Download teaching english passive contrastively and in comparison

TEACHING ENGLISH PASSIVE CONTRASTIVELY AND IN
COMPARISON WITH OTHER CATEGORIES
Dr. Boryana Tomova Ruzhekova-Rogozherova
Abstract: English passive belongs to a group of categories hard to be mastered by
numerous high and even higher school students. Due to existing relationships between
levels of understanding of each category’s essence and learners’ performance, current
paper suggests ideas not only as to illustrating structures by attractive diagrams, but also as
to establishing contrasts with passives in other languages and to revealing connections with
related forms, such as the perfect.
Key words: voice, diathesis, passive, active, transitivity, perfect, deverbal adjectives
1. Introduction
Voice, active, passive, diathetic relationships represent quite an intriguing issue not only in
theoretical grammar, but also in applied linguistics and FLT methodology due to
intermediate, transitional or we may say borderline essence of diathesis category, which
shares numerous common features with forms such as the perfect and adjectives, and more
specifically, deverbal ones. Transitions between mentioned forms lead to vivid linguistic
interest related to context and usage, on the one hand, and, on the other, are prone to arouse
and suscitate frequent learners’ errors in the process of category’s acquisition. Most
learners do not easily become aware of passive “identity”, of diathetic relationships within
the sentence and whether they permit passivization or not, of semantic requirements
allowing or leading to active-passive transformations or vice-versa, of tense-aspect-voice
combined characteristics appearing on the surface in grammar structures and their semantic
parameters.
That is why, we consider treating from a more theoretical and applied linguistics
perspective, methodology of English passive voice teaching really essential. Thus, current
article sets the following objectives: suggesting ideas as to examined category presentation
in compliance with its variety of meaning and structure and proposing contrastive teaching
elements, which can be used if appropriate, on the basis of comparison with French and
Bulgarian counterparts.
To achieve objectives, discussion will comprise the following issues (some of which will
be only touched upon): voice and diathesis, English diathetic relationships types,
transitivity and conditions for passivization, passive teaching methodology, French and
Bulgarian passives’ formation and meaning, contrastive teaching notes.
2. Voice in English
Voice (or diathesis) is not only a typical syntactic structure or periphrasis, but it also
represents a specific semantic relationship determining a specific type of diathesis. Most
often mentioned connection concerns basic arguments of a clause, subject and object.
Determining the passive is impossible without defining the active.
Quirk (1972: 801, 802) writes that “Voice is a grammatical category which makes it
possible to view the action of a sentence in two ways, without change in the facts reported:
(a) The butler murdered the detective (b) The detective was murdered by the butler”. “But
although the structure of a sentence changes under voice transformation, its meaning
remains the same.” Greenbaum (1991: 52) states that “Verbs have two voices: active and
passive. (…) The active and passive have different verb phrases in that the passive has an
additional auxiliary: a form of the auxiliary be followed by an –ed participle.” Partly true,
1
in our view1, these definitions are predominantly formal and not exhaustive. Formal
definition, we believe, must stem from semantic one. Active and passive are both (but not
all) sides of an agent ↔ patient relationship; the stronger agent’s (subject’s) responsibility
for the activity, its process management and patient’s (object’s) involvement in process, the
stronger active meaning and passivization opportunities are. In active diathesis case
semantic agent (doer, subject) coincides with grammatical one; on the contrary, passive
diathesis is characterized by swapping grammar functions – a subject-patient is attributed
activity results by means of an object-doer. We reckon Huddleston (1984: 438) more
appropriately reveals voice essence by affirming that: ““Voice” as a general linguistic
term, is applied to systems yielding … variation in the semantic role associated with the
subject, normally where there is … concomitant variation in the form of the VP…”. Is
thought about semantics really relevant when teaching the passive? We should confirm
that it is. Lecturers are not supposed to include too much theory in explanation unless
while working with students training to become language specialists. However, basic
theoretically shown semantic characteristics are compelling while teaching the passive,
notwithstanding learners’ profile, as most errors stem from lack of understanding of
arguments’ role leading to passive specific formula and functioning mechanism.
