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Fiona Aish & Jo TomlinsonBog'liq Grammar for IELTS - Collins English for Exams18 Film and entertainment
The passive
Academic language often uses the passive voice. The passive is used fo r the follow ing reasons:
To focus on who/what receives the action
ACTIVE SENTENCE:
Elton John partlv w rote The Lion Kinq soundtrack.
PASSIVE SENTENCE:
The Lion Kino soundtrack was oartlv w ritte n bv Elton John.
In the passive sentence the im portant focus is on The Lion King. Here, the text around this
sentence is more likely to be about The Lion King. In the firs t sentence, the text is more likely
about Elton John.
When who/what does the action is unim portant o r irrelevant
ACTIVE SENTENCE:
The film comoanv released Star Wars in 1977.
PASSIVE SENTENCE:
Star Wars was released in 1977.
Who released the film is unim portant and irrelevant to the message.
To avoid saying who is doing the action
ACTIVE SENTENCE:
In The Bank Robber. H arrv Flint stole $2bn dollars from a bank.
PASSIVE SENTENCE:
In The Bank Robber. $2bn d ollars are stolen from a bank.
Here, if the active subject is used [Harry Flint), we w ill reveal the plot of the film .
Forming the passive
Only verbs w ith an object can be turned into the passive.
An active sentence:
The film producers invested $20 million in the promotion of the film.
= a subject [The film producers)
+
a verb [invested)
+
an object [$20million)
The subject does the action and the object receives the action.
A passive sentence:
If we w ant to focus on the am ount of money, the passive sentence is as follows:
$20million was invested in the promotion of the film (by the film producers).
Here the object becomes the subject and we add a form of the verb to be + past participle (for the
continuous form : to be + being + past participle). See the g ra m m a r reference fo r a ll form s.
Often the active subject becomes unnecessary.
Here you can see the changes:
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