Unit 2bc Book

While doing the previous task, you might have noticed that some of the verbs were in the active voice, while some others where in the passive voice:

When looking at the two columns carefully, you can see that active and passive sentences are different. The passive voice consists of two parts:

“to be” + the past participle (-ed or irregular)

This verb form is usually clear to Czech students of English because the passive verb form is the same in Czech:

Small pieces of plastic are fed from the hopper into a cylinder.

= Kousky plastu jsou vsypány z násypky do válce.

But what sometimes makes problems is the understanding of when the passive voice should be used. Why are the sentences on the left active, while the ones on the right are passive? Well, the answer to this question can be given in terms of grammar or in terms of stylistics.

Grammatically, this depends on who carries out the action of the verb. If it is the subject of the sentence, then you need the active voice (see the left-hand side column above). If it is not the subject of the sentence, then you should use the passive voice. When trying to decide which voice to use, it is not a good idea to rely on the translation of a sentence into Czech. This is because Czech sometimes uses two ways to say the same thing, one in the active voice, while the other in the passive voice:

Small pieces of plastic are fed from the hopper into a cylinder.

= Kousky plastu jsou vsypány z násypky do válce.

= Kousky plastu se vsypou z násyply do válce.

Stylistically, the choice of the active or the passive voice depends on the level of formality you want to achieve. The right-hand side column definitely sounds more formal because it uses the passive voice. You will hardly ever hear it in normal everyday conversations, but you can come across it in books. In addition, the passive voice emphasises the activity itself rather than the agent (i.e. the one that does the action). The agent is not important or known. Sometimes it is not even desirable to mention the agent. Instead, the focus is on the activity itself or its result. However, even the passive sentences can express the agent if necessary. It can be introduced after “by”:

The soft, warm plastic is pushed towards a nozzle by the ram.

As you can see, you can choose if you give the same information in the active or passive voice:

The ram pushes the soft, warm plastic towards a nozzle.

vs.

The soft, warm plastic is pushed towards a nozzle by the ram.

So, how is an active sentence converted into a passive one? As shown in the model sentences, it is quite simple: the object in the active sentence becomes a subject of the passive sentence. This means that only active sentences that contain an object can be converted into the passive voice.

Finally, notice that by converting an active sentence into a passive one, you have also fiddled with the sentence stress, in other words, what words in a sentence will be emphasized and considered to be the new information. This is very important in order to achieve good cohesion of an English text. In a normal English affirmative sentence, this emphasis is put on the last word or phrase in a sentence.

In the active sentence, it is: a nozzle. This means that a follow-up sentence would probably start like this: The nozzle…

but:

In the passive sentence, it is: by the ram. This means that a follow-up sentence would probably discuss the ram rather than the nozzle: The ram…

Now, if you are puzzled with all the rules related to passives, read this short overview before you practise this grammar. In this task, decide whether you need the active or the passive voice and fill in the gaps with the correct form of the verbs in brackets. To make the task easier for yourself, look back at the diagram in Task 1 in your book again (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman, p. 12). Then, convert the active sentences into passive ones in this task. Finally, look at the picture illustrating the metal-rolling process on p. 13 in your coursebook and read the description below the diagram. You can see that stylistically, the text sounds weird. This is because although the agents are not important in a text like this, they are put in the subject position in the sentences, i.e. all the sentences are active. Turn these active sentences into the passive voice in this task to make them sound more stylistically correct. Also, add some sequencers in the text to make the order of the steps clearer. Typical sequencers are as follows: first, then, next, after that, finally.