Grammar for Everyone - Barbara Dykes 2007

Active and passive voice
Introduction
Part II The parts of speech

Like so many other features of grammar that we have been practising, voice describes something simple that occurs in our everyday speech. Understanding how it works and having words with which we can talk about it enables us to manipulate our own language or learn to use another one with greater skill.

The terms ’active’ and ’passive’ apply only to verbs. A verb can be one or the other, and the verb form actually is telling us more about its subject.

A verb in the active voice is one in which the subject performs the action of the verb.

For example:

Jasmin kicked the ball.

Jasmin is the subject and she did the kicking.

The word ’passive’ is from Latin passivus meaning ’suffering’. A verb in the passive voice is one in which the subject suffers the action, i.e. it happens to the subject. So we can say:

The ball was kicked by Jasmin.

In this sentence, the subject is ’the ball’ and it suffered the action of being kicked.

The passive form is composed of an auxiliary verb plus a participle. Logic tells us that the passive voice can be formed only with a transitive verb, as the verb must act on an object. A sentence written in the active voice and having a transitive verb (i.e. it has an object) can be turned around to make it passive.

For example:

The object of the active verb has become the subject of the passive one.

The choice between the use of active or passive voice in a sentence depends on where the speaker or writer wishes to lay the emphasis. In writing we choose to use the active or passive voice according to which is most effective in our narrative.

16.3 Activities: active and passive voice

1. Students write down three things that happened yesterday in sentences that have an active, transitive verb. Then they write the same sentences in the passive voice, for example:

An ambulance took my neighbour to hospital.

My neighbour was taken to hospital in an ambulance.

They then underline the subject in each of their sentences.

2. Orally students in turn give a sentence with an active transitive verb and the next student changes it to passive.

3. Students underline the verbs in given sentences and identify them as active or passive, for example:

a. Dad did not have a good day yesterday. [active]

b. He had been burnt by the toaster. [passive]

c. Then he was stung by a bee. [passive])

d. He lost his hat. [active]

e. It had been left on the tractor. [passive].

4. In writing or orally, students give sentences using the following verbs in first the active voice and then the passive voice.

a. clean

b. steal

c. interrupt

d. purchase

e. frighten

Checklist: active and passive voice

Students should now be able to:

• explain the term voice and the meaning of active and passive

• identify active or passive in sentences

• locate the subject of each verb

• change active verbs or sentences into passive ones and vice versa