal verbs (in official formal statements) should be reduced because they might be challenging for non-native speakers. The most frequently used phrasal verbs include set out and carry out. The phrasal verbs used in the set of reports does not show any significant variability:
Set out: "Biographies of the Directors currently serving on the Board are set out on
pages 94 and 95." (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc., 2014, p. 46)
Carry out: "The Committee carried out an assessment of its performance in 2014 based
on a review of its activities during the year against its terms of reference." (TT
Electronics plc., 2015, p. 32)
Regarding the use of modal verbs in the analysed texts I am going to provide two graphs below to demonstrate the situation and to make the situation comprehensible. All the modal verbs represented in the graphs are used in the texts with different frequencies. The first graph represents the shares of particular modal verbs in the complete set of verbs, i.e. it includes the non-modal expressions, too. Therefore we can see that 89,5% of the complete set are verbs which are not used with modals, and at the same time we know that only 10,5% of the verbs are. This share is then distributed among concrete modal verbs, with the modal may being the most frequently used one, followed by will, could and can.
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Chart 7: Overall frequency of modal verbs (all verbs included)
Using this segmentation, however, the shares of particular modal verbs seem to be insignificant, therefore I include also a different version of the same graph, representing the shares of individual modal verbs only analysing expressions with modal verbs. That means non- modal expressions are not included in this graph. Here the shares become more obvious:
Chart 8: Overall frequency of modal verbs
May is the most frequently used modal, followed by will, could, can and should. Other modal verbs, such as must, might, shall and ought are very rare. These proportions are obvious from
60 the graph. In order to understand the reason, we have to refer back to chapter 2.6.1.
According to Bilíková (2010) and Stankov (2013), modal verbs might be used in business
English to achieve formality and politeness. With regard to McLean (2011) who provides a list of modal verbs used in business with meanings (as discussed in section 2.6.1), may expresses uncertain future, will planned actions, can and could represent present, past or future ability or possibility. This would prove that the high occurrence of these modal verbs is mostly due to their use in the report sections relating to assessing future risks in business, making plans for the next period and describing future opportunities and past chances that were taken. Below I provide a brief excursion into the types of the text - I hope these examples will make the use of modals in annual reports more clear:
May: "However, the unused portion of these commitments may be terminated if the
performance of the underlying assets deteriorates beyond specified levels." (Ford
Motor Company, 2013, p. 122)
Will: "During 2014/15, risk management processes and risk reporting will be further
strengthened and the University’s risk appetite will be reviewed." (Oxford University
Press, 2015, p. 27)
Can: "With this background, we believe that significant further value for shareholders can
be created in the years ahead by investing further in the business..." (J Sainsbury plc,
2011, p. 4)
Could: "As a result, we are increasingly exposed to the challenges and risks of doing business
outside the United States, which could reduce our revenues or profits, increase our
costs, result in significant liabilities or sanctions, or otherwise disrupt our business."
(Universal Electronics Inc., 2014, p. 28)
Before we move to the frequencies of used tenses, I would like to briefly mention also the use of infinitives. Although I did not find any specific mention on the use of infinitive phrases in business language in the literature, I believe its share is not insignificant:
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Chart 9: Overall frequency of infinitives
During my analysis I found out that the infinitives are used mostly to describe some purpose or target of an action. Such verbs as develop, create, help, grow, improve, reduce, analyze, avoid or support might serve for examples. This proportion of 20,4% includes both bare and full forms of infinitive and it is used where it is necessary to set the desired results or targets of an activity:
"We intend to help institutions meet their educational objectives by continuing to
provide academic services." (Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P., 2013, p. 10)
Given the fact that there are 20,4% of infinitive verbs, the balance of the set can be classified on the basis of tenses used. (The only exclusion is the small share of verbs in imperative, which mostly include verbs such as see or refer, directing the reader to other section of the text or to a different document in order to provide more information.)
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Chart 10: Overall frequency of tenses (infinitives and imperatives included)
The findings support the results of an analysis carried out by Vogel (2011). The most frequently used tenses in business English are indeed the present simple, past simple, then present perfect simple and future simple. Other tenses are used very rarely or are not used at all (for example such tenses as past perfect continuous and future perfect continuous; future perfect simple was used only once). Generally speaking, the continuous tenses tend to be omitted in the written formal business genre. The only continuous tense used worth mentioning is the present continuous.
It is surprising however, that present simple is used in almost 52% of all the cases. With the following chart, demonstrating only such verbs where it was possible to determine the used tense, the differences are even more striking:
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Chart 11: Overall frequency of tenses
We have already discussed the uses of individual tenses in the section 2.6.3. If we refer back to
Wilson and Wauson (1996) and their description of particular tense functions, we will inevitably come to a conclusion that business reports mostly describe current facts when using present simple (e.g. describing the situation on the market or position of competitors) and repeated actions (such as continuous efforts to improve efficiency). Past simple refer to past actions, which also have their place in business reports in the sections evaluating past activities and achievements and assessing gains. Present perfect simple serves to describe unfinished actions, or actions directly related to the present. These are examples of the situations in which the above discussed tenses can be used:
Pr S: “While our core businesses remain strong and lead the industry, this is a dynamic
time for the U.S. tobacco industry.” (Altria Group Inc., 2015, p. 3)
Pa S: “The 31 March 2014 cash position was a very healthy £3.5 billion, and total liquidity
was £4.8 billion.” (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc., 2014,, p. 72)
Pr P S: “Over the past nine centuries, the University has developed an international
reputation for the excellent standard of its teaching and research, and for the
dissemination of learning.” (University of Oxford, 2014, p. 3)
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F S: “This programme will create interlinked global lexical resources for 100 languages to
inspire communities to create, link, and publish free language-related online
resources.” (Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 10)
Pr C: “To support these product launches we are continuing with our largest
manufacturing expansion in the last 50 years.” (Ford Motor Company, 2013, p. 4)
To finish this general overview and before starting to compare individual report groups, I would like to also mention the most commonly used verbs in business English. I have already mentioned in the previous chapters that English has a specific range of vocabulary (or expressions) related to its particular field. Having this dataset of business verbs is an opportune time to find out.
Chart 12: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%)
In the chart above includes only verbs with frequency equal to or more than 1%. There is a high variability in the dataset - in total 992 different verbs used, but only 11 of them are positioned within this frequency range. Furthermore, these 11 verbs together represent 30,7% of the whole dataset. The most used verb in business English seems to be the verb to be (with the frequency 13,3%), rather distantly followed by to have. These two verbs do not carry any special marking of style, as well as to make, for example. However, the other verbs in the line
65 represented in the graph seem to be more business-related and more typical of formal written genres. Below I provide examples of some of these most used verbs:
To be: “This is SUPERVALU’s pledge to shareholders, and we’re working on it every day.”
(SuperValu Inc., 2009, p. 2)
To have: “The quota buy-out and the expiration of the quota buy-out did not have a
material impact on Altria Group, Inc.’s 2014 consolidated results.” (Altria Group
Inc., 2015, p. 3)
To make: “All this is possible through the commitment of our colleagues so we make
Sainsbury’s a great place to work.” (J Sainsbury plc, 2011, p. 2)
To include: “The underlying operating profit performance included circa £4 million of profit
from the one-off order referred to above and circa £1 million of profit from non-
recurring orders related to the Smithfield, USA facility closure.” (TT Electronics
plc., 2015, p. 8)
To continue: “In the process, UEI continues to earn its status as the innovative leader with
the largest and most comprehensive intellectual property portfolio in the
industry.” (Universal Electronics Inc., 2014, p. 7)
To provide: “Non-GAAP measures provide a useful comparison of performance from one
period to the next.” (Imperial Tobacco Group PLC, 2016, p. 1)
To increase: “As a result, revenue increased by 23% to £19.4 billion and EBITDA by 45% to
£3.4 billion, representing an EBITDA margin of 17.5%.” (Jaguar Land Rover
Automotive Plc., 2014, p. 11)
4.4.2 Comparison: Active vs. passive
This section is dedicated to another comparison based on the previously introduced criteria.
This time I compared active and passive voice. Although these particular findings are not directly related to the research questions, they are important as well, because they provide
66 information relating to the passive voice in business English as such, to which we will be able to relate our findings later.
Chart 13: Negative form: Active vs. passive
Regarding the use of negative form, its occurrence is very low, as was already in general terms explained and shown in the previous section. However, we can see that negative forms are slightly more frequent in passive voice. Negative sentences mean that something was, is or will not be, happen, etc. Again with reference back to the chapter dealing with passive voice and its meanings, putting such a negative sentence into a passive voice might be related to the feeling that it is not appropriate or necessary to mention the responsible person or institution.
Such expressions as will not be realised, should not be relied upon or was not performed are often presented without the originator. Furthermore, as already mentioned in section 4.4.1, the use of negative in business reports is often related to a denial of some obligation or expectation:
Active: “We cannot predict whether new investigations may be commenced or the outcome
of such investigations, and it is possible that our business could be materially
adversely affected by an unfavourable outcome of future investigations.” (Altria
Group Inc., 2015, p. 8)
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Passive: “Assets leased under operating leases are not recorded on the balance sheet.” (J
Sainsbury plc, 2011, p. 58)
Another issue to discuss is the use of phrasal verbs. Again, there are no extreme differences in the use of phrasal verbs between active and passive voice:
Chart 14: Phrasal verbs: Active vs. passive
Nevertheless, under a closer examination it seems that phrasal verbs tend to be more frequently used in the passive voice. The most frequently used phrasal verb in the passive voice is set out (in such expressions as is set out, are set out, will be set out). This phrasal verb is the most used verb in my dataset, but in active voice it occurs much less. There might be two possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, it might be an unwritten rule or generally accepted norm to express this type of activity or to link this phrasal verb with passive voice.
Secondly, it may relate to the type of information (i.e. what actually is being set out), and whether it is really necessary in this case to name the doer of the action. This verb occurs in most cases with reference to other parts of the text, providing more required information.
