Is Changing the Voice of English Sentences Accompanied with any Changes in Their Tenses?

Abstract

Languages provide their speakers with a variety of constructions that help them communicate effectively and efficiently. Two out of these constructions are active and passive forms. Some languages as Persian believe that an active sentence is usually preferable to a passive sentence because an active one is shorter, stronger and more direct. While some other languages as English believe that passive voice is used more frequently because it is a regular feature in formal especially scientific written texts. Based on what was mentioned above it is concluded that in order to have a fluent text, changing the voices in the process of translation is a must.

The purposes of this study were to: a) study the change of voice in the process of translating from English to Persian, and b) see whether or not the change of voice was accompanied by a change in tense.

To achieve these goals, 309 passive clauses and sentences from the book “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in (2012) and their Persian translations produced by Rezaye in (2012) entitled: "Ghoror va Ta'asob" were selected.

The analysis of the collected data indicated that 94% percent of English passive sentences were translated into active voices in Persian language. The results also showed that change of voice is accompanied by change of tense.