3. Types of voices (diatheses) in English
We believe there exist: one characteristic type of active diathesis, several sub kinds of
passive structures, a few active-passive forms, some of which are closer to the passive
rather than to the active and, could be also treated as passives, an impersonal diathesis;
basic diatheses will be briefly presented here below.
Entirely active (1) is a fully transitive form completely allowing standard passivization (2).
Activeness stems from high degree of activity control (high transitivity) on the part of
grammatical and semantic agent (subject).
(1) Tolstoy wrote this really well-known book.
(2) This really well-known book was written by Tolstoy.
However, passiveness cannot be only exhausted by above presented utterance (2), based on
arguments’ altered positions, be use accompanied by past participle attribution. Celce and
Larsen 19832 mention and examine passive varieties, amongst which are the so-called:
 Simple passives with GET…EN (“Barry got invited to the party.”)
 Complex passives with BE…EN (“John is thought to be intelligent.”)
 Complex passives with HAVE…NP…EN (“Alice had her purse snatched while
shopping downtown.”)
 Stative passives (“The wells are located near the edge of the reserve.”)
 Change-of-state verbs (“The red balloon burst.”)
Kurtoğlu (2006: 8-12), apart from some already quoted voices, refers to:
 Impersonal passives (It is said that figs are better for us than bananas.),
 Adjectival Passive (“The strike was unexpected”)
and subsumes “Have” and “Get” Passives under one and the same type (“I had my car
serviced. / I got my car serviced.”).
1
As it will be shown in 3, diathesis is much larger, mainly semantic, notion than simply active and passive;
on the other hand, due to voice specificity, we may only roughly state there is no difference in active and
passive sentences meaning.
2
Celce and Larsen 1983 in Molhova et al. (1991: 305-307, 311, 312)
2
To be mentioned are also cases referring to states, some of which introduce the agent by
means of
 with (“The square was crowded with people.”) as well as a few instances allowing
both,
 with or by prepositions (“The house was surrounded with tanks and policemen dogs.”;
“The building was surrounded by a deep green lawn.”3).
Passives’ variety can be enriched by Huddleston (1984: 440-446), also mentioning:
 Passives of ditransitive actives: (“Liz was given the money by Ed”; “The money was
given Liz by Ed”),
 passives with a stranded preposition (“It was dealt with by the boss”; “Her hat had
been sat on”),
 -en form non-finite complements (“I want them cooked by Angela”).
Active-passive diatheses include, in our view:
 some pseudo-transitive structures4, involving verbs such as: “resemble/look like/take
after someone; suit/fit/become; have/possess/lack; number/hold; mean; mind; boast;
befall; fail (let down); cost/weigh; marry/meet; agree with” (De Mattia-Viviès (2009:
94)). We sustain these verbs provide the basis for pseudo-actives or active-passives due
to the lack of real agentive force on the part of subject. They stand for a sign of partial
equality between subject and complement, expressing varieties of possession or
equivalence, like in lack or marry; to put it differently, subject and complement turn out
not quite distinct, their strict differentiation being a basic “activation” or passivization
prerequisite.5
 idiomatic expressions, such as in: “He kicked the bucket” (De Mattia-Viviès (2009:
97), which cannot be passivized as not being interpreted literally,
 reflexives, as in “John hurt himself.” (Stamenov 1977) due, in our view, to real
transitivity lack again, agent and patient, subject and object representing one and the
same entity.6
Impersonal diathesis comprises phrases, such as: it’s five o’clock; it is going to rain; it
takes me ten minutes to cover the distance from here to the post office, etc.
4. Meaningful teaching of English passive
Already conveyed information, selectively provided by means of appropriate examples,
turns out to be crucial as to learners’ understanding of category. How should we
meaningfully, not just formally teach the passive? We adhere to following five grammar
teaching steps or stages: lead-in, elicitation, explanatory, accurate representation and
immediate creativity (Harmer (1991: 60)).
We will describe some of them, not in great detail, suggesting ideas as to passive’s
semantic instruction to be put into practice later on.
Examples quoted from Collins (1990: 406) in Kurtoğlu (2006: 12)
Some authors treat them as transitives which cannot be usually passivized.