Active: “The Committee carried out an assessment of its performance in 2014 based on a
review of its activities during the year against its terms of reference.” (TT Electronics
plc., 2015, p. 32)
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Passive: "Financial risk management objectives and policies are set out under Financial risk
management on pages 79 to 84." (TT Electronics plc., 2015, p. 31).
Also the modal verbs used in the passive voice show a little deviation from modals used in the active. Sentences created in passive voice generally tend to use less modal verbs than sentences written in active voice.
Chart 15: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Active vs. passive
Whereas in the active voice there are 90% of sentences created without the use of modal verbs, in passive voice it is "mere" 86,9%. I use quotation marks here, because although the number is lower, it is still a remarkable frequency. Previously we have learned that modals are often used with the passive to achieve formality and also in scientific and technical writing. In order to achieve greater transparency, I again include another chart representing the distribution of particular modal verb only within the limited set of expressions combined with modals:
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Chart 16: Modal verbs: Active vs. passive
Here the distribution is more obvious. We can clearly see the differences in the use of modal verbs between active and passive voice. Whereas in the active the authors tend to use modals such as may, could or would more than in the passive, in the passive can, will or should are used more often. To find the reason we should probably focus on the specific types of texts or sentences in which these modal verbs are used. May in active very often bonds with the verbs such as to affect, to be, to cause, to have or to experience. Could is often used together with to affect, to be, to cause, to impact, to have and to result. Would in active is very common with to be, to have, to impact or to increase:
May: "Increased accessibility of free or relatively inexpensive information and materials
may reduce demand for or negatively impact the pricing of our products and
services." (Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P., 2013, p. 12)
Could: "The Company’s inability to open and remodel a significant number of stores as
planned could have an adverse effect on the Company’s financial condition and
results of operations." (SuperValu Inc., 2009, p. 9)
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Would: "Our tobacco subsidiaries may not succeed in these efforts, which would have an
adverse effect on the ability to grow new revenue streams." (Altria Group Inc., 2015,
p.7)
What we can see from these examples is that their function (when used in active) is very often to evaluate and explain possible situations; usually risks and their consequences. (This is not to conclude, however, that in the passive these modals do not have such functions.)
In the passive, can is often used together with to affect, to estimate or to find. Will is often bond with verbs such as to realize, to recognize or to require. And should can be found very often near of verbs to consider or to read.
Can: "This, in turn, is one of the key ways in which shareholder value can be further
created and strengthened." (J Sainsbury plc, 2011, p. 39)
Will: "The £1 million Vice-Chancellor’s Diversity Fund announced at the start of the year
will be targeted in the first instance at initiatives in support of progress on gender
equality." (University of Oxford, 2014, p. 11)
Should: "Since it not possible to foresee all such factors, these factors should not be
considered as complete or exhaustive." (SuperValu Inc., 2009, p. 35)
These modal verbs are used in the texts with regard to their general functions, i.e. can is used to refer to some possibility (compared to may it relates to both risks and opportunities), will is used when referring to some future actions (very often goals or plans explicitly stated), and should signifies some kind of recommendation (either in positive or negative form).
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Chart 17: Infinitives: Active vs. passive
From the graph above we can spot another difference between active and passive - the difference in frequencies of infinitive form. Its occurrence in active is by almost 20% higher than in passive. I reckon this might be due to the fact I already mentioned in the previous section - i.e. that the infinitive is very often used to represent a target of some action, and as such is more often stated with its originator. With the passive voice infinitive might be representing some target or objective for which the originator need not to be explicitly stated or is already evident (an example sentence could be we have new goals to be achieved).
Active: "Working with the Foundation, we help communities understand child labour issues
and seek better access to education and health services for children." (Imperial
Tobacco Group PLC, 2016, p. 22)
Passive: "The majority of the operational investments were directed to Solihull in preparation
of the first Jaguar model to be produced there." (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc.,
2014, p. 11)
The frequency of infinitives is presented also in the following graph, together with imperatives and expressions marked for tense. The frequencies of infinitives correspond to the previous chart. Imperatives are of course used only in the active voice. As in the general overview, the
72 most commonly used tenses are present simple, past simple, present perfect simple and future simple. Other tenses might be considered as insignificant.
Chart 18: Tenses (infinitives and imperatives included): Active vs. passive
The differences between the use of both past simple and present perfect simple in active and passive are not as extreme. What is interesting, however, is the situation with present simple tense, where there is a difference in frequencies more than 18%. Nevertheless, it seems that the lesser use of present simple in active seems to be balanced by higher use of infinitives. This shows that within the passive voice the use of tenses tends to be less variable, given the fact that more of 67% if passive expressions are performed using present simple, more than 4% are infinitives and only the balance (approx. 30% of all passive expressions) are scattered among the rest of the tenses. To provide an indication of how present simple is used in both active and passive sentences, I have chosen these two examples:
Active: "UEI’s QuickSet® software and cloud services enable intelligent setup in home
entertainment devices that require no setup and deliver one-touch control." (Universal
Electronics Inc., 2014, p. 5)
Passive: "Overall, we are committed to delivering our customers experiences they will love for
life." (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc., 2014, p. 11)
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In the next step I analysed the mostly used verbs in passive and active voice. The graphs below again present only the verbs with the frequency higher or equal to 1%. In the active there are
11 different verbs, with the verb to be being the most remarkable. This may relate to the descriptive character of the business report genre. The same descriptive character might be ascribed also the verbs on the second and third positions, to have and to include. By these verbs the authors describe the situations, possessions, etc. The remaining verbs in the graph may be regarded as rather activity-focused than descriptive, related to the activities performed by the company.
Chart 19: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Active
The examples of these verbs might be as follows:
To include: "Services include pre-repair calls, post-install surveys, and inbound calls for cable
customers to provide greater bottom-line efficiencies." (Universal Electronics
Inc., 2014, p. 20)
To continue: "Jaguar Land Rover will continue its efforts to improve its fuel consumption and
reduce emissions to meet the needs of its customers and deliver on its
legislative obligations." (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc., 2014, p. 42)
To provide: "This letter highlights our progress in fiscal 2008 and provides an update on our
key business initiatives." (SuperValu Inc., 2009, p. 1a)
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To increase: "Jaguar Land Rover will increase its use of lightweight technologies, as well as
engine downsizing and hybridisation." (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc.,
2014, p. 42)
With passive the situation is different. Although the verb to incorporate is undoubtedly in the leading position, the difference against the other frequencies is not so striking. The graph below represents the verbs, which are in most cases used in the passive. It tells something about the way situations and processes are most often affected in business English:
Chart 20: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Passive
The examples of the most used verbs in passive might are the following:
To incorporate: "Companies are located and incorporated in the UK except where indicated."
(TT Electronics plc., 2015, p. 95)
To require:"We presently believe that a valuation allowance of $1.6 billion is required,
primarily for deferred tax assets related to our South America operations." (Ford Motor
Company, 2013, p. 56)
To include:"The proposed final dividend was recommended by the Board on 10 May 2011
and, as such, has not been included as a liability as at 19 March 2011." (J Sainsbury
plc, 2011, p. 21)
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To recognize: "Payments received in advance of revenue recognition are deferred and
recorded in other accrued liabilities until revenue is recognized." (Altria Group Inc.,
2015, p. 15)
The fact that in active voice there are 11 different verbs used with the frequency more or equal to 1%, whereas in the passive there are 16 different verbs, leads us to a conclusion that in the passive voice there might be higher variability of verbs. If we take the overall number of verbal expressions in active voice and divide it by the number of the particular verbs used, we will reach a variability of 5,8%. If we do the same with the passive voice, however, the result will be 15,5%. From this we can draw a conclusion that passive voice uses more different verbs in the complete set of verbal expressions and therefore shows more variability.
Voice Count Verbs Variability Active 15146 884 5,8% Passive 3198 497 15,5%
Table 6: Variability: Active vs. passive
4.4.3 Comparison: Countries
In this section I would like to present the results of comparison between the texts of different origin. The complete set of texts included five UK annual reports and five US annual reports. In this subchapter I present the results of the analysis of the passive verbs, evaluated with regard to the selected criteria.
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Chart 21: Passive voice: British vs. American
The very first graph introducing this comparison represents the share of passive and active voice in UK and US texts. Surprisingly, based on the data from annual reports, the frequency of passive shares the same proportion - exactly 17,4% - for both US and UK reports. We can therefore conclude that there is no significant difference.
Chart 22: Negative form: British vs. American
Regarding the use of negative form in passive, however, there is a difference, apparent from the frequencies. As you can see in the graph above, the US authors (or, more precisely, the authors of US texts) tend to use negative form more than British authors. This might lead us to
77 a conclusion that - supposing that the tendency to reduce the use of negative form is an unwritten norm for business English - US authors may be more liberal in this sense.
Furthermore, negative expressions very often serve to explain some exemption from an obligation or responsibility. With this in mind we can conclude that in the American texts it is more necessary to explicitly state what activities a company is not required to perform.
Chart 23: Phrasal verbs: British vs. American
Based on the analysis performed, only 2,5% of passive verbs used in the British reports were phrasal, and in American texts only 0,2%. Based on these results, and with regard to the possible consequences of the use of passive verbs in the administrative style (as has already been mentioned in the previous sections), passive verbs might be reduced in the reports in order not to confuse non-native speakers and make the text more accessible and easy to understand. With a difference of only 2,3% between British and American texts, however, this tendency should not be overestimated.
The two graphs below represent the results I achieved by the comparison of British and
American reports with regard to the modal verbs used. The first of these two graphs includes the whole set of verbs and apart from proportions of individual modal verbs it shows also the overall percentage of verbs used without modals. From this comparison we can make a
78 conclusion that the Americans tend to use modals with passive verbs more often than the
British authors, exactly by 7,5%:
Chart 24: Modal verbs: British vs. American (all verbs included)
To understand why, I created another graph including only uses of modal verbs. From this image we can easily recognise by which modals this difference is made:
Chart 25: Modal verbs: British vs. American
Whereas British tend to use more modals such as can, should and will, in the US texts I found more cases of could, would and mainly may. The results in the use of may in passive between
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UK and US texts are the most striking. This is probably due to the use of his particular modal especially in parts relating to the possible risks which may affect the business. It seems that the expressions referring to these risks are rather fixed in US texts; the sentences created for this purposes have very often a repetitive character.
