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CHAPTER II

REVIEWOF LITERATURE, CONCEPTS AND THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORK

2.1 Literature Review

Literature review is one of the important aspects in this study in order to know the

differences and similarities between the previous studies and this study by looking at the

problems of the study, theories adopted in the study, and the result findings of the study.

In this subchapter, there are review of four undergraduate thesesand an International

journal which relevant to the topic of this study.

The first study to be reviewed is Error Analysis on the Use of Passive Voice in

Students’ Thesis proposalby Ratmo(2015). The study is aimed at analyzing types and

causes of the students’ errors in the use of passive voice in their thesis proposals.

Descriptive qualitative approach is used in this research as it is based on the

phenomena found in students’ process of writing thesis proposals. The data were collected

by documenting sentences of students’ thesis proposals from research methodology class

of seven semesters academic year 2014/2015. The collected data then were analyzed

based on the theory of error analysis by Dallay (2010) and Norish (1983). The study also

used document analysis in which 30 selected thesis proposals of three different interests

were taken and analyzed.

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The result from the study showed that there were forty-three sentences found to have

errors in using passive with different types. Errors occurred mostly in the mis-formation

types followed by omission and addition. Regarding the cause of errors, the addition errors

are mostly caused by translation and first language interference. The omission errors on

the other hand were caused mostly by students’ carelessness. Fourteen out of sixteen

errors of the type occurred because the students forgot to include ‘to be’ in their passive

sentences. Most of the misformation errors were caused by the use of the wrong form of

structure. Meanwhile, mirordering errors were mainly caused by translation when

students tried to transfer their L1 to L2. This study and the previous study differs in terms

of focus of the studies and the theories used in which the focus of this study is the analysis

of types of passive in the novel based on the theory proposed by Pullum (2014).

Rhodes (1997) in his study also analyzed the passive voice but differs on the focus

of the study. The previous study focused on the analysis of passive voice in scientific

reports. There were three studies performed. Study 1 focused on the incidence of the use

of passive voice verbs in empirical reports in fields of varying object-orientation and

across article report sections of varying objectivity. Study 2 was an empirical investigation

designed to assess reading speed and comprehension for “high active” vs. “high passive”

versions of scientific reports. Study 3 compared student lab papers rated by instructors as

weak versus strong to determine which factors including voice might account for the

differences in instructor ratings.

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These results have several implications: (a) passive voice verbs are widely used in

scientific writing (1); (b) passive voice verbs are generally used appropriately for

presenting objective information (studies 1 and 3); (c) rhetorically-appropriate passive

voice verbs do not elicit lower reading comprehension scores nor longer reading times

than active voice verbs (study 2); and (d) the incidence of passive voice verbs in student

lab reports did not affect instructor ratings of paper quality (study 3). This study and the

previous study differs in terms of focus of the studies and the theories used in which the

focus of this study is the analysis of types of passive in the novel based on the theory

proposed by Pullum (2014).

The third study to be reviewed is Struggling to retain the functions of passive when

translating English thesis Abstractsby Al-Ali (2015). This previous study is aimed at

finding out whether the Arab students would translate the English passive structure into

their corresponding Arab passive in order to maintain the pragma-generic functions

associated with these constructions or would employ other translation replacement when

translating English passive into Arabic.

The data for this study consisted of 90 MA thesis abstracts and their 90 Arabic

translated versions written were collected from the Dissertation Depository Centre in the

main library at the University of Jordan. The data analysis revealed that when Arab

student-translator come across the English passive sentence, they resort to either of the

following options: transposing English passive into verbal nouns or into pseudo-active

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verbs or active sentence structures or into vowel melody passive or writing these passive

structures. This study and the previous study differs in terms of focus of the studies and

the theories used in which the focus of this study is the analysis of types of passive in the

novel based on the theory proposed by Pullum (2014).

Vony Purnama, I Gusti Agung (2014) in his thesis analyzed the understanding of

the students regarding to the use of English passive voice. There were three main theories

used in this study. They are the theories of English Grammar, Error Analysis, and

Language Teaching. Theory of English Grammar was used to know and understand the

structure of English passive voice. While, theory of Error Analysis was used to analyze

the students‟ error based on the Linguistic Category Taxonomy particularly for the

English passive voice, and Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis was used to find out the

similarity and the difference between English and Indonesian passive voice. Language

Teaching theory was used to know the teaching and learning process and the important

things that have to be prepared prior the process.

The data was taken from the field research in STIKOM Bali, particularly in semester

1 students, intake year 2011, Dual Degree Program. There were 20 students as the sample

in this study. The method of collecting data was a quantitative method. The data analysis

in this study was the students‟ works, regarding to the forming of English passive voice.

