A DISCUSSION ON THE USE OF PASSIVE VOICE IN SOCIAL SCIENCES: THE EXAMPLE OF MEN’S VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Language is not only a means of communication but also one of the fields of social power struggle. How we define a social phenomenon can influence where we will direct our attention, how we think and how we behave. The use of passive voice without subjects/agents in describing a social phenomenon may hide the use of power since the desrcription excludes agents and their responsiblity from the discussion. The article, with this perspective, questions the function of expressions that obscure the responsiblity of the agent in the literature on ‘violence against women’. The presumption is that a careful review of passive voicw and lingusitic avoidance in the literature would be helpful to critically look at the hegemonic framework that limits our capacity to understand and analyze current social problems