THEMATIC PROGRESSION
Although information system often requires a sequence of information from given to new, Kopple (1986) claimed that under certain circumstances, new can be fronted before given so that readers may immediately realize what they need to know in order to proceed along a text. In other words, in spite of the given-to-new pattern, the ordering of information can still be varied according to the purpose, genre, and
writer’s intention in order to perform specific communicative functions in a discourse.
As a result, the choice between active and passive voice appears to be influenced also by these factors. For example, in research articles, the selection of active or passive voice is usually concerned with impersonality of reporting. Nwogu and Bloor (1991), who adopted Daneš’ (1974) ideas of thematic progression and its four patterns, however, illustrated information configuration in medical research articles according to the purposes and rhetorical functions in sections of Introduction, Methods, Results and Conclusions.
(1) Simple linear Thematic progression (Thematic progression with linear thematization of rhemes):
T1 → R1
↓
T2 (=R1) → R2 ↓
T3(=R2) → R3
This is the most basic type of thematic progression pattern. The preceding rheme (R) transforms to theme in the following utterance. According to Bloor and Nwogu’s investigation, the pattern usually occurs in Introduction and Discussion sections due to their explanative or argumentative nature.
(2) Thematic progression with a continuous (constant) theme:
T1 → R1
↓
T1 → R2
↓
T1 → R3
A theme keeps on in text but the rhemes are different in different utterances. What needs to be further explicated here is this same theme may not necessarily be realized in identical wording. Since this pattern often occurs in paragraphs concerning the depiction of a procedure in medical research articles, it may appear in Introduction, Methods and Results section.
(3) Thematic progression with derived themes:
[T]
T1 → R1
T2 → R2
T1 → R3
Daneš (1974) indicated that in this pattern themes in various utterances are derived from a “‘hypertheme’ (of a paragraph, or other text section)” (p.120). This pattern often occurs in Discussion section exclusively for its rhetorical function of itemization and serialization of events in medical research articles. (Nwogu & Bloor, 1991)
(4) The split rheme pattern:
T1 → R1 (=R'1 + R''1) T'2 → R2
T''2 Æ R''2
This pattern is the combination of (1) and (2) and often occurs when there exist one or several parallel ideas derived from the same rheme. Therefore, it tends to occur in a passage with the function of classification in medical research articles (Nwogu &
Bloor, 1991).
In the following paragraph on “plants,” (Master, 1986, p.64) thematic progression determines primarily the subjects of all the sentences in it, and in turn, the voice of them.
[2.36] A plant is a living organism. It is made up of different parts, each with particular purposes of functions. Some parts of the plant may be removed without harming it. Plants such as beets, carrots, and potatoes store food in their roots. Other plants are able to take nitrogen from the air and add it to the soil. These plants are called legumes. If they are plowed under, they make the soil more fertile.
With close observation of theme and rheme in the passage, we can generalize that [2.36] belongs to “thematic progression with a continuous (constant) theme”
because the theme of the first sentence is “plant” and the themes in ensuing clauses are either the same or related to it.
As implied in the four patterns by Nwogu and Bloor (1991) above, in research articles, information could be organized not only in given-to-new sequence but also in
other patterns depending upon thematic progression, which may, in turn, be determined by the generic organization of information. In different sections of a research article, voice choice as well as thematic progression of text could, therefore, show different patterns. In other words, from the perspective of discourse function and cohesion, the selection between active and passive voice is closely related to the purposes and organization of information of a particular section in a research article.
GENRE
In the previous section, voice use has been investigated from the perspective of functional grammar. We have proposed that the use of either active or passive voice in research articles is influenced by discourse organization, like information and theme systems, text cohesion and thematic progression. However, the type of text, or genre, with its specific generic organization and discourse functions, may also contribute to voice choice. As a result, in the last section, we discuss voice in research articles from the perspective of genre. The definitions of genre and discourse community will be introduced first. Then voice use in research articles as a genre will be discussed.
Traditionally, genre has been viewed as a means to classify written and spoken products and to provide a set of regularities that restrict the content (Paré & Smart, 1994) and a “formulaic way of constructing particular texts” (Swales, 1990, p.33).
Genre plays a critical role in composing a text, acting as a “modeling container”
(Devitt, 1993, p.575) to shape its content and function. However, in recent years, this traditional concept of genre has gone through severe critics because of its aim to offer a mechanical form. Holmes (1997) suggests that the significance of genre lies in the
“communicative purpose and the ways in which communicative needs shape or influence both surface form and deeper rhetorical structures” (p.322). Genre, therefore, can be perceived as a way to “achieve a communicative goal” and “by which a text
realizes its communicative purpose rather than on establishing a system for the classification of genres” (Dudley-Evans, 1994, p.219).
