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Passive Generalizations

Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese - A Functional Reference Grammar . Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hung, Tong T.N. (2005). Understanding English Grammar – A Course Book for Chinese Learners of English. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

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Passive Generalizations

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  1. Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese - A Functional Reference Grammar. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hung, Tong T.N. (2005). Understanding English Grammar – A Course Book for Chinese Learners of English. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. McEnery, A. M. and Xiao, R. Z. (2005) Passive constructions in English and Chinese: A corpus-based contrastive study . In: Corpus Linguistics 2005, 14-17 Jul 2005, Birmingham, UK Passive Generalizations

  2. Sentence structure • In English the DO of the active verb becomes the subject in the passive voice and is normally placed at the beginning of the sentence. • In Chinese the DO noun phrase, that is the thing or person affected by the action of the verb, is placed in the initial position. This DO is followed by the passive coverb bei, which introduces the agent of the action. The verb occurs in the sentence-final position.

  3. Adversity • In English the passive voice can be used in both nonadverse and adverse situations. • The bei construction in an ambiguous situation sometimes indicates an adverse situation in a Chinese sentence. • The message carried by passive sentences with verbs of perception or cognition is most often negative. • The number of bei constructions that do no express adversity is increasing, particularly in the written language of modern China. • Passive voice in English often does not correspond to the bei construction in Chinese. The converse is also true.

  4. Other Differences • The direct object of the verb in Mandarin serves as the topic but not subject in the “topic-comment” construction. • Thus the topic prominence of Mandarin together with the restriction of the bei construction to adverse messages combine to reduce the usage of the passive in Mandarin Chinese.

  5. Focus on the agent of the transitive verb (DO)‏ • English uses passive for this purpose • Chinese can use the shi-de construction in nonadverse situations and the bei construction in adverse situations.

  6. A few characters can replace bei • Gei, jiao and rang can replace bei in certain situations depending on the dialect of Mandarin spoken. • English has nothing to replace by in a passive sentence.

  7. McEnery and Xiao’s conclusions From corpus

  8. First obvious difference is that syntactic passives are by far more frequent in English than in Chinese. Why? Chinese passives can only occur in dynamic events (Li calls these disposable) whereas English can be both dynamic and static. Chinese passives typically have a negative semantic prosody (i.e. adverse) whereas English passives do not (see below). English overuses passives, especially in formal writing and Chinese avoids it. They found that only 20% of English passives were translated into Chinese in a parallel corpus 1. Syntactic Passives

  9. 2. Bei or its substitutes and by • Bei or its substitutes cannot be left out, whereas by can be left out However, the agent can be left out of both of them.

  10. 3. Chinese advsities are more • Over 50% of the passive constructions marked by all syntactic passive markers in Chinese occur in adversative situations. • English had 15%-37.7% depending on the kind. • Note the Chinese beibu “be arrested,” beifu “be captured,” beigao “the accused,” beihai “be a victim,” and beipo “be forced.” • English order of importance for passives: neutral, negative and positive. • Chinese: negative, neutral and positive.

  11. 4. Syntactic functions • Passives are basically verb constructs and used as such in both languages • English use as verbs is 95% • Chinese use is 76% depending on the passive marker. Gei, jiao, etc. • Chinese passives in the predicate position typically interact with aspect. • This is a good topic for further investigation.

  12. 5. Genere • English passives occur more frequently in informative and fiction genres, especially official and academic articles. • Chinese has the lowest occurance of passives in these categories. The hightest occurance is in mystery stories and religious writing.

  13. Recommendations for teachers • The two langauges are quite similar but when and how they are used are different. • Students need to be taught the differences especially in academic writing. • Reasons also have to be stressed so students understand why they are wrting the way they are. • Do you teach this as a change from the Chinese bei etc. to the English passive or do you teach them as two different things? • Your insights?

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