A Cognitive Approach To The Passive Voice In English And Its Teaching In Middle Schools

The passive voice is not only an important grammatical problem in English, but also one of the research items of linguistic study that have been studied by different linguistic schools. However, when they learn the passive voice, middle school students still find it complicated and difficult to remember the rules. Therefore, the use of the passive voice is still a big difficulty for middle school students in their English learning. For the purpose of solving this problem, the present thesis has made a study of the passive voice in English and its teaching in middle schools from a cognitive perspective.Language is the product of the development of human cognition, and the passive voice is just such a product. In view of theories and concepts in cognitive linguistics, such as the prominence view, the perspective of construal, the figure/ground principle and the canonical event modal, this thesis has provided cognitive accounts on the generation, understanding and application of the passive voice in English. The thesis holds that voice is a grammatical category which reflects the different perspectives of the language user in construing an event:the active voice construes an event from the perspective of the agent and the passive voice construes an event from the perspective of the patient. The perspective of construal of the language user determines the choice of voice, the process of selecting the passive voice is a process of cognition, in which the speaker construes an event from the perspective of the patient and presents the result of the construal with the passive voice.Since the passive voice is the product of cognition, the teaching of the passive voice can not be separated from cognition. Based on this point of view, the thesis has looked into the theoretical basis and the concrete ways of passive voice teaching in middle schools in a cognitive approach. The thesis points out that teaching the passive voice in a cognitive approach is to teach it by taking into consideration both the cognitive laws reflected in the passive voice and the cognitive characteristics of the students in learning linguistic knowledge. On the basis of this, the thesis has discussed in detail how the form, meaning and use of the passive voice are taught in a cognitive approach. In order to check the effect of the approach, a related experiment has been carried out and the result is just as positive as expected.The present study integrates cognitive theories with the study of a specific language phenomenon and its teaching in middle schools, attaching importance to both the cognitive motivation of language knowledge and the cognitive laws involved in language knowledge teaching. It is believed that the study will be of some theoretical and practical significance to English teaching, especially grammar teaching, in middle schools.