The descriptive qualitative method was used in presenting the result of data analysis.

There were 3 similarities and 2 differences between English and Indonesian passive voice

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found in this study. In the part of the error analysis, there were 11 categories of error found

in this study. The highest percentage of error was 31.3% in the error category related to

the „misformation of present perfect in passive voice‟. While, the lowest percentage of

error was 0.9% for the category of error related to the incorrect use of past participle.

Based on the Comparative Taxonomy, the source of students‟ error was Interlingual

Error. Then, lesson plan was designed based on the findings of the students‟ error

categories and it is expected to help the students in understanding the use of English

passive voice in the future, in order to minimize the students‟ error. This study and the

previous study differs in terms of focus of the studies and the theories used in which the

focus of this study is the analysis of types of passive in the novel based on the theory

proposed by Pullum (2014).

An international Journal entitled Passive Constructions in American Sign

Language by Jansen and O’Dea (1997) analyze the construction of passive voice in

American Sign Language (ASL) which was often described as only having an active

voice in its grammatical construction. However, through the discussion in this previous

study found that American Sign Language (ASL) also constructs the passive voice in its

course which differs from the construction of active voice. In this previous study, they

contend that passives are more frequent to be used in ASL discourse than what may have

been realized. However, the word order of passive voice in ASL is totally different with

the way English construct it. In this study also analyzed the construction of passive voice

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in sign language but used a different source which was Kata Kolok (literally “language

deaf”), a sign language used in a small traditional farming village in North Bali named

Bengkala village.

2.2 Concepts

The concept of the study was based on the ideas proposed by the experts in the field

of syntax. The concepts which were presented in this study are the concept of voice,

active voice and passive voice.

2.2.1 Voice

Voice is a grammatical category which makes it possible to view the action of a

sentence in two ways (Quirk, et al, 1972 801-811), without changing the facts reported:

(1) The butler murdered the detective. (2) The detective was murdered by the butler.

Sentence (1) is in active voice and sentence (2) in passive voice.

2.2.2 Active Voice

In English grammar, active voice refers to a type of sentence or clause in which

the subject performs or causes the action expressed by the verb (Nordquist,2016).

2.2.3 Passive Voice

Contrast with active voice, the passive voice is used to show interest in the person

or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the

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action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the

sentence.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

In order to describe and explain the research problems exist in this study, one main

theory of English passive voice is formulated. The theory used in this study is proposed

by Pullum (2014) taken from his linguistics journal entitled Fear and Loathing of the

English Passive available at www.sciencedirect.com.

2.3.1 Types of Passive Voice

There are seven types of passive voice stated by Pullum (2014:3-7). Those are

passive with be, prepositional passive, bare passive, embedded passive, adjectival passive,

get passive and concealed passive. The explanation of each types is given in this sub

chapter.

2.3.1.1 Passives with be

Passive with be is types of passive voice in which the main clause verb is in a form of

the verb be and has a past participial VP complement. The example of it is given in the

sentences (1a) and (1b).

1 a. Everyone in the department admires Anne's scholarship

b. Anne's scholarship is admired by everyone in the department

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The sentence in (1b) illustrates the most familiar and neutral kind of passive

clause. The main clause verb is a form of the verb be, and it has a past-participial VP

complement. The direct object noun phrase (NP) of (1a) appears as the subject of (1b),

and the subject of (1a) appears within the VP of (1b) as the complement in a preposition

phrase (PP).

Thus, in a sense two NPs exchange syntactic positions: the subject of (1a) appears as

an internal complement within the VP in the (1b), and vice versa. Yet the core meanings

are the same, in the sense that if (1a) is true, then so is (1b), and conversely.

Passive with be could be divided into long and short passive with be. When a passive

clause has a by-phrase, it is called long passive, while a short passive is a sentence

construction in the passive in which the subject is absent and is not followed by byphrase.

2 a. The president's authority has been much diminished by recent events in Washington.

b. The president's authority has been much diminished.

In a passive internalized complementis usually omissible, so some passives contain

no counterpart of the NP that would have been the subject in the related active. A short

passive does not have an exact active counterpart; (2b) entails that some unspecified

person or circumstance is responsible for the diminution of the president's authority, but

says nothing about who or what it might be.

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2.3.1.2 Prepositional passives

Prepositional passive is types of passive voice in which the transitive verb of a

passive clause lacks its direct or indirect object, or it might be the NP complement in a PP

complement of the verb may be missing. Such prepositional passive may be long, like

(3b), or short, like (3c).

3 a. His friends laughed at him.

b. He was laughed at by his friends

c. He was laughed at.

