A Meta-functional Interpretation Of The Use Of English Passives Based On The BNC

This paper argues that the passive sentence is not merely a transformed form of its active counterpart, and the choice of the passive voice is closely related to specific linguistic contexts and registers in which it is used. For instance, spoken registers take a lower frequency of passive sentences, whereas written registers have a relatively higher frequency. As to the reasons why the passive voice is chosen other than the active, a formalist approach, which is isolated from the contextual consideration, never gives overall and sufficient explanations. The present study probes into the real reasons of passive uses in certain contexts and registers in the perspective of Halliday's Functional Grammar.Based on the corpus approach, this study fully utilizes the British National Corpus (BNC) and it software SARA, in which English passive sentences are retrieved in spoken and written corpora respectively, with a comparison of the frequency and distribution, particularly the distribution across and within spoken and written registers. The survey shows that agentless passive sentences are prevalent among all passives; the differing frequencies in registers are highly style-oriented, which reflect not only the stylistic characteristics of spoken and written registers, but also those of formal and informal registers within each corpus. Meanwhile, the co-occurrence of passives with other style-oriented linguistic features, such as nominalization, aspect, and personal pronouns, etc., is closely related to the stylistic features of different registers.After the quantitative analysis of the passives used in different registers, the functions of the passives are discussed, based on Halliday's three meta-functions, namely, ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. Ideationally, the passives describe the process from the point of view the Goal instead of the Actor, which reflects the different perspective of representing the world experience. This perspective of viewing and describing the world usually results in the avoidance of personal pronouns, thus showing the objectivity and formalness, which is exactly what academic writings require. The interpersonal function of the passives is realized in pragmatic uses. In social communications, the passive voice is used with certain pragmatic purposes. Agentlesspassives, for instance, can make the detachment of the speaker from the process to show formalness, or to reflect the objectivity, or just as device of politeness, etc. All these pragmatic functions are expedient in establishing certain interpersonal relations between the speaker and the hearer in social communications. The above two meta-functions must be realized through the textual organizations. This is also true with the English passives, in that it can be utilized as a cohesive device through the given-new information structuring and the theme-rheme development. The three meta-functions performed by English passives are integral and inseparate as a whole, explaining the real reasons of passive uses in real language communications.At last, the pedagogical implications are presented in two aspects, one of which lies in the advantages of corpus-based research and language study. With a large number of authentic language materials, the corpus not only offers reliable language for foreign language classroom, but also makes possible the contextual and situational teaching method. The other implication is that the combination of language structures and functions is beneficial both in the mastery of the language structures and the understanding of the functions, thus facilitating the foreign students to use the language appropriately in different registers and contexts.