PASSIVE VOICE USAGE PATTERNS IN CULTURE COLUMN IN THE JAKARTA POST: A SYNTACTICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the types of passive sentence usage patterns in the culture column of The Jakarta Post, with a focus on the syntactic form and communicative function in the presentation of journalistic information. Through a descriptive qualitative approach, data were collected from a number of articles published the culture column in The Jakarta Post. Passive voice was described as a very specific grammatical structure, which had to be followed by the auxiliary verb be or another form such as get + past participle. The data were then analyzed, and the types and functions of passive voice in the articles were identified, such as passive be, bare passive clause, passive get, prepositional passive, embedded passive, and adjectival passive. The most dominant passive is the passive be because it is the most grammatical and widely accepted. The communicative function in using linguistic strategies was to direct the reader's focus on the results or events of an action, without highlighting the perpetrator, while maintaining topic focus within a particular paragraph or context. Keywords: Passive voice, Syntactic analysis, Communicative Function, Journalistic Language, The Jakarta Post; Culture Column