Video of Dr Beedham's lecture on the passive
The video shown here is of Dr Beedham giving a class on the passive, using English as the language of illustration, as part of his Honours (= 3rd and 4th year) module, ML3201 Grammatical Rules and Lexical Exceptions (formerly LI3001 The Method of Lexical Exceptions). The class was given on 3.12.2010 especially for the purposes of making this video, at the end of a 3-week session (5 hrs.) on the passive, and is a summary of Dr Beedham’s aspectual analysis of the passive. The video is aimed at three audiences:
- school-leavers thinking of going to University, and who want to see what a University class looks like;
- modern language students (except for students of German, who have their own module, GM3080) already at the University of St Andrews thinking of taking module ML3201;
- professional linguists, and (prospective) PhD students, who might find it useful to see Dr Beedham summarise his aspectual analysis of the passive in lecture format to an undergraduate audience.
The film lasts for 42 mins., and consists of a PowerPoint lecture followed by questions from the student audience.
Download Powerpoint slides
In order to prepare for the lecture please read the following book:
Beedham, Christopher. 2005. Language and Meaning: The Structural Creation of Reality. Amsterdam: Benjamins. (See especially Chapter 3 'The passive', pp.33-60).
To watch the video you may need to download some software, e.g. Media Player or QuickTime, in which case you will need to click on "add plug-in" below. When you have downloaded the software you may need to restart your web browser. The first time you watch the video it may take a few minutes to load, depending on the speed of your connection.
Dr Beedham's lecture on the passive from University of St Andrews on Vimeo.