5
However, above quoted verbs allow passivization providing that “the subject of the active is agentive or
partly agentive” (De Mattia-Viviès 2009: 95); we assume change of meaning is involved thus leading to real,
not pseudo transitivity appearance, as in: “The letter was weighed by John.” (ibid.)
6
Alexieva 1981 (in Molhova et al. 1991) treats change-of-state verbs diathesis as “activo-passive use of
verbs”; though we prefer examining these structures as passives rather as a result of their grammatical
diathetic neutrality (“Cheese cuts easily.” (ibid.: 286), revealing agent and patient equivalence) and of their
semantic passiveness – cheese is always cut by somebody.
3
4
3
4.1. Teaching stages and illustrative diagrams
Lead-in: We propose to use a short text or a few paragraphs involving most typical passive
voice utterances, such as the following ones presented by means of a multimedia projector:
(1) These houses were built 20 years ago. Before that there was a cinema here but the
building was damaged in a fire and had to be knocked down.
(2) This bridge was built in 1925. It is used by hundreds of people every day. At the
moment the bridge is being painted.
(3) This street is called Wilton Street. It used to be called James Street but the name was
changed a few years ago.
(4) This is a bicycle factory. Bicycles have been made here since 1931. It’s the largest
bicycle factory in the country-hundreds of bicycles are produced here every year.
(after Murphy (2004: 259))
Passive voice phrases are underlined characteristically (in different colours or styles) as
well as tense-aspect markers. Learners’ attention is drawn to passive voice instances
mainly – they are read aloud and differentiated from active ones without providing any
explanation at this stage.
Elicitation: Learners are asked questions aimed at arousing not only formal interest in
taught structure, but also semantic one related to arguments’ meaning and connections, as
well as at promoting voice/tense/aspect relationships understanding. We would like to
suggest a few ideas (emphasis is laid on italicized words):
 Do we know who built the houses? When were they built? What happened to the
cinema? What damaged it?
 Who built the bridge? Is this information relevant or unexpected? Do people use the
bridge often? What is happening to it at the moment?
 What is the present name of the street? How was it called before? Who changed its
name? Is that information important?
 What does the factory produce? Who has produced bicycles since 1931? How many
bicycles do workers produce per year? How many bicycles are produced per year?
Explanation: Learners are supposed to have already started to grasp subject-object
grammar-semantic relationships involved in Passive voice sentences in contrast with
Active voice ones. At this stage we recommend use of appropriate attractive schemes and
examples to better illustrate above-mentioned subject (agent) / object (patient)
connections. Diagrams similar to here below (not all of them, of course, but selectively)
can be implemented. Explanation follows each utterance used at lead-in stage.
Hundreds of people use it every day. (AV)
Subject (Semantic Doer) – Verb - Object (Semantic Patient)
It is used by hundreds of people every day. (PV)
Subject (Semantic Patient) – Verb – Instrumental Object (Semantic Doer)
Fig. 1
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A (S1, S2) →→→→→→→ B (O1, O2) (AV)
MAKES
B (S1, O2) ←←←←←←←← A (O1, S2)7 (PV)
IS MADE BY
Fig.2
B+Attribution (BE) of Activity Result (past/passive/perfect PARTICIPLE) performed
by real Agent (A) (PV)
B (S1, O2) + BE + PASSIVE ADJECTIVE (RESULT OF A’S ACTIVITY) (PV)
B (S1, O2) + BE + PASSIVE/PERFECT ADJECTIVE (A HAS DONE THIS) (PV)
Fig. 3
Above presented figures aim at providing semantic and not just formal voice explanation.
Their objective is to concisely present, on the one hand, Passive diathesis’ formula:
[grammatically active patient (subject)] + [to be] + [past participle]8 + [by] +
[grammatically passive agent (object)] (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova 2012) (fig. 1) and, on the
other, to emphasize on functions, such as source and recipient of activity (fig. 2) and on
passive/perfect 9result attribution to active patient by means of copulative verb be (fig. 3).