2.3.1.3 Bare passive clauses

Bare passive is types of passive voice in which the sentence construction contains

only a subject and the past participle of a verb. Having no tensed verb, they cannot

generally occur as full sentences, but they do occur as adjuncts, as seen in the underlined

parts of the Wall Street Journal corpus examples in (4).

4. That said, however, Korea is Korea, not the Philippines.

One of its ads shows a washed-out manager, arms folded, sitting in a corner.

2.3.1.4 Embedded passives

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Passive clauses also occur embedded in active clauses. Various transitive verbs with

causative, inchoative, or perception meanings take subject-less bare passive complements

(that is, in effect, past-participial VPs). In (5a) we see an active complement clause

(investigate the case) but the roughly synonymous (5b) has a passive counterpart

(underlined).

5 a. The government had the police investigate the case

b. The government had the case investigated by the police

These are roughly synonymous in the sense that if one is true, so is the other, though

they differ in focus or viewpoint: (5a) strikes us as a statement about the instructions that

the government gave to the police, while (5b) seems more like a statement about the

government's action on the case.

Further examples of this sort, slightly adapted from attested ones, are given in (7),

with the passive VP complements underlined.

6 a. I had the suit made by my tailor in Rome

b. David Swan, a geneticist, got himself transferred within the CDC

c. Manufacturers saw themselves pushed to the brink of going out of business

2.3.1.5 Adjectival passives

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The term `adjectival passive' is often applied to active clauses with predicative

adjective phrases in which adjective derives from the past participle of a verb and has a

passive-like meaning. There is frequently an ambiguity between be passives and

adjectival ones. For example, the door was locked is ambiguous: as a be passive it says

that at a time someone took the action of locking the door, and as an adjectival passive it

says that during some past time period the door was in its locked state. Since the

complement in this kind of clause is an adjective phrase, verbs other than be can be used

(The door seemed locked, as far as I could tell), and so can adjectives derive with the

negative prefix un- (The island was uninhabited by humans).

2.3.1.6 Get passives

Get passive is types of passive voice in which the subject receives the action of the

verb in the form of get plus a past participial. It is strongly associated with situations

which are bad situations or situations which give some kind of benefits to the subject. It

can be a useful way of making clear that the meaning of the construction as a whole

involves an action or event rather than a state. The intransitive verb get, which is not an

auxiliary, has developed a special grammaticized use in marking an additional type of

passive. The active in (7a) has two different corresponding passives, (7b) and (7c).

7a. A journalist photographed Marie

b. Marie was photographed by a journalist

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c. Marie got photographed by a journalist

There are two minor semantic or pragmatic differences between (7b) and (7c). The

first is that the get passive is somewhat more informal in style than the be passive. The

second is that the get passive carries a weak tendency toward implying that the event

described was either some kind of misfortune or some kind of benefit for Marie, and that

she may to some extent have brought the situation upon herself or arranged it.

These get passives from the Wall Street Journal illustrate:

8 a. ... more hardcore bears than the ones who got spooked in January and February ...

b. A man got clobbered with a steel chair during a secret meeting of local contractors

last October

c. ... he got hooked on skeet shooting ...

d. He even got appointed to a coveted civic post

The writer of (8a) is implying that the pessimistic investors let themselves succumb

to spooking; the man in (8b) was certainly unlucky to get clobbered and may perhaps have

brought it upon himself; the man in (8c) permitted himself to get hooked or was

unfortunate enough to get drawn in; and we can assume that the man in (8d) eagerly sought

his coveted civic post. Thus the get passive sounds natural in each case. By contrast, it

would be distinctly odd to write anything like this:

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(9) The Nobel Prize in Physics got awarded to Peter Higgs in 2013.

The prize does not bring the awarding upon itself, or receive either benefit or

misfortune by having the Nobel committee award it, so a get passive sounds strikingly

inappropriate here.

(10) David Swan, a geneticist, got himself transferred within the CDC.

The get clause here is an active clause with a transitive verb that has a direct object

and a subject less passive clause as complement. Get has causative force: (10) it does not

just vaguely imply that Swan might have done something resulting in his being

transferred; it entails that Swan took some active part in obtaining his transfer.

2.3.1.7 Concealed passives

Concealed passive is types of passive voice which have a gerund-participle rather than

a past participle as head. As an example, is given in the sentence (11a) and (11b).

11a. This rug badly needs washing

b. The situation needs looking into by experts

In some dialects (especially Scotland, Northern Ireland, western Pennsylvania, eastern

Ohio, northern West Virginia, central Indiana), need also takes a past-participial bare

passive complement, so that This needs washed is grammatical.