This new concept relating genre to communicative purposes of a text derives from the idea that genre is the response to a recurrent situation (Bitzer, 1968). Bitzer claimed that a genre develops when “comparable situations occur, prompting comparable responses; hence rhetorical forms are born and a special vocabulary, grammar, and style are established” (p.13). In his idea, genre is the application of appropriate responses to the same or similar situations. Devitt uses the genre of “lab report” to explicate this idea. The characteristics of lab report are “a quick statement of purpose or separate methods and results section” (p.576). These features can be interpreted as the appropriate responses to the situation, that is, readers’ intention to find out the purpose and process of experiment within the shortest time in order to decide if the study is valuable or related to their own research.
In addition to Devitt (1993) and Bitzer (1968), there are other researchers illustrating genre from the perspective of communicative purposes. Swales (1990) proposed that
[a] genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style (p.58).
Swales followed Miller’s (1984) and Martin’s (1985) ideas that the identification of a genre does not rely on its form or regularities but on the shared purposes of a particular group, that is, discourse community. In other words, a genre is formed
because particular rhetorical needs are required in a text in order to achieve its communicative purposes. A discourse community, according to Swales (1990), is a group of people with “a broadly agreed set of common public goals” and
“mechanisms of intercommunication among its members” (p.25). It uses some specific lexis and “uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” (p.26).
Bhatia (1993) extended Swales’ definition of genre to “a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s)” and
“highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value”(p.13). He claimed that genre is not only linguistic and sociological; a set of regularities of a genre is in fact cognitive since they are the reflection of “the strategies that members of a particular discourse or professional community typically use…in order to achieve communicative purposes” (p.21).Texts which require different strategies to fulfill their communicative purposes should be interpreted as two different genres (p.21-22).
The extensive use of passive voice is often considered a major feature of the genre of research articles. It is believed that the use of passive voice can increase experimental objectivity by fronting inanimate subjects and omitting animate by-agents. In order to examine this prevailing concept, Martínez (2001, p.236) investigated the use of active and passive voice in this genre across three disciplines:
physical, biological and social sciences. It was found that the majority of sentences in Introduction, Results and Discuss in these three disciplines are constructed in active voice. Furthermore, there exists a slight difference among three disciplines in the percentage of passive voice in Methods section. According to Martínez’s (2001), in physical science, the use of passive voice in Methods section constitutes up to 74%
while in social science, it constitutes only 54%. Martínez, citing Múrat (1990), held
that this difference lies mainly in the different natures of the objects in studies of science. In physical science, objects are “inert objects” (p.235). In contrast, social science investigates objects with “an independent capacity to act” (p.235). With this characteristic, the description of experimental processes is more likely to be constructed in active sentences.
Tarone et al. (1998) investigated the use of active and passive voice in two astrophysical journal papers. They claim that “not all scientific journal papers consist of reports of experimental studies” (p.115). Moreover, papers consisting of logical arguments, like those in the fields of astrophysics, mathematics and theoretical linguistics may use more active voice than those with experimentations (p.115). The rhetorical structure of logical arguments is like an “inverted pyramid.” For example, in the case of astrophysics, papers start from general physics and observations are conducted through logic and established procedure. Then physical argument relevant to the observations is cited and conclusions are drawn from specific physical conditions. Tarone et al.’s research results show that active voice accounts for 88.5%
and 81.4% in these two astrophysical journal papers. In other words, the different nature of representation of disciplinary knowledge can result in dissimilar voice use despite their common purpose—to report on research results.
In this chapter, we have first reviewed passive voice from the perspective of traditional grammar. The formation of passive voice, its verb types and the classification and functions of by-agents are explicated. Then, the role of active and passive voice in writing is discussed, especially in research articles. We suggest that although the use of active voice is often recommended in some style manuals, we should take into account discourse-level factors such as the nature, topic and communicative purpose of a given text in explaining the choice between active and passive voice. Following this idea, the factors that may influence voice choice are
suggested. We illustrate how discourse organization and information and theme systems have an impact on voice choice by extracting and analyzing sentences and paragraphs from research articles to exemplify their significance. Next, voice is viewed from a broader perspective—text. The appropriate choice of voice and its relation to text cohesion and thematic progression are proposed. Finally, we consider voice in research articles from the notion of genre. Although communicative purpose in the genre of scientific research articles is to report findings, voice use may also vary across different disciplines and rhetorical structures.
In the next chapter, we will present the research methodology of the study. It consists of two parts: an analysis of the use of active and passive voice in a corpus of research articles, and an experiment of voice choice in terms of the nature of verbs, particularly verbs that easily confuse Chinese learners in voice use.
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
The study is composed of two parts. The first part is to conduct a detailed analysis of voice use in research articles in both hard and soft science respectively, while the second part aims to examine the voice use of verbs which may often confuse to Chinese students. In this chapter, therefore, the research methodology is illustrated in two subsections—data analysis and experiment. Since we intend to explore the discourse context of voice use, data analysis is further divided into quantitative and qualitative analysis. In experiment, two problematic verb types in terms of voice choice are first introduced and followed by an experiment. At last, we will illustrate our motives to add a lesson plan in the study.