Learners, we believe, should realize this formula generally applies to all above presented
typical passive voice instances (p. 3), not only to classical periphrasis. Thus, appropriate
exemplifying utterances could be offered and schematically illustrated. For the purpose of
clarity we suggest implementing above instances, though not presented in the same order;
we have differently grouped them together in compliance with various passives’ common
characteristics:
1. Passives of ditransitive actives and stranded preposition passives: (“Liz was given the
money by Ed”; “The money was given Liz by Ed”; “It was dealt with by the boss”;
“Her hat had been sat on”)
In our view classification should begin by this type, closest to traditional structure and,
consequently, perfectly described by above figures. In (1) result is attributed to a
grammatically active prepositional patient.
2. Complex and Impersonal passives (“John is thought to be intelligent.”; “It is said that
figs are better for us than bananas.”)
Current passive type can be also illustrated by means of offered diagrams, diathetic
relationships being characteristically passive, on condition that quoted structures usually
7
S1, S2, O1, O2, referring to grammar subject, semantic subject, grammar object and semantic object
Huddleston (1984: 321) distinguishes between passive past participles and perfect past participles,
depending on the auxiliary requiring the –en form, be and have.
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The terms of passive adjective (result) and passive/perfect adjective (result), referring to whether result
expresses passive agent’s activity assumed by active patient or attribution of a perfect result to active patient,
are related to Huddleston’s (1984) passive and perfect participle.
8
5
accompany present simple sentences. Passive (or instrumental) agent is currently omitted,
though frequently implicitly understood.
3. GET, HAVE and WANT + -en form passives (“Barry got invited to the party.”; “I had
my car serviced. / I got my car serviced.”; “Alice had her purse snatched while
shopping downtown.”; “I want them cooked by Angela”)
These passives’ strength is smaller than most frequent periphrasis strength, passivity being
weakened by active meaning of GET, HAVE and WANT involving some, though not
insignificant, participation and responsibility of an activity doer, coinciding with active
patient (Barry), or not (I, Alice). Of course, passiveness largely outweighs activeness due
to both passive arguments existence – not only of an active patient, but also of a passive
agent, not always explicitly mentioned, but notwithstanding logically present. Examined
more complex diathetic relationship can be schematically represented this way (fig. 4,
obtained by fig. 2 modifying), B1active, B2passive referring to patient’s activo-passive
role (see above, Barry), and A1 (occurring in most structures) standing for another agent,
not really performing, but volitionally influencing and directing process (see above, I,
Alice):
(A1) + B1active, B2passive + Attribution (GET, HAVE, WANT) of Activity Result
(past/passive/perfect PARTICIPLE) (performed by real Agent (A))
Fig. 4
4. Adjectival (Stative, Adjectival, with or by prepositions) passives (“The wells are located
near the edge of the reserve.”; “The strike was unexpected”; “The house was
surrounded with tanks and policemen dogs.”; “The building was surrounded by a deep
green lawn.”)
We have decided to subsume these three types under the title of “Adjectival passives”
though not all past participle forms respond to adjective requirements (such as gradability,
various copulative verbs use)10 due to typical emphasis on quality/result attribution to
passive subject. Agent turns out quite irrelevant, apart from last by-agent example, this way
activity diminishing and adjective characteristics becoming more prominent (we consider with passives much more adjectival than their –by counterparts). However, these
utterances should be still considered passive voice instances (see below on
passive/adjectives similarities). Figures from (1) to (3) are applicable, on condition of
passive agent’s frequent omission.
5. Change-of-state passives (“The red balloon burst.”)
This type of passive, which was commented on above, quite strangely superficially
assumes active shape; it can be schematically represented in the following way:
B=A or
Fig. 5
[↔] + (by + real Agent (A1))
Doer and patient (B=A) appear to refer to an identical entity, though an implicitly existing
agent A1 performs the passive process.
10
Ref. as to adjectives’ characteristic features in Huddleston (1984: 299) and in Greenbaum (1991: 54)
6
Controlled and free use stages
As above mentioned we will not dwell in details on each one of teaching stages; though it
must be pointed out that underlying lead-in, elicitation and explanation having been
performed, practice and consolidation (accurate representation and immediate creativity)
is always compelling. What matters most is that final stages are carried out within the
framework of communicative methodology with as many as possible functional,
communication gap activities, without drills, multiple choice and opening brackets
exercises being excluded. It is recommendable to also implement writing and speaking
tasks involving passive periphrases use. Appropriate and graded extracts of administrative,
scientific, sometimes journalistic texts may be studied to provide the basis to more specific
writing assignments. Learners could also be asked to describe the steps of a meal cooking,
a car wheel changing, a report writing, etc., all these activities requiring result and not doer
emphasis and, consequently, passive voice use.
