STRUCTURING INFORMATION: INSIGHTS FROM A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF PASSIVE VOICE
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Date
2026
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Plovdiv University Press
Abstract
The present paper explores how speakers use the passive voice in spoken English as a practical tool for organizing information and guiding listeners through a message. Rather than being just a stylistic alternative to the active voice, the passive often helps speakers highlight what is already familiar, keep a topic in focus, leave out agents that do not matter, and place heavier or more complex details towards the end of a clause. Using examples from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), this paper shows that these choices reflect broader tendencies in the English language toward presenting information from given to new and maintaining a smooth flow of ideas. The findings suggest that the passive voice plays a meaningful role in real-time communication by helping speakers manage attention and process demands.
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Keywords
assive voice, information packaging, information structure, corpus linguistics, spoken English, cognitive load