Topic Proposal Revision: May
Prescriptive grammarians such as Strunk and White advise students to avoid using the passive voice primarily for reasons of conciseness. The social sciences likewise are concerned about issues of conciseness, but add the issue of personal responsibility. In public policy, for example, use of the passive voice is typical of evading responsibility or being neutral. In contrast, use of the passive voice in the sciences is a shared convention in terms of establishing objectivity. Scientists, however, differ in terms of the function of the passive voice in their profession. In his short article, "Prescriptions and Postscriptions," for example, Chris Dawson maintains that use of the passive voice establishes objectivity and may discourage testing the validity of scientific texts. In "The Passive Voice and Social Values in Science," Author Daniel Ding, however, explains that the passive voice supports the social value of testing scientific theories. Rather than simply pit different discourse communities against each other, my text will argue that as a social construct, teachers may want to consider treating teaching the passive voice to students as a rhetorical function to help students make effective decisions about their own texts. Similar to John Dawking’s attitude about punctuation, but in terms of the passive voice, writers “must make alert and successful choices” (253).
Talitha,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great construct that relates to agency, objectivity, the abning of 'I", genres, and more.
Your proposal on the passive voice avoids the polarity you see implied in the construct, and it looks like the conversation on it is far from uniform. I wonder, though, if you should avoid pitting "different discourse communities against each other" on this. Your language suggests, contrary to what you report above, that each community (scientific and non-scientific?) has internally consistent views. The apparent disagreement over the role and effect of passive voice in science writing suggests an enabling conflict, not just a static polarity. I would explore that thoroughly before resolving it with rhetorical function. Can rhetorical function resolve the conflict? Maybe. Let's keep the conflict alive and see what comes of it.
Your project relates to some others in the class, one on discourses of science and objectivity and some others that touch on objectivity as well. These tend to focus on the use of 'I' and narrative but you can see how that is related to PV (and POV) since that is often the preferred option when the first person pronouns are or seem to be banished. You might profitably work with these other researchers on the issues and sources. (Dominowski is looking at Elements of Style, btw.)
Possible source areas include discourse studies of science writing (in both RC and Communications fields) and genre studies. Without genre and its relationship to communities and their epistemologies (and rhetoric), PV can appear to be just a rhetorical style.
--AR