Active and Passive Voice in English and German & L2 Learners' Problems with Voice

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Wuppertal (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Contrastive Syntax, language: English, abstract: In how far are active and passive voice in English and German different from each other? What difficulties do learners of English as a second language have to face when they deal with "e;voice"e;, especially in academic writing? This paper intends to answer these questions by firstly dealing with the descriptions and comparisons of active and passive voice, and partly also middle voice, as far as they are presented in Understanding English-German Contrasts by Konig & Gast. In a second step, certain exemplary problems that L21 learners of English come across when dealing with active and passive voice will be picked from Hinkel's Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar. These problems will then be examined by referring back to the text by Konig & Gast.