4.2. Connections with passive related forms
Meaningful passive diathesis teaching is in our view strongly related to concise
presentation of existing similarities between the passive and related categories. This
component of meaningful teaching approach is supposed to beneficially influence learners’
understanding of passive category’s features and, thus, lead to students’ errors reduction.
We would like to refer to a set of exemplifying utterances considered in RuzhekovaRogozherova (2012):
(30) [He was] given [some money by his grandmother]
(33) [The officer] considered [responsible for the accident refused to resign]
(35) [He came across a] broken [vase]
(36) [The vase was already] broken
(37) [They were searching for the recently] escaped [prisoner]
(39) [He’s a] worried [man]
(selectively quoted from Huddleston (1984: 320, 321))
Examining –ed (en) past participle forms quite easily and logically leads to proximity
conclusions between the passive, deverbal –ed (-en) adjectives and the perfect. Although
broken in (35) and (36), escaped in (37) and worried in (39) are adjectives, being used
either attributively, predicatively or/and allowing gradability (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova
(2012)), quite an evident transition between passive instances (in (30) and in (33)),
adjectives and perfect forms can be established. We consider “one and the same form
possessing various, though related meanings” (ibid.) can be attested. Simple
transformations to above examples, such as the following ones, reveal referred to
closeness. Deverbal –ed (-en) adjectives testify, on the one hand, to a quality / result of an
activity which has been already performed, and, on the other, to a quality / result of a
process carried out by a passive agent (irrelevant or implicitly understood), this quality
being attributed to an active patient. Resultativity feature, typical to three involved in
comparison categories, reveals itself their common joining link.11
(33′) The officer was considered responsible by the court.
(35′) He came across a vase which was broken long years ago (by some ancestors).
11
Ref. Cohen (1989: 97, 112) who believes original perfect periphrasis stems from the passive. We support
(ref. Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2010: 144)) the idea of a strong relationship between HAVE passive and
perfect due to reinforced resultativity and acquisition meaning.
7
(36′) The vase was already broken by the boy who frequently threatened to do it.
(37′) They were searching for the prisoner who had recently escaped.
(39′) This man is worried by some worrying experience he is going through.
Examined semantic connections may be shown by numerous examples aiming at learners’
understanding of each component’s meaning of already schematically illustrated passive
periphrasis (fig. 1-5). Errors related to tenses and aspects implementation in copulative
verbs BE, GET, HAVE, WANT, past/passive participle omission in verb phrase or faulty
interpretation of agent/patient connection are likely to decrease.
5. Contrastive teaching remarks
Contrastive teaching (CT) essence formulated by James (1980: 154) “involves presenting
to the learner at the same time all the terms in a linguistic system of L2 which, as a system,
contrasts with the corresponding L1 system.”12 The task being rather ambitious and
unachievable for the time being, we reckon CT should encompass a restricted number of
categories depending on learners’ needs and teaching opportunities. CT, a serious
motivation tool (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (in the press)), is likely to help learners to more
satisfactorily get aware of two or more languages linguistic categories’ convergences and
divergences and, consequently, promote students’ general linguistic and specific
knowledge.
Similarities (not only contrasts) between categories of various studied by learners
languages, we believe, can be really beneficial to be examined, giving ground not only to
frequent positive language transfer use, but also contributing to better understanding of
categories’ essence and functioning mechanism (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2012)).
We suggest getting students acquainted with French counterparts of examined passive
category in English; French passive reveals itself “facilitator”, its formation, varieties and
values being rather close to above presented ones. Thus, explanation referring to
arguments’ grammatical and semantic parts as well as to passive periphrasis’ functioning
mechanism in French will not be included hereby.
5.1. Passive diatheses types in French
Passive voice studying is obviously incompatible without mentioning active and activepassive diatheses (stipulating here again that in our view this “middle” usage may quite
often exhibit a more passive than active meaning); similarly to English and Bulgarian, we
reckon French also reveals the existence of an impersonal diathesis.