Chart 26: Infinitives: British vs. American
With infinitives the situation is similar as with phrasal verbs. If we focus on the use if infinitive in passive voice and compare UK and US texts, we find out that there is a slight difference between the way British and American authors use infinitives in passive in their texts. The 5% share of verbs was in an infinitive form in American reports, and mere 3,7% in the British texts.
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Chart 27: Tenses (infinitives included): British vs. American
The analysis also proved that the distribution of tenses corresponds to the general overview at the section 4.4.1., with the present simple, past simple and present perfect simple being the most used of them. Nevertheless, we can spot some differences in the ways how British and
American authors use different tenses in their reports. When I compared the uses of present simple, for example, I found out that this tense is used much more by American companies than by British ones (there is a difference of 15%). However, UK texts show higher frequency of past simple and present perfect simple. The portions of future simple are more or less the same with both categories. To me this might mean that the British authors try to bring more variability into their texts (i.e. they more often use a different tense than just present simple).
The American authors, on the other hand, aim to keep a unified style regarding the use of tenses (i.e. using the present simple whenever it is possible).
It would be useless to discuss the use of imperative in the passive voice. Therefore I did not include this information here and in the following graphs.
Within this country-to-country comparison I also focused on the verbs themselves. This comparison shows an interesting difference. The most often used verbs in British texts do not correspond at all with the mostly used verbs in American texts. In the two graphs below I included the verbs which occurred in the texts with a frequency higher or equal to 1%. The first
81 graph is relating to the UK texts, the other to US reports. From the first graph we can easily read that the most common verbs in passive used in British texts include set, appoint, commit or include.
Chart 28: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): British
On the other hand, mostly used verbs in passive in the American texts involve incorporate, require, affect or base.
Chart 29: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): American
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At this point I should comment on the frequency of the verb incorporate. The great difference between the uses of this verb and other verbs is mainly affected by a high occurrence in one of the reports. This fact influences the final distribution of the verbs in this comparison. However, if we focus on the other verbs included in the graph and compare them with the verbs used in the UK texts, we can see that the verbs include, consider, make, expect, require and recognize appear in both of the graphs. I believe this might lead us to an interesting conclusion that these above mentioned verbs could be therefore regarded as generally typical of this type of texts (i.e. report-specific), and the might be considered as specific for either UK or US reporting.
It should be also noted that when the two graphs are compared, there should be two things obvious at the first sight. First, the graph showing the most used verbs in UK texts with frequency more or equal to 1% actually includes more verbs than the US graph. And second, the portions of particular verbs in the US graph are much higher than the frequencies in the UK graph. This observation again relates to the verb variability within the UK and US texts:
Company Count Verbs Variability British 1571 387 24,6% American 1598 315 19,7%
Table 7: Variability: British vs. American
The British have used in total 387 different verbs for 1571 verbal expressions. On the other hand, the Americans used in total more verbal expressions (more specifically 1598), but in the end used less verbs (only 315). It is obvious that the UK authors were more creative when choosing verbs for their texts - the verbs in these texts are less repetitive. The US authors might have remained faithful to their strategy of simplification, unity and accessibility for non- native speakers.
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4.4.4 Comparison: Industries
The next level of the analysis brings us to the area of individual industries. I compared in total
10 different texts, where each two of them were from a different field of activity. In the graph below I present the differences between the use of verbs in active and passive voice among particular industries:
Chart 30: Passive voice: Industries
Based on the chart we can conclude that the distribution again correlates with our general findings from section 4.4.1., i.e. active voice is used more often, approximately in 80% cases.
However, there are some differences when we compare individual fields. Passive voice is apparently most often used in food sales industry, closely followed by electronics. In both of these two fields the passive voice is used in around 20% of all cases. In publishing the use of passive is only 16,4%, and in tobacco and automotive it is even less. This distinction can be related to the preferred style, which is regarded as appropriate for the individual industries.
This means that whereas the food sales and electronics companies tend to use more passive voice, probably in order to make the text sound more formal and objective, the electronics, tobacco and automotive use less passive voice to create the impression of vividness and closeness to the reader. To me this is quite surprising, because I would expect fields such as
84 publishing to be more formal, and on the other hand, fast changing industries connected with technology, such as electronics, to be more progressive in a sense of applying new approaches even within their texts.
Chart 31: Negative form: Industries
As far as the use of negatives in passive is concerned, the trend of reducing negative sentences continues. However, even here we can spot the differences in the use among particular categories. I discovered the least frequency of negative verbs in the passive in the food sales industry, below 3%. Slightly above this level there are electronics and automotive. Surprisingly, both publishing and tobacco companies use more than 5% of negative verbal expressions in their texts. As I already mentioned in section 4.4.3., the use of negative passive verbs might be related to the explicitly determining the range of duties, which are not required for a particular company. Therefore the reason for higher occurrence of passive negative verbs in publishing and tobacco might be that the authors felt more the necessity to include these exemptions.
The analysis also revealed the shares of phrasal verbs in passive within particular industries.
The chart below represents the findigings, from which we can conclude that in automotive industry the passive phrasal verbs are used only in an insignificant number of cases, with the
85 publishing and tobacco being very close. Passive phrasal verbs are more often used in electronics and food sales, but also in these cases the frequencies are not very convincing.
Chart 32: Phrasal verbs: Industries
More significant conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of modal verbs used in passive in particular industries. The graph below demonstrates the proportions within the full range of the collected data:
Chart 33: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Industries
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We can see that the shares of verbs used with and without modals differ from field to field. To make the overview more understandable, in this graph I present only the shares of verbs used with and without modals. The most modals are apparently used in the field of publishing, in total 16,7%. Around 14% of verbs in passive are used with modals in publishing and tobacco.
The industries with the smallest proportion of modals include automotive and food sales industry. The concrete distributions of particular modal verbs can be read from the graph below:
Chart 34: Modal verbs: Industries
To start with the least significant shares, might, must and shall are quite low, where the share of shall in publishing is the highest. Would is used more often than might, must or shall, however, the share is also not that important. I also omitted ought to, because it did not appear in the passive at all. The most often used modal verbs in passive are therefore can, could, may, should and will. However, I discovered that with regard to the particular modal verbs the comparison shows significant differences among individual fields.
In publishing, the greatest share is made by may (almost 40%), will (almost 25%), can (almost
13%) and could (almost 7%). In electronics the situation is similar - may is used in almost 50%
87 cases, which is surprising, and the other 50% are distributed among can (7,1%), should (15,2%), will (21,2%) and would (7,1%). In electronics the modal verb may is used in roughly 50% of all cases. Will is used in 21,2%, should in 15,2% and can in only 7,1% cases. In tobacco, the distribution is surprisingly relatively balanced. The greatest share belongs to will with 21,4%, then both may and should are used with the same frequency of 19%. Can is used in almost
18% of all cases in tobacco. In food sales the most frequently used modal verb is will, which made the share of 39,7%. After that there was may (23,3%), can (11%) and could (9,6%).
With regard to the meanings of the concrete modal verbs this may provide us with a picture of the kinds of information which are mostly used in annual reports in the particular fields (now I am referring to chapter2.6.1 and the table of meanings of modal verbs, created by McLean,
2011).
Chart 35: Infinitives: Industries
With regard to infinitive passive verbal expressions, I found out that the infinitive is used most frequently in the food sales industry and the least in publishing. Apart from infinitives, the tenses that are used (most frequently) are present simple, past simple, present perfect simple and future simple in all fields. Present continuous is also applied, but not to such a great extent:
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Chart 36: Tenses: Industries (infinitives included)
After performing this tense analysis based on the particular industries, I realised that there are no such significant differences as were for example in the case of modal verbs. It seems that regardless of the market sector, the annual report genre always requires the same tense characteristics. Subsequently we can conclude that, based on the functions of individual tenses
(i.e. present simple being used for state descriptions, past simple for finished past actions, present perfect simple for unfinished actions relating to the present, and future simple for planned activities and actions), the frequencies of the particular tenses provide us also information regarding the extents to which the each particular texts is oriented to description of which kind of action. For example, the greatest share of present simple can lead us to a conclusion that the greatest part of the text will be always oriented at the description or explanation of current states.
After analysing tenses, modal and phrasal verbs and shares of passive I concentrated on the mostly used verbs in each of the industries. In the table below I present an overview of the verbs based on their overall frequency. Unfortunately, due to the capacity reasons I cannot deal with each particular industry, so I decided to focus on the verbs with the overall frequency in passive of 1% and more, and try to see what is their score in particular industries.
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Publishing Electronics Automotive Tobacco Food sales Total Verb Count % Count % Count % Count % Count % Count % incorporate 1 0,2% 3 0,4% 1 0,2% 2 0,3% 125 17,3% 132 4,1% require 26 4,3% 16 2,2% 6 1,1% 17 2,9% 12 1,7% 77 2,4% include 35 5,8% 6 0,8% 8 1,4% 16 2,7% 8 1,1% 73 2,3% recognize 22 3,6% 15 2,1% 11 1,9% 4 0,7% 17 2,4% 69 2,2% affect 18 3,0% 16 2,2% 10 1,8% 13 2,2% 7 1,0% 64 2,0% base 6 1,0% 14 2,0% 20 3,5% 14 2,4% 6 0,8% 60 1,9% expect 3 0,5% 7 1,0% 27 4,8% 11 1,9% 11 1,5% 59 1,8% set 4 0,7% 20 2,8% 10 1,8% 8 1,4% 16 2,2% 58 1,8% make 12 2,0% 9 1,3% 11 1,9% 7 1,2% 15 2,1% 54 1,7% appoint 1 0,2% 7 1,0% 12 2,1% 4 0,7% 24 3,3% 48 1,5% record 5 0,8% 12 1,7% 9 1,6% 11 1,9% 9 1,2% 46 1,4% use 8 1,3% 10 1,4% 11 1,9% 10 1,7% 7 1,0% 46 1,4% consider 3 0,5% 15 2,1% 2 0,4% 14 2,4% 11 1,5% 45 1,4% commit 0 0,0% 11 1,5% 17 3,0% 7 1,2% 6 0,8% 41 1,3% drive 10 1,7% 14 2,0% 13 2,3% 3 0,5% 1 0,1% 41 1,3% design 12 2,0% 7 1,0% 8 1,4% 6 1,0% 6 0,8% 39 1,2%
Table 8: Most used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Industries
Examining the table might then provide us with quite interesting facts. For example, the very first verb included, the verb to incorporate, is used in the overall passive the most often.
