Talk:Active voice

"Active Voice"

This term should be labeled as "Active Voice" (disambiguation) because it's also the name of a US company based in Seattle WA that manufactures and sells voice mail systems. Ceo255 (talk) 04:42, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I have added a hatnote directing to Active Voice Building. If Active Voice LLC (currently a redlink at Active Voice Building) is created, a DAB page may become necessary. Cnilep (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Another user has created Active Voice (software company). Therefore, I have created Active voice (disambiguation). Cnilep (talk) 01:59, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Orwell and others on passive voice

A paragraph describing opinions toward passive voice was recently added. Isn't this really more related to passive voice than active voice? There is already a link to passive voice in the article. Cnilep (talk) 17:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Hearing no objection, I have removed the addition. It is still included in Passive voice. Cnilep (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Examples

A helpful but anonymous editor added the following examples:

Active Voice:

The table of contents lists all of the chapters in the book.

Passive Voice:

All of the chapters in the book are listed in the table of contents.

The verb list is probably not the clearest one to include, as it has both transitive (to make a list; to include in a list [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition]) and intransitive senses (to become entered in a catalog [MWCD 10]). Even so, examples may be warranted. Cnilep (talk) 19:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sociology

User:ZuluPapa5 added a section discussing Mary Douglas's book In the Active Voice. Notwithstanding the title, however, Douglas does not actually treat grammatical voice in that volume. Instead, she uses the term as a metaphor for discussions of agency versus structure in sociology and other fields. As one review of the book put it in 1984, "The concept of active voice [is] less an elaborated theory than a cover label for various themes that have concerned Douglas both here and elsewhere" (Stephen Gudeman, American Ethnologist review).

I couldn't quite understand what the section meant to communicate, but like Douglas the text seemed interested in agency rather than grammar. This doesn't seem relevant to the topic of this article. Cnilep (talk) 04:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The active voice is like a difference between affect and effect ... of interest to readers that recognize grammer has a greater influence than simple conventional rules of speech and writing in affecting objects and effecting actions. It's about how the active voice may change social constructs. Probably best to find other sources on the relevance to balance out the understanding views. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 00:32, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm actively being lazy

As currently comprised, the lead paragraph says active voice is "the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages." True, but needs suppletion. Otherwise, intransitive verbs might be construed to be something other than active voice. Also, "A verb in such languages is usually in the active voice when the subject of the verb performs the action named" leaves much to be desired. Including "usually" in that description leaves a gaping hole for countless exceptions.

In the second paragraph, the assertions that "Active voice is used in a clause whose subject expresses the main verb's agent. That is, the subject does the verb's designated action" contain two ipse dixits: (1) Only clauses that have agents constitute active voice, and (2) Only subjects that perform action constitute active voice. Both assertions ignore how clauses with stative verbs have subjects that aren't truly agents. E.g. "You are lovely" has no agent. It has no action. It solely expresses a stative characteristic. Is the sentence active? According to the article, no. Is it passive? Nope. I'm not suggesting that I buy into the active/passive voice dichotomy; I'm merely pointing out the tenuous theoretical basis of the article as it now stands. I'm also actively being lazy in not fixing it myself. Including notions of what stative voice entails would involve original research not yet ripe to expound at Wikipedia. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)