Active voice (Voix active)13 (highly transitive, with high degree of passivization, like in
(2)):
(1) Manet a peint «Le déjeuner dans l’atelier».
(2) «Le déjeuner dans l’atelier» a été peint par Manet.
Passive voice (Voix passive) (passive diatheses instances apart from traditional one in
(2)) :
 Impersonal passive (Voix passive impersonnelle) («Il a été beaucoup bu et mangé»14 )
12
In our view L1 may refer to native tongue as well as to FL1.
Current classification as well as some diatheses’ denominations belongs to us, though we frequently refer
to various researchers’ views and examples.
14
An example of Wilmet (CommuneLangue.com 2008-2009: 20) who estimates (Wilmet 2007) there are five
diatheses (“voies” (ways)) in French, amongst which three voices (active, passive, moyenne) and two
13
8





Factitive passive (Voix passive factitive) («Paul fait donner un livre à Marie par
Luc»15)
Reflexive passive (Voix passive réfléchie) («Ce vin se déguste avec plaisir»16)
Metaphorical passive (Voix passive métaphorique) («Ce livre compte Léa parmi ses
lecteurs»17)
Adjectival passive (Voix passive adjectivale) («Une fois le travail terminé, nous
sommes partis»; «La ville est entourée de murailles» (ex. of Muller (2005: 9))
Passive based on se faire; se laisser; se voir + infinitif constructions (Voix passive
basée sur les constructions se faire; se laisser; se voir + infinitif) («Paul s’est fait laver
la voiture (par Julie)»; «Paul s’est laissé donner un livre par Marie»; «Parker s’est vu
remettre la Légion d’Honneur» (ex. of Veecock (2008: 9-11)))
Middle voice (activo-passive) (Voix moyenne)
 Typical and reinforced middle voice (Voix moyenne typique et renforcée) («Pierre se
rase»; «Un vautour s’abattit sur le petit lapin» (ex. of Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 93)))
 Middle voice of impassivizable verbs (Voix moyenne des verbes non-passivables)
(«Cette voiture pèse une tonne»; «Jean sent la rose»; «Jean fait / paraît idiot»; «Jean a
son livre de chevet à côté de lui» (ex. of Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 73)))
Impersonal voice (Voix impersonnelle) (Il fait chaud; Il est interessant; Il importe que; Il
est très tard, etc.)
Due to form/meaning English/French diatheses similarities above presented by
exemplifying utterances passive diathetic relationships can be easily illustrated by means
of already proposed diagrams. Thus, typical Voix passive, Voix passive impersonnelle,
Voix passive adjectivale can be exemplified by figures (1-3) adapted for this purpose; Voix
passive factitive, Voix passive basée sur les constructions se faire ; se laisser ; se voir +
infinitif can be schematically supported by figure (4), whereas Voix passive métaphorique
matches figure (5).
5.2. Contrastive teaching steps
Current paper’s objective is not to exhaustively dwell on passive diatheses CT stages.
Though, it should be pointed out that CT in our view should comply with above presented
five grammar teaching steps18. Lead-in is supposed to include not only an illustrative
paragraph in English, but also its French translation (translated text can be used at this
very stage or later on, depending on learners’ knowledge); elicitation encompasses specific
questions as to forms and use of studied category in both languages (without
underestimating context relevant components); explanation comprises functional
equivalents fans, charts, diagrams depicting English and French categories’ essence,
additional questions and exemplifying utterances; both final stages require varied
constructions (impersonnelle and factitive). We consider impersonal diathesis can be treated as passive one
just in its passivized form, as above.
15
An example quoted from Muller (2005: 2); in French faire + object + verb structure is not as easily
passivizable as in English. Thus, not all factitive instances can be, in our view, classified as suggested above.
16
An example quoted from Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 74); we estimate not all, but only some semantically
passive reflexive instances like this one (as wine is drunk by somebody) belong to above classification.
17
An example quoted from Muller (2005: 5) and which belongs to Gross 2000; we consider it passive as the
book cannot obviously “count”; Léa has been numbered among this book readers.