However, if we go to a further detail and examine the particular industries, we will find out that this biggest share is caused mainly by the use of this verbs in the food sales annual reports, whereas it is used much less in the other analysed industries. The high overall occurrence of the other verbs, such as to include, to require and to recognize, are caused by their use in publishing, the high occurrence of base is influenced by the way it is used in automotive, and so on. The total number of verbal expressions used in each of the industries and the number of actually used verbs is also directly related to the variability:
Industry Total Verbs Variability Publishing 605 228 37,7% Electronics 717 238 33,2% Automotive 565 201 35,6% Tobacco 589 213 36,2% Food sales 722 218 30,2%
Table 9: Variability: Industries
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It was not so surprising when I discovered that the biggest variability of verbs was in the texts created by publishing companies. With total 605 passive verbal expressions the publishing authors used altogether 228 different verbs. Close to the result of publishing is the variability of tobacco reports with 36,2%. Then, in descending order, the variability was the highest in automotive, then in tobacco, and the food sales reports show the lowest variability, with a difference of 7,5% against the publishing industry.
4.4.5 Comparison: Countries within industries
We have already seen how the use of passive differ from one industry to the other and what the difference between UK and US texts involves, and this very last part of the analysis should be perceived as an intersection of the previous ones. The purpose of this comparison is to see how the characteristics of UK and US reports differ between the industries, e.g. what is the difference between the uses of passive voice between UK and US publishers.
It should be noted right from the beginning that the information value of the results presented in this section might be limited due to the fact that this part of the analysis offers only one-to- one comparisons (i.e. one text with another, not groups of texts among themselves). That means that the results might be strongly affected by individual trends, conventions or norms relating to the individual companies. However, even this level of comparison can still bring some interesting outcomes.
First step within the last level of the analysis was to compare the shares of active and passive voice. We have already discussed the differences between the industries, but now we shall focus on the differences within industry:
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Chart 37: Active vs. passive: Companies
The graph above shows that whereas in publishing, electronics and automotive the US authors tends to use less passive than the UK authors, in tobacco and food sale industries the situation is reverse. So although in the section 4.4.2.we concluded that, generally speaking, the use of passive voice is statistically the same in both UK and US texts, now we can see that with a greater focus on the particular texts the conclusions might vary. However, as I wrote at the beginning of this section, these nuances might be (and probably are) caused rather by different preferences of the individual companies analysed than by differing norms for writing annual reports in particular industries in US and UK.
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Chart 38: Negative form: Companies
When I focused on the use of negative forms, I found out that here the situation is more unified. In all industries the US authors generally use more negative passive forms than the
British. This finding corresponds well with the comparison from section 4.4.3. which unambiguously showed that US texts feature higher number of passive negative verbal expressions. We can therefore again ascribe this phenomenon the necessity to the necessity to categorically and explicitly deny the company's potential participation on particular activities or duties.
With phrasal verbs in passive the situation is also quite unequivocal. I found out that phrasal verbs generally tend to be used more by UK authors than by US authors of annual reports:
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Chart 39: Phrasal verbs: Companies
The biggest difference between the UK and US text with regard to the use of phrasal verbs in passive can be found in the food sale industry, followed by electronics. In the food sale the difference between UK and US reports was more than 5%, given the fact that in the UK food sale report the phrasal verbs were not used at all. In electronics this difference was 2,6%. The use of phrasal verbs in publishing, automotive and tobacco was generally very low.
Nevertheless, the US reports used less phrasal verbs in all these categories. This again correlates with the findings from chapter 4.4.3., showing that UK report authors tend to use more phrasal verbs in general (which may relate also to higher overall variability) and, on the other hand, the effort of US report writers is to make the text more accessible and easily translatable (which they aim to achieve by the reduced or no use of phrasal verbs).
Due to the complexity of results related to the use of modal verbs and tenses within particular industries, I had to create the graphs based on smaller segments. The first of the two green graphs below shows the distribution of modal verbs in UK and US texts within industries.
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Chart 40: Modal verbs: Companies, part I.
Although the overall distribution characteristics of modal verbs within industries have been already shown, with a closer look I already got differing results. Within publishing, for example, it is obvious that UK and US authors deal differently with the modals connected with passive in their texts. Whereas in UK publishing report the most used modal is would with the frequency of 40%, and can with the frequency of 30%, and the only remaining modals used within this category are should and will, in the UK publishing report the mostly used modal is may with the frequency of almost 50%, followed by will with the frequency of almost 21%, and then by can, could, should, would, and even might and shall. This comparison shows that, within the publishing industry, the US authors are more creative as far as the use of modals is concerned than the authors from UK publishing.
In Electronics the situation is different. Both UK and US electronics reports show the same results concerning the tenses used, only their frequencies vary. The most often used modal verb in US electronics reports is definitely the modal may (a situation similar to publishing) with frequency higher than 71%; the other modals together make the remaining share of less than 29%. In UK electronics the mostly used modal verb is will with more than 38%, then
95 should with more than 20%, followed by can and may, sharing the same frequency of approximately 15%. It is apparent that UK authors in electronics tend to switch between modals more often than the authors from the US electronics sector.
The UK and US automotive are quite similar with regard to the distribution among modals. The authors of UK and US report had the tendency to use the same modals, furthermore with similar frequencies. Will and can are in both cases the most frequently used modal verbs.
Chart 41: Modal verbs: Companies, part II.
The second graph related to modals represents the distribution within tobacco and food sale industries. Based on the frequencies the UK and US tobacco reports are different with respect to the modal verbs used. Neither UK or US authors seemed to prefer one concrete modal verb in particular. However, the most used modals in UK tobacco are can and should, whereas in the US version may and will are most frequently used.
The analysis also revealed significant differences in the way modals are treated in UK and US food sale reports. Whereas in food sale the UK author tended to use the modal will very often
(precisely speaking in 68% cases), and apart from that can, may, must and should with no
96 relevant significance, the author of the US report gave no such extreme preference to any of the modals. In the US food sale the most frequently used modals are may and will, with the frequencies not exceeding 30%, followed by can and could (which was not used in UK text at all), both above 10%. Whereas UK food sale annual report contained only five different modal verbs in passive, in US food sale report in total seven different modal verbs were used.
These results are strongly influenced by the individual reports. Furthermore, each of the categories is comprised by only one single set of the data (i.e. only one particular report).
Therefore it would be difficult to make a general conclusion based on these findings. Overall conclusions about the distribution of modal verbs in passive should be made based on the basis of UK - US comparison or industry comparison, as shown in sections 4.4.3 and 4.4.4.
Chart 42: Infinitives: Companies
As I have already presented, the overall frequency of infinitives in UK texts is 3,7%, in US texts it is 5%. After a closer examination I can also demonstrate differences in the use of passive infinitives among concrete companies.
Except for electronics, in all other industries the UK authors tend to use passive infinitives less than the US authors. In UK electronics text the infinitives were used more, exactly by 2,2%. The
97 differences between UK and US texts in other industries range from 1% to 3,5%. From the graph above we can easily recognise that the greatest difference is between the UK and US texts in automotive industry. From this result we can either conclude that automotive is the industry in which the style of business reports evolves in different ways in different countries, or that the automotive annual reports are not in general such a unified genre. On the other hand, the leas variable with regard to the use of infinitives is the field of publishing. Based on this we might ascertain that the reports in this industry are generally more close to each other, as far as the use of passive infinitives is concerned. This might be caused by similar requirements in both UK and US, or similar preferences of these two particular companies, or generally greater strictness with regard to the norm within this industry.
When considering separately the group of UK texts and the group of US texts, we can see that from the UK texts electronics report has the greatest share of passive infinitives, whereas in US texts it is a food sale company. According to these results we might conclude that the use of infinitives may be tied neither to the industry, nor to the country in which the company operates.
My next step was to compare the tenses used by individual companies. For the simplicity reasons I include separate graphs here, each devoted to the comparison of UK and US text within a selected industry. The first of the graphs represents the different use of concrete tenses within the publishing industry. The most often used tenses are again present simple, past simple and present perfect simple. However, I found out that the British company used more past and more present perfect tense than the American company and, on the other hand, used less of present simple. Although the supremacy of the present simple in both cases is undisputable, in the UK publishing report the tenses seem to be more evenly distributed. US text uses the present simple in more than70% of all cases, UK text in less than 59%.
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Chart 43: Tenses: Companies (publishing)
In the case of electronics the differences are even more extreme. US electronics company used present simple in more than 83% of all cases, UK authors chose present simple in only approximately 57% cases. This difference seems to be compensated by the use of past simple, because this tense is used much more in UK electronics text than in US text (the difference reaches almost 20%). The uses of present perfect simple and future simple are quite low and without significant differences between these two companies.
Chart 44: Tenses: Companies (electronics)
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In the texts of automotive industry I again reached different results. The differences in the uses of present simple and past simple are not as extreme as in the previous case. However, the difference in the use of present perfect simple reaches almost 10%. As we have already discussed, also the use of passive infinitives within the automotive industry is different in the texts of the UK and US company.
