Passive Sentences and Abstract Agents in German School Books

Abstract Although the competent handling with passive is acquired before school entrance, its comprehension is considered to be challenging in school books. According to a corpus linguistic analysis, passive is more frequent in school books than in texts from leisure contexts. Moreover, the agent differs semantically depending on context: Human agents appear predominantly in all contexts, but the proportion of abstract systemic agents are significantly higher in school books for biology and chemistry than in school books for history or in texts from leisure contexts. Furthermore, a survey shows that students do not perceive the general use of passive as challenging, but those sentences with abstract systemic agents are assessed as more challenging than comparable sentences with human agents. This leads to the assumption that challenges in reception of school books arise neither only from grammatical structure nor from global linguistic functions. Semantical and functional differences from specific constructions are fundamental to locate potential language-based challenges in school books. Consequently, the joint reflection of concrete formal and functional aspects should be considered in the development of diagnostic instruments as well as in the operationalisation of the language of schooling. Furthermore, cross-linguistic comparisons can sensitise for conspicuous use of structures and support a language-sensitive teaching in both languages.