18
Ref. Ruzhekova-Rogozherova 2011 as to preterit/perfect CT; same stages are applicable and similar
procedures may be carried out.
9
communicative activities in FL2 and FL1, sometimes drills and even mechanical exercises
if there are still problems related to understanding, formation and values, guided or/and
topic (selective) translation19 from English into French or vice-versa, contrastively
corrected passive voice written assignments, etc.
While contrastively working, it is essential to lay stress also on the fact that passive
diathesis is much more frequent in English than in French; e.g. a passive verb in French
cannot be followed by a complement as in English: “On lui a demandé son nom et son
adresse. He was asked his name and his address.”; “être en train de” cannot be passivized,
though “This machine is being repaired.” is perfectly acceptable and current (ref.
http://www.bertrandboutin.ca/Folder_151_Grammaire/B_k_frequence_passif.htm#_top).
5.3. Contrastive teaching with Bulgarian
CT procedures when implementing Bulgarian examples will not be rather different from
already suggested ones involving French instances. However, a few lines will be devoted
to concise presentation of Bulgarian language diathetic system; its components should be
presented to learners by means of English ↔ Bulgarian equivalences based on diathetic
classifications while carrying out above mentioned teaching stages.
Similarly to English and French classifications (see above) we believe there are three main
types of diatheses in Bulgarian, apart from the impersonal one. They can be also
schematically represented by figures (1)-(5).
Active voice (Деятелен залог) (It is characterized by high transitivity degree and
consequently, by enhanced passivization prospects):
(1) Иван Вазов е написал този роман, а не Елин Пелин.
(2) Този роман е написан от Иван Вазов, а не от Елин Пелин.20
Passive Voice (Страдателен залог)

Typical passive (Типичен страдателен залог) (coinciding with utterance (2) diathetic
relationships)

Factitive passive (Фактитивен страдателен залог) (Той се бръсне винаги при
Стефан; Шия си костюм (при добър шивач))

Impersonal Passive (Имперсонален страдателен залог) (На моето креватче е
лежано; По този въпрос много е говорено и писано)
Middle Voice (Междинен/Среден залог)

Typical middle (typical reflexive) voice (Типичен междинен (типичен рефлексивен)
залог) (Мия се. Самообесвам се.21)
19
Topic (selective) translation (term of ours) refers to translation of a French text, for instance, which is not
supposed to be entirely translated into English, but only passive voice structures within it.
20
Mutual reflexives as well as some intransitive structures can also be included into Active Voice instances,
such as пея, скачам, etc. being internally transitive. If appropriate we suggest introducing learners not only
to passive voice subject/object connections, but also to tense forms active/passive equivalences, one passive
form often corresponding to more active ones.
10

Active-passive reflexivity (Активно-пасивна рефлексивност) (Храната се готви
(сама на котлона; от мен).)
Impersonal Voice (Имперсонален залог) (боли ме, догневява ме, досмешава ме,
прилошава ми, призлява ми, прияжда ми се, доспива ми се, ходи ми се, съмва, съмва
се, мръква, мръква се, заесенява се, трябва, изглежда, бива, личи, личи си)
6. Conclusion
Current paper has generally set a two-fold objective: to put forward ideas, on the one hand,
as to meaningful, stimulating learners’ understanding of structures and diathetic
relationships, presentation of English passive diatheses, and, on the other, as to contrastive
(with French and Bulgarian) teaching of the Passive, this approach also contributing to
better understanding. We believe above suggested techniques will be useful not only to
arousing and maintaining students’ motivation in discussed issues, but also to errors
reduction and thus, to the achievement of higher degree of category mastery. Contrastive
teaching, as well as teaching involving comparison with other categories, is worth trying
and implementing. It is inspirational, rewarding, motivational and useful.
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http://www.bertrandboutin.ca/Folder_151_Grammaire/B_k_frequence_passif.htm#_top
Boryana Tomova Ruzhekova-Rogozherova – VTU “Todor Kableshkov” (Todor Kableshkov
University of Transport) 158 Geo Milev Street, Sofia; tel. + 359 2 9709 434; + 359 886 056 032; email address: [email protected]
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