Chart 45: Tenses: Companies (automotive)
The tobacco industry seems to be from this point of view the most balanced industry. The present perfect simple is used in both UK and US text with the frequency around 7%. The difference between future simple and past simple is only around 1,7% and 4%. The greatest difference in this comparison is between the British and the American use of present simple, but when compared with the previous results, even this difference does not seem to be so significant - it reaches only approximately 5%.
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Chart 46: Tenses: Companies (tobacco)
In the food sale, the last of the compared categories, the differences in the use of particular tenses do not show any significant deviations from the previously discussed industries. The most used tense is again the present simple, with the difference of roughly 18%, which is a remarkable difference, but not as high as in the case of electronics reports. Whereas present simple is used more by US writers, the British tend to use more past simple, present perfect simple and also the future simple tense.
Chart 47: Tenses: Companies (food sale)
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The last step of this analysis was to compare the variabilities of verbs in the analysed texts, represented in the table below:
Company Pub UK Pub US Elect UK Elect US Aut UK Aut US Tob UK Tob US Food UK Food US Count 319 282 414 300 289 273 272 311 282 434 Verbs 153 126 171 121 140 108 136 126 126 133 Variability 47,96% 44,68% 41,30% 40,33% 48,44% 39,56% 50,00% 40,51% 44,68% 30,65%
Table 10: Variability: Companies
I found out that in the UK the authors, regardless of the industry, tend to use more different verbs than the US authors. Therefore the UK texts show more variability, whereas the US texts tend to be more repetitive. The biggest difference in variability is obviously in the case of food sales industry, where the UK company used in total 282 passive verbal expressions using 126 different verbs for its report, whereas the US authors used 434 passive verbal expressions using only 133 different verbs. On the other hand, the smallest difference can be found in the electronics industry, where it is below 1%.
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5 Conclusion
When I started writing this thesis and thinking about the target of my analysis, my main intention was to find out whether there are any differences between the use of passive voice in the business English. In this last chapter I would like to summarize what I have found out and how I did it.
Defining business English
At the very beginning it was necessary to understand what is actually meant by the expression business English. I was not sure if there is any strict or thorough definition, so I started searching in the literature related to it. I was surprised that, despite of the number of people using English for business every day and piles of books full of tips on business writing, business grammar and effective and successful business communication, to find a compact and coherent definition was quite a difficult task. Therefore I decided to describe business English from more points of view.
First I explained how it happened that business English plays such an important role in everyday life nowadays, how it was affected by the changing conditions (both on international markets and on the field of new technological advancements) and how it became lingua franca of present business communication. Then I was searching in dictionaries and various journal articles to discover the possible notions or definitions previously created by scholars interested in the study of this still evolving genre of English.
After that I realised that business English was distinguished from other concepts, sometimes they overlapped and sometimes they melted. Therefore I made an attempt to define business
English with regard to concepts such as English Language Teaching, English for Specific
Purposes, English as Lingua Franca or English for Economics. Based on the literature created on this topic I found out that some authors regarded context crucial for defining business English, some of them built their definitions based on the style and some also described verbal aspects
103 of this genre. I decided to include this information in the chapter serving for defining business
English, and in chapter four I also created research criteria based on these characteristics.
Defining passive voice
In order to be able to evaluate the use of business English, it was crucial to understand what the passive voice is, how it is created and when it is used. Therefore the whole chapter 2 is dedicated to passive voice. First I shortly presented four ways to create the passive voice. Since there was no special need to analyze the process in greater detail, I also included reference to some of the authors which provide more detailed information in their work. Then I spent more time examining the situations in which passive voice is generally used and made an attempt to summarise all the recommendations in a comprehensible way. Section 3.3 somehow links chapters 2 and 3 in a sense that it includes the aspects of the use of passive voice in business
English. Exploring and comparing all the recommendations and beliefs, dos and don'ts presented by some of the authors was interesting. In this section I therefore tried to somehow summarize the main arguments for and against the use of passive in business English.
Setting the objectives and the comparative criteria
Equipped by the knowledge gained by studying literature about business English I started organising my own research. My main objective was to find statistically supported answers for these two following questions:
• Does the passive voice show different characteristics in annual reports created by
companies settled in UK from the annual reports created by companies settled in
American countries? (I.e. is there a difference in annual reports written in British and
American English?)
• Does the passive voice show different characteristics in annual reports created by
companies operating in different fields?
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The comparison must have been made on a basis of some previously selected criteria. I chose these criteria based on the previously performed analysis of sources dealing with business
English:
• frequency of passives used in the text
• frequency of modal verbs used in the text
• frequency of phrasal verbs used in the text
• frequency of negative forms used in the text
• frequency of tenses (and infinitives) used in the text
• variability of verbs used in the text
With regard to these aspects I then created a frame, based on which I compared particular sets of selected texts.
Creating the dataset
For my analysis I arranged a set of ten freely accessible texts, which are easily classifiable by their origin and their affiliation with a particular industry. I have selected a set of annual reports, five originating in US and five in UK. The five fields analyzed were publishing, automotive, electronics, tobacco and food sales:
Activity UK US
Automotive Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc. Ford Motor Company
Electronics TT Electronics plc Universal Electronics Inc.
Food sales J Sainsbury plc SuperValu Inc.
Publishers Oxford University Press Cengage Learning Holdings II, L.P.
Tobacco Imperial Tobacco Group PLC Altria Group, Inc.
From each of these reports I have taken approximately 1.800 concrete verbal expressions, so that the final set of data consisted of more than 18.300 verbs. To each of these particular
105 expressions I then assigned some specific characteristics (such as dictionary form, voice, form, tense, type of verb, occurrence of modal verb, industry, country, etc.). Based on this dataset of business verbal expressions I was then able to make concrete comparisons and evaluate the results.
Describing the dataset
In section 4.4.1 I presented overall results which can be generalized therefore and applied to the genre of business reports as such. I found out, for example, that overall frequency of passive voice in the complete dataset was 17,4%, which corresponded with the recommendations regarding written and formal communication. The overall frequency of negative form within the dataset was only 2,5%, which I believe was linked to the previously discussed issue of comprehensibility, but also to some pragmatic reasons. The occurrence of phrasal verbs was generally very low, reaching only 0,6%, which might be explained again by effort to make the texts more understandable and accessible to non-native speakers.
I also found out that almost 90% of all verbs are used without modals. From the remaining roughly 10% of expressions with modals approximately 36% were with may, which was therefore the mostly used modal verb, 26,7% were used with will and 13,6% were used with could. Can was used in less than 10% cases and would in 7,1% cases.
From the complete dataset 20,4% of verbs were infinitives. From the remaining quantity 0,4% were imperatives. The mostly used tense was definitely the present perfect, which was used in more than 50% cases. Second most frequently used tense was past simple, third most often used tense was present perfect simple. 2,8% was occupied by future simple and the shares of other tenses seemed to be rather insignificant.
Finally, I focused on the verbs which occurred the most in the set. I found out that the verb that is used in more than 13% cases is the verb to be, followed by verbs to have, to include, to continue and to provide.
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In this section I also included selected examples from the source texts to support the findings and make them more comprehensible.
Comparing active and passive voice
The next step of the analysis was to reveal the characteristics of use of passive. A relatively reasonable way to do it was to compare the characteristics of passive with those of active voice. I found that in passive voice the authors tend to use slightly more negative forms than in the active, and also slightly more phrasal verbs (approximately by 1%). Passive voice also uses more modals than passive voice, with the difference of about 3%.
With regard to the concrete modal verbs, may, could and would are used more in active voice, whereas modal verbs such as can, should and will tend to be used more in passive expressions.
Surprising was the discovery of the differences in the use of infinitives. I found that in passive the infinitives are used much less, i.e. in only 4,4% cases, whereas in active in 23,8% cases. The distribution of tenses corresponded with the previously mentioned general findings. However, present simple was used more in passive than in active, which partly balanced the difference in the use of infinitive form. There were no major differences in the use of future simple and present perfect simple.
Differences were also noticeable with regard to the mostly used verbs and variability. In active, the mostly used verbs were to be, to have, to include, to continue or to provide. In passive, however, these were to incorporate, to require, to include, to recognize and to affect.
Variability of the used verbs in the active was below 6%, whereas in active it was higher than
15%.
Also in this section I included some concrete examples from the text to support the general statements and conclusions.
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Comparing UK and US reports
By that I finally reached the third level of the analysis, which would provide me with the answer to my first research question - is there a difference between the passive voice in reports written by UK and US companies?
When I compared the frequencies of passive voice UK and US reports, I found that there was no difference. In both UK and US texts the frequency of passive voice was 17,4%. The comparison of negative forms in passive, however, revealed certain differences. I found that the US authors use more negative verbal expressions than the British ones, which I ascribe to the fact that there might be an unwritten rule in American business reports to explicitly state which particular obligations the company does not have to fulfil, more often than in British reports.
In the use of phrasal verbs in passive the analysis revealed a difference higher than 2%. In the
American reports the phrasal verbs are used less, whereas in the British texts the use of phrasal verbs reached 2,5%. With modal verbs the situation was reverse - UK authors use
90,7% of verbal passives without modals, in US texts this proportion was only 83,2%. When I look closer on the particular modal verbs, I found out that the British authors used can, should and will more often, and the American authors use could and would slightly more, but may much more than the British.
As for infinitives, the difference between the use of infinitives in the passive voice between the
British and American reports was only 1,3%. The mostly used tenses are again present simple, past simple and present perfect simple. I found out that present simple was used less in the
British reports, but on the other hand, past simple and present perfect simple were used more in the American texts.
The most commonly used verbs in passive in UK and US reports partly correspond and partly differ. I found out that the verbs include, consider, make, expect, require and recognize rank
108 among the most used verbs in both UK and US reports. Nevertheless, such verbs as set, appoint or commit are the most often used verbs in British texts, and incorporate, affect or base are the most frequently used verbs in texts written by American companies. With regard to the variability between these two blocks, British texts showed variability of 24,6%, which I ascribe to bigger creativity, and American texts showed variability of 19,7%, which I consider to be the result of the effort to make the text sound more unified and more accessible.
