<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This paper explores the use of the passive in present-day British English, focusing on its register-specific lexico-grammatical patterns. The interaction of the grammatical structure, lexis, phraseology and register is examined on the basis of two sub-corpora of the <italic>British National Corpus 2014</italic> – academic prose and informal conversation. The results have corroborated the findings of previous studies in that the pattern <italic>‘BE / GET V-ed’</italic> is populated by verbal participial forms which create a cline with departicipial adjectives. The communicative needs of registers have been shown to have a decisive impact on the frequency of passive patterns and the specific lexical choices associated with the patterns. In both registers, the <italic>‘BE / GET V-ed’</italic> patterns appear to constitute the core of larger fixed phraseological units, e.g., <italic>can’t be bothered to/with,</italic> or <italic>it should be noted that</italic>.</p>
</abstract>

This paper explores the use of the passive in present-day British English, focusing on its register-specific lexico-grammatical patterns. The interaction of the grammatical structure, lexis, phraseology and register is examined on the basis of two sub-corpora of the British National Corpus 2014 – academic prose and informal conversation. The results have corroborated the findings of previous studies in that the pattern ‘BE / GET V-ed’ is populated by verbal participial forms which create a cline with departicipial adjectives. The communicative needs of registers have been shown to have a decisive impact on the frequency of passive patterns and the specific lexical choices associated with the patterns. In both registers, the ‘BE / GET V-ed’ patterns appear to constitute the core of larger fixed phraseological units, e.g., can’t be bothered to/with, or it should be noted that.

The Passive across Two Registers of Present-Day British English: A Corpus-Based Lexico-Grammatical Perspective

Prague Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This paper explores the use of the passive in present-day British English, focusing on its register-specific lexico-grammatical patterns. The interaction of...

The Passive across Two Registers of Present-Day British English: A Corpus-Based Lexico-Grammatical Perspective

Published Online: Nov 10, 2023

Page range: 85 - 107

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pjes-2023-0005

Keywords
The passive, lexico-grammatical patterns, register, academic prose, informal conversation

© 2023 Markéta Malá et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Passive across Two Registers of Present-Day British English: A Corpus-Based Lexico-Grammatical Perspective

Published Online: Nov 10, 2023

Page range: 85 - 107

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pjes-2023-0005

KeywordsThe passive, lexico-grammatical patterns, register, academic prose, informal conversation

© 2023 Markéta Malá et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
The passive, lexico-grammatical patterns, register, academic prose, informal conversation