Teaching Of The Passive Voice Of English In The Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

This paper is based on the theory of cognitive to study the English passive voice. It is to provide a prominence theory in using the English passive voice, and to put forward sound interpretation of the restrictions on the use of voice, aiming at rendering cognitive theoretical principles for the teaching and learning in using of English passive, and to put forward a kind of teaching approach English passive voice in the perspective of cognitive linguistics.The transformational rules are too powerful and it does not correctly reflect human general cognition in using a language. The functionalists in general stress on the pragmatic function of voice and lack the reflection on people's cognitive processing in using a language which may provide a more persuasive illustration of how voice is formed and used. The experiential, the prominence and the attentional view are three interlocking ways of approaching language via its relation to the world around us, which between them describe the core areas of cognitive linguistics. Prominence view is the selection of the clause subject which is determined by the different degrees of prominence carried by the elements involved in a situation. This prominence is not just reflected in the selection of the subject as opposed to the object and the adverbials of a clause but there are also many other applications. The usual alignment is to choose the agent to be the trajector, and that is the main prominence, and to make the patient to be the landmark, which is the secondary core prominence. According to the transformational grammar, passive transformation derived from the correlation between the active and the passive, actives and passives have the same deep structure, they have no difference in meaning. The transformation has its shortcomings. It can not explain the meaning to the passive voice virtually. And the functionalists in general stress on the pragmatic function of voice and lack the reflection on people's cognitive processing in using a language which may provide a more persuasive illustration of how voice is formed and used. The cognitive approach to the definition of the passive voice as the follows:Voice is a grammatical category of the English verb which reflects the language user's perspective on an event. As a marked voice form, the passive voice construes the whole process of an event from the perspective of an affected entity rather than the agent/ initiator. Among all the theories of cognitive linguistics approaches to English passive, the figure-ground theory under the prominence view is chosen to apply to the teaching of English passive in the perspective of cognitive linguistics.The teaching of the English passive in the past affected by the traditional grammar is usually paid much attention on the syntax transformation. It is not being considered from the speakers' perspective. And the meaning of the passive voice from the speakers'perspective is often neglected and the meanings between the active sentences and the passive sentences are quite different.A quantitative and qualitative study has been used in this research in which empirical study is dominant and descriptive study serves as an important supplement. The results of questionnaire, the interview with the students and the teacher, and the analyses of the data from the tests have supported convincing evidence that English teaching passive with the help of figure-ground theory can promote teaching effects and build up students' understanding passive and the ability in using passive. Specifically, in this thesis, it is trying to solve the following problems:(1) How does the figure-ground theory of cognitive linguistics interpret the English passive voice? (2) What pedagogical contribution can be generated from teaching English passive voice in the perspective of cognitive linguistics?There are few researches on passive voice in the perspective of cognitive linguistics at home or abroad. There are fewer researches on teaching passive voice in the perspective of cognitive linguistics. There are some limitations on teaching English passive voice in the traditional approaches. Therefore, this research has practical significance on teaching and learning English passive voice in the perspective of cognitive linguistics.