Comparing five different industries
The last but one part of my analysis was focused on the comparison of five concrete industries with regard to the companies authoring the selected reports. Comparing the use of passive voice in industries was the second of my research questions, which had to be answered.
The five industries to be compared were publishing, electronics, automotive, tobacco and food sales. Each of these industries was represented by two different reports in my set. I have found that passive was used most in food sale industry (20,2%) and almost comparably in electronics
(19,7%). The passive was used quite less in publishing (16,4%), and the least in automotive and tobacco (below 13%). The negative form was used most often in the publishing industry, with the frequency of 5,6%. The second industry with the most negatives in passive was tobacco,
5,1%. The use of negative in the remaining three industries was rather less: automotive - 3,2%, electronics - 3,1% and food sales - only 2,5% of negatives in passive voice. I ascribed these shares again to the necessity to include some particular exemptions from obligations or expectations.
The use of phrasal verbs in passive did not show any significant differences among the industries. The highest occurrence of phrasal verbs was obvious in the field of electronics and food sales. Other findings were not substantial. The distribution of modal verbs, however, showed more interesting characteristics. In publishing, 16,7% of verbs in passive were with modals. In tobacco it was 14,3%, in electronics it was 13,8%. The least numbers modals were
109 used in automotive and food sales (10,8 and 10,1%). Then I checked the distributions of particular modal verbs within each industry. In publishing, may was used the most often, in almost 40% of all cases, followed by will (28,4%) and can (12,9%). I found out that in electronics the modal verb may was used in almost 50%, will in 21,2%, should in 15,2% and can in only 7,1% of all cases. In automotive, surprisingly, the greatest share was made by will
(41%), followed by can (23%) and may (19,8%). In tobacco, the distribution was more balanced. The greatest share was made by will with 21,4%, then both may and should were used with the same frequency of 19%. Can was used in almost 18% of all cases in tobacco. In food sales the most frequently used modal was will, which made the share of 39,7%. After that there was may (23,3%), can (11%) and could (9,6%). With regard to the meanings of the concrete modal verbs this may provide us with a picture of the kinds of information, which are mostly used in annual reports in the particular fields.
The most infinitives were used in food sales, then in electronics and automotive. The distribution of concrete tenses again followed the scheme introduced already in the first section of the analysis, without any extra differences in frequencies. Present simple tense was used the most in all cases, the most in tobacco and the least in publishing, but the difference in frequencies between these two was only around 5%. Then past simple was the second mostly used tense, but again, the difference between electronics, where it was used the most, and tobacco, where it was used the least, was slightly above 5%. The difference between the uses of present perfect simple was not reaching 5%.
At the end of the subchapter comparing these industries I also provided a list of the most often used verbs and compared variability of the particular fields. The analysis showed that the greatest variability of verbs in passive can be found in publishing industry annual reports, whereas in food sales the variability was the lowest.
110
Comparing ten different companies
I dedicated the last subchapter of my analysis to a comparison of particular texts. This comparison showed some differences between individual annual reports. Although the information presented in this last part might be taken as some information about how the use of passive voice might differ within an industry (e.g. publishing) based on the country in which the company originates (i.e. within publishing I was comparing the text written by one company settled in UK and one in US), I would not recommend considering these statements as generally applicable, since each category is represented by only one concrete text in this comparison, and therefore might be strongly affected by company's individual internal norms or following some trends, which may not be applicable to all.
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Lists
List of diagrams:
Diagram 1: English for Business Purposes in ESP and ELT ...... 13 Diagram 2: Tree of ESP (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) ...... 14 Diagram 3: English for International Business (Rogerson-Revell, 2007) ...... 17 Diagram 4: Model of global communicative competence (Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta, 2011) ...... 17 Diagram 5: Functional styles in English (Knittlová, 1990) ...... 20 Diagram 6: Forms of business language (Yli-Jokipii, 1994) ...... 26
List of charts:
Chart 1: Representation of countries ...... 52 Chart 2: Representation of industries ...... 53 Chart 3: Representation of companies ...... 53 Chart 4: Overall frequency of passive voice ...... 55 Chart 5: Overall frequency of negative form ...... 57 Chart 6: Overall frequency of phrasal verbs ...... 58 Chart 7: Overall frequency of modal verbs (all verbs included) ...... 60 Chart 8: Overall frequency of modal verbs ...... 60 Chart 9: Overall frequency of infinitives ...... 62 Chart 10: Overall frequency of tenses (infinitives and imperatives included) ...... 63 Chart 11: Overall frequency of tenses ...... 64 Chart 12: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%) ...... 65 Chart 13: Negative form: Active vs. passive ...... 67 Chart 14: Phrasal verbs: Active vs. passive ...... 68 Chart 15: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Active vs. passive ...... 69 Chart 16: Modal verbs: Active vs. passive ...... 70 Chart 17: Infinitives: Active vs. passive ...... 72 Chart 18: Tenses (infinitives and imperatives included): Active vs. passive ...... 73 Chart 19: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Active ...... 74 Chart 20: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Passive ...... 75 Chart 21: Passive voice: British vs. American ...... 77 Chart 22: Negative form: British vs. American ...... 77 Chart 23: Phrasal verbs: British vs. American ...... 78 Chart 24: Modal verbs: British vs. American (all verbs included) ...... 79 Chart 25: Modal verbs: British vs. American ...... 79 Chart 26: Infinitives: British vs. American ...... 80 Chart 27: Tenses (infinitives included): British vs. American ...... 81 Chart 28: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): British ...... 82 Chart 29: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): American ...... 82
124
Chart 30: Passive voice: Industries ...... 84 Chart 31: Negative form: Industries ...... 85 Chart 32: Phrasal verbs: Industries ...... 86 Chart 33: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Industries ...... 86 Chart 34: Modal verbs: Industries ...... 87 Chart 35: Infinitives: Industries ...... 88 Chart 36: Tenses: Industries (infinitives included) ...... 89 Chart 37: Active vs. passive: Companies ...... 92 Chart 38: Negative form: Companies ...... 93 Chart 39: Phrasal verbs: Companies ...... 94 Chart 40: Modal verbs: Companies, part I...... 95 Chart 41: Modal verbs: Companies, part II...... 96 Chart 42: Infinitives: Companies ...... 97 Chart 43: Tenses: Companies (publishing) ...... 99 Chart 44: Tenses: Companies (electronics) ...... 99 Chart 45: Tenses: Companies (automotive) ...... 100 Chart 46: Tenses: Companies (tobacco)...... 101 Chart 47: Tenses: Companies (food sale) ...... 101
List of tables:
Table 1: The distinctive features of Economic Discourse, Business English and General English (Pierini, n.d.) ...... 19 Table 2: Formal and informal style (Giménez-Moreno, 2010)...... 22 Table 3: Modal verbs (McLean, 2011) ...... 30 Table 4: Active and passive voice (Bovee and Thill, 2007) ...... 43 Table 5: Categorisation of annual reports ...... 52 Table 6: Variability: Active vs. passive ...... 76 Table 7: Variability: British vs. American ...... 83 Table 8: Most used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Industries ...... 90 Table 9: Variability: Industries ...... 90 Table 10: Variability: Companies ...... 102
125
Appendix
Chart 1: Representation of countries
Country Count Frequency UK 9 109 49,7% US 9 235 50,3% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 2: Representation of industries
Industry Count Frequency Publishing 3 698 20,2% Electronics 3 639 19,8% Automotive 3 690 20,1% Tobacco 3 740 20,4% Groceries 3 577 19,5% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 3: Representation of companies
Companies Count Frequency Oxford University Press 1 812 9,9% Cengage Learning 1 886 10,3% TT Electronics 1 844 10,1% Universal Electronics 1 795 9,8% Land Rover & Jaguar 1 865 10,2% Ford 1 825 9,9% Imperial Tobacco 1 849 10,1% Altria Group 1 891 10,3% Sainsbury's 1 739 9,5% SuperValu 1 838 10,0% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 4: Overall frequency of passive voice
Voice Count Frequency Active 15 146 82,6% Passive 3 198 17,4% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 5: Overall frequency of negative form
