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Changes in the Use of the Passive Voice Over Time: A CHANGES IN THE USE OF THE PASSIVE VOICE OVER TIME: A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY AND THE CHANGES IN THE USE OF THE PASSIVE VOICE FROM 1914-2008 By LAURA MARIE DUMIN Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 1999 Master of Arts in English Radford University Radford, VA 2001 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY July, 2010 CHANGES IN THE USE OF THE PASSIVE VOICE OVER TIME: A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY AND THE CHANGES IN THE USE OF THE PASSIVE VOICE FROM 1914-2008 Dissertation Approved: Dr. Richard Batteiger Dissertation Adviser Dr. Ronald Brooks Dr. Rebecca Damron Dr. Michael Palmer Dr. Mark Payton Dean of the Graduate College ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Richard Batteiger for his willingness to work with me and his help in making me a better writer. Without his support, my drive to finish would not have been as strong. I would like to thank Dr. Rebecca Damron for helping me to understand how to keep digging even when something looks like it might not have promise. Her support allowed me to find answers to questions that were only partially formed in my head. I would like to thank Dr. Ron Brooks for him comments, support, and help throughout the whole process. I would like to thank Dr. Mike Palmer for his comments and help. I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Warren for the support and the push to examine the passive voice. This topic turned out to be deeper than I would have first imagined it. To my family, friends, and cheerleaders I give a warm thank you. Without the many people who helped me with the day-to-day concerns, I might not have finished. Thanks to my husband, parents, and in-laws for seeing the potential in me, even when I wasn’t sure that it was there. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES viii INTRODUCTION 1 How the advice about the passive impacted my research question 7 Definitions 13 Definition of an article 13 Definition of passive voice 13 The purpose of my study 15 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 18 A semi-brief history of the passive voice 20 What do the style guides advise? 29 What brings scientists back to the passive voice? 36 Passive voice as community-builder (for better or worse) 38 Cognitive processing of the passive voice 42 Arguments against the passive voice 47 METHODS 49 Setting up the study 51 Articles used 53 Article sections 54 How I focused my study 55 Furthering the methodology from Tarone et al. 1981, 1998: 57 How passive voice verbs and total words were marked/counted 58 Examining the verbs 60 Marking the spaces 64 Marking the by-phrases for full passives 68 Human or non-human agent in the by-phrase 70 Semantic role of the by-phrases 72 Abstract or concrete idea expressed in the by-phrase 74 iv RESULTS 76 Notes to Contributors 76 General Results about the Passive Voice 77 Form of the Sentences Containing the Passive Voice 80 Occurrences of the Passive Voice by Article Sections 81 Most frequently occurring verbs 81 Top 10 verbs overall 82 Passives in the Methods 83 Passives in the Results 84 Passives in the Discussion 85 Occurrences of the Passive Voice by Space 87 Spaces for the most frequently occurring verbs 88 Occurrences of the Passive Voice with Truncated or Full Passives (as indicated with the by-phrase) 96 Frequency of by-phrases 96 Verbs and by-phrases 98 Verbs in the by-phrases versus verbs in the Top 10 lists 101 Human or non-human agent in the by-phrase 105 Semantic roles and spaces where the by-phrases occurred 108 Abstract or concrete idea expressed in the by-phrase 110 DISCUSSION 114 Overall passive voice findings 115 Full passive (by-phrases) findings 119 Response to the two camps 121 Limitations of this study and future research 123 Recommendations to English teachers 124 Classroom Practices 125 REFERENCES 129 APPENDICES 135 Appendix A 136 Appendix B 144 Appendix C 148 VITA 1 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 1: List of articles used in study 53 Table 2: Article sections by year 54 Table 3: Number of passives per section by 5-yr period, and total # for each section 60 Table 4: Top ten verbs by 5-year period 63 Table 5: Number and % of passives per section by 5-yr period 78 Table 6: Proportion of passive be verbs by section for 15-yr period and by 5-yr period for all sections 79 Table 7: Percentage of full passives/ total passives by 5-year period and by section 80 Table 8: Top 10 occurring verbs by 5-yr period and 15-yr period, regardless of section or be passive 81 Table 9: Top 10 occurring verbs in the Methods sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 83 Table 10: Top 10 occurring verbs in the Results sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 84 Table 11: Top 10 occurring verbs in the Discussion sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 85 Table 12: Spaces used by the most frequently occurring verbs, by section 89 Table 13: Top 10 verbs by space, regardless of section, ordered from most frequently occurring space to least frequently occurring space 90 Table 14: Spaces for the top 10 verbs, by 5-yr period and by section 94 Table 15: Number of full passive occurrences in the spaces by 5-year period 97 Table 16: Comparison of full and truncated passives in the overall Top 10 list of verbs by space 97 vi Table 17: Top ten occurring verbs in the by-phrases by 5-yr period and overall, regardless of section 99 Table 18: Most frequently occurring verbs in the Methods sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 100 Table 19: Most frequently occurring verbs in the Results sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 100 Table 20: Most frequently occurring verbs in the Discussion sections by 5-yr period and 15-yr period 101 Table 21: Verbs in full passive and Top 10 lists, by section in the 1910s 102 Table 22: Verbs in full passive and Top 10 lists, by section in the 1960s 103 Table 23: Verbs in full passive and Top 10 lists, by section in the 2000s 103 Table 24: Human versus non-human agents as part of the by-phrases by section and 5-yr period 106 Table 25: Percentage of human and non-human agents in each section and 5-year period 107 Table 26: Type of human agent by section and 5-yr period 108 Table 27: Abstract or Concrete non-human agents by section and 5-yr period 111 Table 28: Total Abstract agents occurring with -ing verbs 111 Table 29: Number and % of abstract agents that use -ing verbs to describe the process 112 Table 30: Non-human concrete agents as human manipulated or natural by 5-yr period 113 Table 31: Percentage of passives per total words by section for 5-yr periods 116 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page Figure 1: Diagram of Agent types 70 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION At some point during the mid-20th century, scientific writing came under fire from English teachers and others who were outside of the community for the writing style (or, as some might argue, the lack thereof) and choice of verb voice used by many of its authors. Two main camps have formed in this debate – those who think that passive voice serves a purposeful function in scientific writing, and those who think that passive voice should be banished forever. There is also a third, smaller group of academics who are interested in determining if the passive voice has been a part of scientific writing since the start of the Royal Society, or if it is a new addition, begun only within the last hundred years or so1. Wilkinson (1991) notes that although the passive voice is a common feature in scientific writing, scientists often face criticism for using it (p. 70). It would seem, then, that while the passive voice is a well-known feature of many scientific disciplines, it may still be an unwelcome linguistic feature for many readers. In order to teach new scientists about writing within their disciplines, we, as writing teachers, need to be aware of the advice about writing that already exists within those disciplines, and we also need to understand why that advice might work for one community better than it might work for another. We cannot just assume that science 1 For an in-depth discussion of the historical changes of science writing, see D. Ding (1998), Rationality reborn: Historical roots of the passive voice in scientific writing (in J. Battalio (Ed.), The study of scientific discourse: Methods, practice, and pedagogy. Stamford, CT: Ablex). Ding covers parts of pre-1900 writing that there was not a place for me to cover in this project. 1 writers are bad writers who are unaware of how using language affects the message. It is only once we begin to approach science writing as a distinct type of communication (including sub-fields for each discipline), with reasons and rules for writing, that we can begin to understand how best to teach our students to write for their intended disciplines.
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