Two experiments were carried out in an attempt to manipulate the voice in which children encoded a denotative domain of events. In Experiment I the direction in which the child visually scanned a picture was varied ; in Experiment II the child's " focus of attention " was manipulated through the type of question asked of him about a picture. In general, when the acted-upon element or recipient of the action, as opposed to the actor, was presented first (Exp. I), or emphasized through questioning (Exp. II), there tended to be an increase in the number of passive voice sentences produced.
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