Form Count Share Positive 17 878 97,5% Negative 466 2,5% Total 18 344 100,0%
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Chart 6: Overall frequency of phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs Count Frequency Phrasal 102 0,6% Non-phrasal 18 242 99,4% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 7: Overall frequency of modal verbs (all verbs included)
Modal verbs Count Frequency Can 188 1,0% Could 263 1,4% May 699 3,8% Might 12 0,1% Must 29 0,2% Ought 2 0,0% Shall 10 0,1% Should 75 0,4% Will 516 2,8% Would 138 0,8% None 16 412 89,5% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 8: Overall frequency of modal verbs
Modal verbs Count Frequency Can 188 9,7% Could 263 13,6% May 699 36,2% Might 12 0,6% Must 29 1,5% Ought 2 0,1% Shall 10 0,5% Should 75 3,9% Will 516 26,7% Would 138 7,1% Total 1 932 100,0%
Chart 9: Overall frequency of infinitives
Infinitives Count Frequency Infinitives 3 751 20,4% Finite verbs 14 593 79,6% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 10: Overall frequency of tenses (infinitives and imperatives included)
Tenses Count Frequency Pr S 9 522 51,9% PrC 316 1,7% PaS 3 128 17,1% PaC 19 0,1% FS 505 2,8%
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FC 10 0,1% PrPS 973 5,3% PrPC 11 0,1% PaPS 29 0,2% PaPC 0 0,0% FPS 1 0,0% FPC 0 0,0% Inf 3 750 20,4% Imp 80 0,4% Total 18 344 100,0%
Chart 11: Overall frequency of tenses
Tenses Count Frequency Pr S 9 522 65,6% PrC 316 2,2% PaS 3 128 21,6% PaC 19 0,1% FS 505 3,5% FC 10 0,1% PrPS 973 6,7% PrPC 11 0,1% PaPS 29 0,2% PaPC 0 0,0% FPS 1 0,0% FPC 0 0,0% Total 14 514 100,0%
Chart 12: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%)
Verb Count Frequency be 2 433 13,3% have 551 3,0% include 470 2,6% continue 381 2,1% provide 368 2,0% increase 328 1,8% make 290 1,6% affect 244 1,3% require 192 1,0% support 188 1,0% expect 179 1,0%
Chart 13: Negative form: Active vs. passive
Form Active Active % Passive Passive % Positive 14 802 97,7% 3 076 96,2% Negative 344 2,3% 122 3,8% Total 15 146 100,0% 3 198 100,0%
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Chart 14: Phrasal verbs: Active vs. passive
Phrasal verbs Active Active % Passive Passive % Phrasal 58 0,4% 44 1,4% Non-phrasal 15 088 99,6% 3 154 98,6% Total 15 146 100,0% 3 198 100,0%
Chart 15: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Active vs. passive
Modal verbs Active Active % Passive Passive % Can 131 0,9% 57 1,8% Could 237 1,6% 26 0,8% May 565 3,7% 134 4,2% Might 9 0,1% 3 0,1% Must 24 0,2% 5 0,2% Ought 2 0,0% 0 0,0% Shall 5 0,0% 5 0,2% Should 30 0,2% 45 1,4% Will 398 2,6% 118 3,7% Would 113 0,7% 25 0,8% None 13 632 90,0% 2 780 86,9% Total 15 146 100,0% 3 198 100,0%
Chart 16: Modal verbs: Active vs. passive
Modal verbs Active Active % Passive Passive % Can 131 8,7% 57 13,6% Could 237 15,7% 26 6,2% May 565 37,3% 134 32,1% Might 9 0,6% 3 0,7% Must 24 1,6% 5 1,2% Ought 2 0,1% 0 0,0% Shall 5 0,3% 5 1,2% Should 30 2,0% 45 10,8% Will 398 26,3% 118 28,2% Would 113 7,5% 25 6,0% Total 1 514 100,0% 418 100,0%
Chart 17: Infinitives: Active vs. passive
Infinitives Active Active % Passive Passive % Infinitives 3 611 23,8% 140 4,4% Finite verbs 11 535 76,2% 3 058 95,6% Total 15 146 100,0% 3 198 100,0%
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Chart 18: Tenses (infinitives and imperatives included): Active vs. passive
Tenses Active Active % Passive Passive % Pr S 7 371 48,7% 2 151 67,3% PrC 257 1,7% 59 1,8% PaS 2 636 17,4% 492 15,4% PaC 18 0,1% 1 0,0% FS 387 2,6% 118 3,7% FC 10 0,1% 0 0,0% PrPS 749 4,9% 224 7,0% PrPC 11 0,2% 1 0,0% PaPS 20 0,1% 9 0,3% PaPC 0 0,0% 0 0,0% FPS 1 0,0% 0 0,0% FPC 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Inf 3 610 23,8% 140 4,4% Imp 80 0,5% 0 0,0%
Chart 19: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Active
Verb Active Active % be 2 431 16,1% have 551 3,6% include 397 2,6% continue 380 2,5% provide 347 2,3% increase 325 2,1% make 236 1,6% affect 180 1,2% support 158 1,0% ensure 156 1,0% reduce 145 1,0%
Chart 20: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): Passive
Verb Passive Passive % incorporate 132 4,1% require 77 2,4% include 73 2,3% recognize 69 2,2% affect 64 2,0% base 60 1,9% expect 59 1,8% set 58 1,8% make 54 1,7% appoint 48 1,5%
130
record 46 1,4%
Chart 21: Passive voice: British vs. American
Voice British British % American American % Active 7 521 82,6% 7 625 82,6% Passive 1 588 17,4% 1 610 17,4% Total 9 109 100,0% 9 235 100,0%
Chart 22: Negative form: British vs. American
Form British British % American American % Positive 1 555 97,9% 1 521 94,5% Negative 33 2,1% 89 5,5% Total 1 588 100,0% 1 610 100,0%
Chart 23: Phrasal verbs: British vs. American
Phrasal verbs British British % American American % Phrasal 40 2,5% 4 0,2% Non-phrasal 1 548 97,5% 1 606 99,8% Total 1 588 100,0% 1 610 100,0%
Chart 24: Modal verbs: British vs. American (all verbs included)
Modal verbs (non-modals included) British British % American American % Can 31 2,0% 26 1,6% Could 6 0,4% 20 1,2% May 19 1,2% 115 7,1% Might 0 0,0% 3 0,2% Must 3 0,2% 2 0,1% Ought 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Shall 3 0,2% 2 0,1% Should 21 1,3% 24 1,5% Will 57 3,6% 61 3,8% Would 7 0,4% 18 1,1% None 1 441 90,7% 1 339 83,2% Total 1 588 100,0% 1 610 100,0%
Chart 25: Modal verbs: British vs. American
Modal verbs British British % American American % Can 31 21,1% 26 9,6% Could 6 4,1% 20 7,4% May 19 12,9% 115 42,4% Might 0 0,0% 3 1,1% Must 3 2,0% 2 0,7%
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Ought 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Shall 3 2,0% 2 0,7% Should 21 14,3% 24 8,9% Will 57 38,8% 61 22,5% Would 7 4,8% 18 6,6% Total 147 100,0% 271 100,0%
Chart 26: Infinitives: British vs. American
Infinitives British British % American American % Infinitives 59 3,7% 81 5,0% Finite verbs 1 529 96,3% 1 529 95,0% Total 1 588 100,0% 1 610 100,0%
Chart 27: Tenses (infinitives included): British vs. American
Tenses British British % American American % Pr S 948 59,7% 1 203 74,7% Pr C 33 2,1% 26 1,6% Pa S 327 20,6% 165 10,2% Pa C 1 0,1% 0 0,0% F S 57 3,6% 61 3,8% F C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Pr P S 155 9,8% 69 4,3% Pr P C 4 0,3% 0 0,0% Pa P S 4 0,3% 5 0,3% Pa P C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% F P S 0 0,0% 0 0,0% F P C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Inf 59 3,7% 81 5,0% Total 1 588 100,0% 1 610 100,0%
Chart 28: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): British
Verbs British British % set 49 3,1% appoint 48 3,1% commit 33 2,1% include 29 1,8% consider 28 1,8% make 28 1,8% design 27 1,7% review 27 1,7% support 26 1,7% expect 24 1,5% require 24 1,5%
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take 24 1,5% recognize 23 1,5% manage 20 1,3% give 18 1,1% apply 16 1,0% hold 16 1,0% report 16 1,0% approve 15 1,0% award 15 1,0% show 15 1,0%
Chart 29: Most commonly used verbs (frequency ≥ 1%): American
Verbs American American incorporate 129 8,1% require 53 3,3% affect 52 3,3% base 50 3,1% recognize 46 2,9% include 44 2,8% record 44 2,8% expect 35 2,2% drive 29 1,8% determine 26 1,6% impact 26 1,6% make 26 1,6% use 25 1,6% file 23 1,4% consider 17 1,1% locate 17 1,1%
Chart 30: Passive voice: Industries
Voice Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Active 3 093 83,6% 2 922 80,3% 3 125 84,7% 3 151 84,3% 2 855 79,8% Passive 605 16,4% 717 19,7% 565 15,3% 589 15,7% 722 20,2% Total 3 698 100,0% 3 639 100,0% 3 690 100,0% 3 740 100,0% 3 577 100,0%
Chart 31: Negative form: Industries
Form Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Pos. 571 94,4% 695 96,9% 547 96,8% 559 94,9% 704 97,5% Neg. 34 5,6% 22 3,1% 18 3,2% 30 5,1% 18 2,5% Total 605 100,0% 717 100,0% 565 100,0% 589 100,0% 722 100,0%
133
Chart 32: Phrasal verbs: Industries
Phrasal Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % verbs Phrasal 4 0,7% 18 2,5% 2 0,4% 5 0,8% 15 2,1% Non- 601 99,3% 699 97,5% 563 99,6% 584 99,2% 707 97,9% phrasal Total 605 100,0% 717 100,0% 565 100,0% 589 100,0% 722 100,0%
Chart 33: Modal verbs (all verbs included): Industries
Modal verbs (non-modals included) Modal Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Can 13 2,1% 7 1,0% 14 2,5% 15 2,5% 8 1,1% Could 7 1,2% 0 0,0% 3 0,5% 9 1,5% 7 1,0% May 40 6,6% 49 6,8% 12 2,1% 16 2,7% 17 2,4% Might 1 0,2% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 2 0,3% Must 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 0,2% 2 0,3% 2 0,3% Shall 4 0,7% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 0,2% 0 0,0% Should 8 1,3% 15 2,1% 2 0,4% 16 2,7% 4 0,6% Will 25 4,1% 21 2,9% 25 4,4% 18 3,1% 29 4,0% Would 3 0,5% 7 1,0% 4 0,7% 7 1,2% 4 0,6% Modals 101 16,7% 99 13,8% 61 10,8% 84 14,3% 73 10,1% None 504 83,3% 618 86,2% 504 89,2% 505 85,7% 649 89,9% Total 605 100,0% 717 100,0% 565 100,0% 589 100,0% 722 100,0%
Chart 34: Modal verbs: Industries
Modal Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Can 13 12,9% 7 7,1% 14 23,0% 15 17,9% 8 11,0% Could 7 6,9% 0 0,0% 3 4,9% 9 10,7% 7 9,6% May 40 39,6% 49 49,5% 12 19,7% 16 19,0% 17 23,3% Might 1 1,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 2 2,7% Must 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 1,6% 2 2,4% 2 2,7% Shall 4 4,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 1,2% 0 0,0% Should 8 7,9% 15 15,2% 2 3,3% 16 19,0% 4 5,5% Will 25 24,8% 21 21,2% 25 41,0% 18 21,4% 29 39,7% Would 3 3,0% 7 7,1% 4 6,6% 7 8,3% 4 5,5% Total 101 100,0% 99 100,0% 61 100,0% 84 100,0% 73 100,0%
