Using passive voice
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What is passive voice for? | page 3 of 4 |
Getting important information in the right place
While the beginning of a clause tells us what the clause is about, the end of a clause usually contains information that will be new to the hearer or reader, or information that the speaker or writer wishes to present as the most important information in the clause. Consider the following clauses which you might expect to hear on a radio news broadcast:
1. The police shot a demonstrator ...
2. A demonstrator was shot by the police ...
3. A demonstrator has been shot ...
If we read these three clauses out loud with our normal intonation, we would probably
tend to put heaviest stress on the word demonstrator in the active clause
(1), on the word police in the first passive clause (2) and on the word shot
in the second passive clause (3). In other words, there is a tendency for us to emphasise
information that comes near the end of a clause. The choice between active and passive
voice, as well as between passive voice with agent 
and
passive voice without agent, therefore allows us to choose which bit of information to put
at the end of the clause, where it will naturally receive emphasis 
.
A clause like A demonstrator was shot by the police is about what happened to a demonstrator, but the important new information is that he or she was shot by the police. Thus, in choosing between active voice and passive voice we have to take into account not only what the clause is about, but also what the new or most important information is.
To understand why a speaker or writer might want to present one part of the information
in a clause as more important than another, it is necessary to look at the clause in
context. For further information about this, see 
Using
passive voice: Passive voice in context.
Getting important information in the right place
