A Pragmatic-Functional Account for Passive Constructions in Discourse

초록

Based on a pragmatic-functional perspective, this study examines a relationship between the syntactic structure of a passive voice and its discourse-motivated pragmatic functions. To find out the pragmatic- oriented tendency and pragmatic factors that determine the choice of a passive construction, three information structure principles are consulted as anchoring-points: 1) the principle of ‘end-weight’; 2) the principle of ‘end-focus’; 3) the principle of ‘topic preservation’. Through a data analysis, it is proposed that the frequent occurrence of a particular type of passive in discourse is one of the reflexes of its structural advantage functionally associated with its pragmatic-motivated tendency; as a multi- functional category, passives serve as a useful text-structuring tool to thematize a given entity in patient-position and focalize a new entity in agent-position, making a rhetorical contrast between the two entities more prominent. Finally, it is suggested that the choice of a passive construction in discourse contributes to the effectiveness of message presentation and discourse organization, serving as a discourse device, creating textual coherence, and facilitating language production.

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