Chart 35: Infinitives: Industries
Inf. Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Infinitives 16 2,6% 35 4,9% 25 4,4% 21 3,6% 43 6,0% Finite 589 97,4% 682 95,1% 540 95,6% 568 96,4% 679 94,0% verbs Total 605 100,0% 717 100,0% 565 100,0% 589 100,0% 722 100,0%
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Chart 36: Tenses: Industries (infinitives included)
Tenses Pub Pub % Elect Elect % Aut Aut % Tob Tob% Food Food % Pr S 390 64,5% 488 68,1% 379 67,1% 415 70,5% 479 66,3% Pr C 9 1,5% 7 1,0% 7 1,2% 19 3,2% 17 2,4% Pa S 103 17,0% 125 17,4% 81 14,3% 71 12,1% 112 15,5% Pa C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 0,2% 0 0,0% F S 25 4,1% 21 2,9% 25 4,4% 18 3,1% 29 4,0% F C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Pr P S 57 9,4% 39 5,4% 47 8,3% 43 7,3% 38 5,3% Pr P C 2 0,3% 1 0,1% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 1 0,1% Pa P S 3 0,5% 1 0,1% 1 0,2% 1 0,2% 3 0,4% Pa P C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% F P S 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% F P C 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% 0 0,0% Inf 16 2,6% 35 4,9% 25 4,4% 21 3,6% 43 6,0% Total 605 100,0% 717 100,0% 565 100,0% 589 100,0% 722 100,0%
Chart 37: Active vs. passive: Companies
Voice Active Active % Passive Passive % Publishing UK 1489 82,2% 323 17,8% Publishing US 1604 85,0% 282 15,0% Electronics UK 1429 77,5% 415 22,5% Electronics US 1493 83,2% 302 16,8% Automotive UK 1574 84,4% 291 15,6% Automotive US 1551 85,0% 274 15,0% Tobacco UK 1573 85,1% 276 14,9% Tobacco US 1578 83,4% 313 16,6% Food sale UK 1456 83,7% 283 16,3% Food sale US 1399 76,1% 439 23,9%
Total 15146 3198
Chart 38: Negative form: Companies
Voice Positive Positive % Negative Negative % Publishing UK 312 96,6% 11 3,4% Publishing US 259 91,8% 23 8,2% Electronics UK 407 98,1% 8 1,9% Electronics US 288 95,4% 14 4,6% Automotive UK 285 97,9% 6 2,1% Automotive US 262 95,6% 12 4,4% Tobacco UK 270 97,8% 6 2,2% Tobacco US 289 92,3% 24 7,7% Food sale UK 281 99,3% 2 0,7% Food sale US 423 96,4% 16 3,6%
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Chart 39: Phrasal verbs: Companies
Phrasal Phrasal Phrasal Non-phrasal Non-phrasal % Publishing UK 3 0,9% 320 99,1% Publishing US 1 0,4% 281 99,6% Electronics UK 15 3,6% 400 96,4% Electronics US 3 1,0% 299 99,0% Automotive UK 2 0,7% 289 99,3% Automotive US 0 0,0% 274 100,0% Tobacco UK 5 1,8% 271 98,2% Tobacco US 0 0,0% 313 100,0% Food sale UK 15 5,3% 268 94,7% Food sale US 0 0,0% 439 100,0%
Chart 40: Modal verbs: Companies, part I.
Modal verbs Can Could May Might Must Shall Should Will Would Publishing UK 6 0 0 0 0 3 3 8 0 Publishing US 7 7 40 1 0 1 5 17 3 Electronics UK 6 0 6 0 0 0 8 15 4 Electronics US 1 0 43 0 0 0 7 6 3 Automotive UK 9 2 7 0 0 0 1 11 1 Automotive US 5 1 5 0 1 0 1 14 3
Chart 41: Modal verbs: Companies, part II.
Modal verbs Can Could May Might Must Shall Should Will Would Tobacco UK 8 4 3 0 1 0 8 6 2 Tobacco US 7 5 13 0 1 1 8 12 5 Food sale UK 2 0 3 0 2 0 1 17 0 Food sale US 6 7 14 2 0 0 3 12 4
Chart 42: Infinitives: Companies
Infinitives Infinitives Infinitives % Finite verbs Finite verbs % Publishing UK 7 2,2% 316 97,8% Publishing US 9 3,2% 273 96,8% Electronics UK 24 5,8% 391 94,2% Electronics US 11 3,6% 291 96,4% Automotive UK 8 2,7% 283 97,3% Automotive US 17 6,2% 257 93,8% Tobacco UK 7 2,5% 269 97,5% Tobacco US 14 4,5% 299 95,5% Food sale UK 13 4,6% 270 95,4% Food sale US 30 6,8% 409 93,2%
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Charts 43 – 47: Tenses: Companies (counts)
Pub Pub Elect Elect Aut Aut Tob Tob Food Food Tense UK US UK US UK US UK US UK US Pr S 190 200 237 251 177 202 187 228 157 322 Pr C 3 6 4 3 5 2 14 5 7 10 Pa S 70 33 107 18 52 29 39 32 59 53 Pa C 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 F S 8 17 15 6 11 14 6 12 17 12 F C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Pr P S 43 14 26 13 38 9 21 22 27 11 Pr P C 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Pa P S 0 3 1 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 Pa P C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 F P S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 F P C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Inf 7 9 24 11 8 17 7 14 13 30 Total 323 282 415 302 291 274 276 313 283 439
Charts 43 – 47: Tenses: Companies (%)
Pub Pub Elect Elect Aut Aut Tob Tob Food Food Tense UK % US % UK % US % UK % US % UK% US % UK % US % Pr S 58,82 70,92 57,11 83,11 60,82 73,72 67,75 72,84 55,48 73,35 Pr C 0,93 2,13 0,96 0,99 1,72 0,73 5,07 1,60 2,47 2,28 Pa S 21,67 11,70 25,78 5,96 17,87 10,58 14,13 10,22 20,85 12,07 Pa C 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,36 0,00 0,00 0,00 F S 2,48 6,03 3,61 1,99 3,78 5,11 2,17 3,83 6,01 2,73 F C 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 Pr P S 13,31 4,96 6,27 4,30 13,06 3,28 7,61 7,03 9,54 2,51 Pr P C 0,62 0,00 0,24 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,35 0,00 Pa P S 0,00 1,06 0,24 0,00 0,00 0,36 0,36 0,00 0,71 0,23 Pa P C 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 F P S 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 F P C 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 Inf 2,17 3,19 5,78 3,64 2,75 6,20 2,54 4,47 4,59 6,83 Total 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00 100,00
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Résumé (česky)
Tato diplomová práce je zaměřena na posouzení rozdílů ve využití trpného rodu u sloves používaných v obchodní angličtině. Cílem práce je dokázat, zda existují rozdíly mezi užitím trpného rodu na základě dvou stanovených kritérií - zaprvé, zda je užití pasiva ovlivněno sídlem konkrétního podniku a zadruhé, zda je užití pasiva ovlivněno odvětvím, ve kterém tento podnik operuje. Pro účely analýzy byly vybrány britské a americké podniky operující v těchto odvětvích: nakladatelství, elektronika, automobilový průmysl, tabákový průmysl a prodej potravin. Data byla čerpána z online dostupných výročních zpráv jednotlivých podniků. Celkový rozsah datového souboru, který posloužil jako základ analýzy, tvořilo celkem 10 výročních zpráv a více než 18.300 sloves. Kompletní datový soubor je k dispozici na přiloženém CD.
Rozdíly mezi užitím pasiva v jednotlivých kategoriích byly posuzovány na základě předem stanovených kritérií - celkového podílu sloves v činném a trpném rodě, užitní záporných tvarů slovesa, užití modálních a frázových sloves, použití infinitivů a jednotlivých časů, a v neposlední
řadě také s využitím přehledu nejužívanějších sloves a jejich variability. V datovém souboru byly jednotlivým výrazům přiřazeny atributy, na jejichž základě bylo následně možné určit frekvence výskytu konkrétních jevů u příslušných kategorií. Výsledky této analýzy jsou podrobně prezentovány, graficky znázorněny a následně shrnuty v závěrečné části práce.
Tato diplomová práce kromě prezentace výsledků analýzy výročních zpráv poskytuje vysvětlení pojmu obchodní angličtina (jak se vyvinula, jaké jsou její charakteristiky a jaké je její místo mezi dalšími koncepty) a také uvádí základní informace o trpném rodě (jak ho vytvářet, jaká jsou hlavní pravidla pro jeho užití, a také doporučení pro používání trpného rodu v obchodní angličtině). Obě tyto části poskytují nutný teoretický úvod pro následnou analýzu reálných dat.
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Résumé (English)
This diploma thesis is aimed at evaluating differences in the use of passive voice in business
English. The target of the thesis is to prove whether there are any differences in the use of passive voice with regard to the two selected criteria – firstly, whether the use of passive is influenced by the location of the company, and secondly, whether the use of passive is influenced by the industry in which the particular company operates. For the purpose of this analysis British and American companies were selected, operating in industries such as publishing, automotive, electronics, tobacco and food sales. The data were extracted from the online freely accessible annual reports of the concrete companies. The overall dataset based on which the analysis was performed consisted of annual reports of 10 companies and comprised of more than 18.300 verbs. The complete dataset can be found on the enclosed CD.
The differences in the use of passive voice among the individual categories were assessed based on the previously selected criteria - the overall share of active and passive verbs, the use of negative forms, the use of modal and phrasal verbs, the use of infinitives and particular tenses, and also with regard to the mostly used verbs and their variability. Various attributes were ascribed to the particular expressions in the dataset, based on which it was later possible to determine the frequencies of occurrence within the particular categories. The results of this analysis are represented and summarized in the last part of the thesis.
This diploma thesis also offers an explanation of the term business English (how it evolved, what are its characteristics and what is its position among the other concepts) and also provides information on the passive voice (how to create it, what are the basic rules for its use and the main recommendations for its use within business English). Both these parts provide the theoretical introduction necessary for the analysis of the real data.
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