The Use of Get Passives in American Discourse
THE USE OF THE GET-PASSIVE IN AMERICAN SPOKEN DISCOURSE
The Use of the GET-PASSIVE in American Spoken Discourse
Paulina Rivarola
Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto
October 2010
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THE USE OF THE GET-PASSIVE IN AMERICAN SPOKEN DISCOURSE
2
Abstract
The present study analyzed the use of get-passive in informal spoken American
English. Following Carter and McCarthy (1999, p. 46-47) a series of get constructions connected with be passives were considered and exemplified. However, the main focus of this article was on the X get + past participle (by Y) type because this was the most frequent type represented in the selected corpus. In addition to this, the main goal of this study was to contribute with and corroborate findings from previous investigation which focused on this get construction as well, and claimed that most get passives correspond to unfavourable or problematic circumstances as judged by the speaker and that they are almost always “agentless” (Carter and McCarthy, 1999; Rühlemann, 2007). This research paper concentrated on a corpus consisting of transcriptions of recordings of natural conversation from all over The United States. Actually, the results of the study show that the context in which get passives usually occur is “adversative” or problematic from the speaker‟s point of view and that the most common verbs used have negative connotations. It also illustrated that the X get + past participle type rarely takes an explicit agent specified in a by-phrase.
1. Introduction
The position of elements in a clause usually follows the sequence “subject, verb, object, complement, adjunct”, but, they may vary in order to give special emphasis or connotation to the clause or part of it. The passive voice represents one way of varying the sequence of elements in a clause. It allows speakers and writers to talk about an event from the point of view of the thing or the person affected, and what is more, it allows them not
The Use of the GET-PASSIVE in American Spoken Discourse
Paulina Rivarola
Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto
October 2010
1
THE USE OF THE GET-PASSIVE IN AMERICAN SPOKEN DISCOURSE
2
Abstract
The present study analyzed the use of get-passive in informal spoken American
English. Following Carter and McCarthy (1999, p. 46-47) a series of get constructions connected with be passives were considered and exemplified. However, the main focus of this article was on the X get + past participle (by Y) type because this was the most frequent type represented in the selected corpus. In addition to this, the main goal of this study was to contribute with and corroborate findings from previous investigation which focused on this get construction as well, and claimed that most get passives correspond to unfavourable or problematic circumstances as judged by the speaker and that they are almost always “agentless” (Carter and McCarthy, 1999; Rühlemann, 2007). This research paper concentrated on a corpus consisting of transcriptions of recordings of natural conversation from all over The United States. Actually, the results of the study show that the context in which get passives usually occur is “adversative” or problematic from the speaker‟s point of view and that the most common verbs used have negative connotations. It also illustrated that the X get + past participle type rarely takes an explicit agent specified in a by-phrase.
1. Introduction
The position of elements in a clause usually follows the sequence “subject, verb, object, complement, adjunct”, but, they may vary in order to give special emphasis or connotation to the clause or part of it. The passive voice represents one way of varying the sequence of elements in a clause. It allows speakers and writers to talk about an event from the point of view of the thing or the person affected, and what is more, it allows them not
References: Anthony, Laurence (2010) AntConc Version 3. 2. 1. Available from http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html Biber D, Johansson, S, Leech, G, Conrad, S & Finegan, E (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English Carter, Ronald & McCarthy, Michael (1999) The English Get-Passive in Spoken Discourse: Descriptions and Implications of an Interpersonal Grammar Chappell, Hilary (1980) Is the Get-Passive Adversative? Research on Language & Social Interaction, 13: 3, 411 – 452. Collins Cobuild English Grammar: Helping learners with real English (1990) Harper Collins Publishers. Diccionario Oxford Pocket Edición Rioplatense (1997) Oxford University Press Du Bois, John W., Chafe, Wallace L., Meyer, Charles, and Thompson, Sandra A Retrieved from: http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/research/sbcorpus.html Longman Advanced American Dictionary (2000) Longman. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1987) Longman. Murphy, Raymond (1994) New English Grammar in use. A self study reference and practice book for intermediate students of English (2nd edition) O‟Keeffe, A, McCarthy, M & Carter, R (2007) From Corpus to Classroom: language use and language teaching Rühlemann, Christoph (2007) Lexical Grammar: The Get-Passive as a case in point. ICAME Journal Nº 21, 111 – 127.