Dear Mary Ellen,
Thanks for your comments. I find this orientation to performance and topicalisation really helpful for the students I work with – International
students preparing for English-medium study. They usually come with what I would call ‘verb tense anxiety’ because their focus in learning English has been on accurate production of verb tenses and passive voice. Shifting them away from form and onto performance
reduces this anxiety considerably.
I’ve published a coursebook,
Access EAP: Foundations, for low proficiency levels which uses these ideas,
https://www.garneteducation.com/Book/59/Access_EAP:_Foundations.html Even at low levels I believe it is possible to introduce the concept of thematic development to students.
One of the examples in the book is in response to two similar essays titles:
Computer science student essay title
Software applications developed considerably in the last half of the 20th century. Outline some of these developments and explain their effect on business
practices.
Business Management student essay title
Business practices changed considerably in the last half of the 20th century. Outline some of the changes and relate these to new developments in software.
The task asks students to compare the two essay titles and then say which of the two introductions below would be appropriate for each
one. The analysis looks at the topics of the sentences and how ideas have moved from theme to rheme. There is also a critical thinking element as users of the book are asked whether collaboration between these example students to write very similar introductions
for different essay titles is appropriate.
1.
Business practices have changed a great deal in the last 30 years and this is related to new developments in computers. Managers now produce their own
reports, using word processors. Accountants prepare detailed financial information with a spreadsheet application. Everyone in a company can be contacted easily by email. In this essay I will outline these changes in detail and show that they have happened
because of developments in computer software.
2.
Software applications have changed a great deal in the last 30 years and this has had a major impact on the world of business. Word processors are now
used routinely by managers to produce their own reports. Spreadsheet applications are used by accountants to present detailed financial information. Email easily enables everyone in a company to contact each other. In this essay I will outline the development
of software applications in detail and consider their impact on business practices.
Using this coursebook, I explored the widespread teacher belief that EAP is too difficult for students until they have at least an
intermediate level of proficiency, published in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes
doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2011.12.001.
Best wishes
Olwyn
Ms Olwyn Alexander
Academic Director, English Section
School of Management and Languages
Heriot-Watt University
Riccarton
Edinburgh EH14 4AS
T: +44 131 451 8189
From: Mary Ellen Kerans [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 January 2016 09:35
To: Alexander, Olwyn <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Please Feedback on My Article
Oh, excellent. Thank you, Olwyn for aptly summarizing what really matters in this topic that keeps coming up again and again.
Please, everyone, let's store this response as explaining the most important thing to remember about passive-vs-active voice. And let's teach young authors to look at the environment around their sentences when making these editing decisions -- and then
to re-read their papers for flow, holistically, after an editing session.
To bring Orwell back into the discussion in another sense:
Discussing hypothetical "intrinsic" merits of passive or active voice is like the "four legs good, two legs bad" slogan in
Animal Farm. It expresses a point of view that is reductionist and unhelpful to say the least.
All the examples of overuse of passive voice Strunk, Fowler and others have used to caution overusers to stop it were exactly that: overuse with no attention to message flow in context (theme-rheme progression). Olwyn's just explained it
perfectly.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 9:59 AM, Alexander, Olwyn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Tamer,
The perspective on scientific writing discussed so far has a focus on form, the passive as a grammatical device. It can sometimes be more helpful to focus on performance, i.e. what the grammatical device enables us to do. Instead of thinking of the passive as a device to remove the agent, I find it more helpful to think of it as a topicalising device (cf Systemic Functional Linguistic theory) to bring the topic into subject position.
If we see a sentence as a topic (usually the grammatical subject in a simple sentence) and a comment (the verb phrase), then the passive is one grammatical device for moving an object into topic position where it contributes to the cohesion and logical development of ideas. In scientific writing we are interested in phenomena in the natural world and how they change and develop. Aspects of these phenomena form the subjects of the sentences which are steps in a process for example. Putting them in subject position to clearly organise the ideas requires us to use the passive voice.
So subject – what we want to talk about – comes first and verb phrase – what we want to say about it and the form we use to say it – is dependent on our choice of subject.
Best wishes
Olwyn
Ms Olwyn Alexander
Academic Director, English Section
School of Management and Languages
Heriot-Watt University
Riccarton
Edinburgh EH14 4AS
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Beverly Lewin
Sent: 23 January 2016 08:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Please Feedback on My Article
Dear Tamer:
Except for grammatical 'rules', all 'rules' of good writing, including scientific writing, must be adapted to their relevant social and generic contexts (Lewin, 2010). In my opinion, we cannot say 'never / always use passive voice in science'. But one must always consult the style manual for a particular journal. For instance, the Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001:41) prescribes, as a general rule 'Use the active rather than the passive voice […].' Obviously, we must apply that judiciously. If we are describing the procedure for an experiment, it is clear that the authors (or their assistants) did the mundane work and there is no need to repeat the agent: We did this, we did that. But when the research involves human participants, we must be more sensitive. The APA Manual cautions us that using passive voice confers upon the participant the status of a passive actor in the experiment, e.g., 'The students completed the survey' is preferable to 'the students were given the survey' (p. 65). Secondly, we should not use the passive to avoid responsibility for opinions as in It is believed that ….. (unless the source is cited). I hope this helps you in your deliberations.
Beverly A. Lewin
American Psychological Association (2001) . Publication Manual.(5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
For a fuller explanation of this and other problematic issues, see:
Lewin, Beverly A. (2010). Writing Readable Research: A Guide for Students of Social Science. London: Equinox.
European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tamer Osman
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2016 2:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Please Feedback on My Article
Dear all ,
Please find attached to this email a short article that I have written about the Plain Language Project.
Please review it and give me your feedback on it. Your feedback will defintely help me attain credibility in my future writings.
Best regards,
Tamer Osman
United Nations (PEOI) Program Translator
Telephone: 201207695808
Email: [log in to unmask]
--
Mary Ellen Kerans
Barcelona, SPAIN