A shift in perspective in grammar is an
awkward use of verbs or pronouns.
It's an inconsistent use of those, and in
this video we'll talk about verb shifts.
There are three kinds of verb shifts to
watch out for, and the first one is a
shift in tense. So we can split tenses
into three kinds: we have the present
tense (the now moment) ... then we have the
past tense (what happened before) and the
future tense (what will happen in the
future).
In the first example, we read "I saw
a fantail (beautiful little bird) in the
bush behind the house. It has the most
remarkable feathers." We start here with
the past tense (I saw) and then in the
second sentence we switch to the present
tense. This is a grammatical mistake, and
we probably should say "It has the most
remarkable feathers." But it's an
understandable mistake, and that's
because the second statement here is
really talking about a kind of
continuing fact -- the fantail is
something you just saw, but even when you
walk away it will continue to have the
most remarkable feathers (unless it
suddenly dies the moment you leave!). As
a result, it's understandable that we
might use the present tense, but it would
be better grammatically if we use the
past tense here, and make it consistent.
But you don't always have to be pedantic
about your use of tenses. It's often
perfectly acceptable to shift in tense
and that's something to to remark upon
because you might learn about shifts in
perspective and think that they're
always wrong, but in fact we shift in
perspective all the time, with perfectly
good reason. So in the second example
here, we read, "Pankhurst's contributions to
women's suffrage are universally lauded"
and "are lauded" -- this is in the present
tense. And then we switch to the past
tense with "despite the fact that she
encouraged." So "encouraged" is in the past
tense. "... violence to police officers." Now
this shift is perfectly fine because, of
course, her contributions are lauded in
the present tense, at the present moment,
but she encouraged (and we're talking
about the early 20th century here, so
we're stepping back in time) -- she
encouraged violence, and so on, in the
past. The point, then, is that a shift
in tense is very common. You just
don't want to have an awkward shift in
tense when it's not necessary,. The second
kind of shift to watch out for is a
shift in mood, and there are three kinds
of mood in English. There is the
indicative, and the indicative is used
for simple statements and descriptive
statements, and also questions, and in
fact the indicative is the most common
mood in English. Then we have the
imperative, and the imperative is when
you order people around.
If you shout at somebody "stop!"
And the last one is the subjunctive, and
that's a hard one. It's fairly rare in
some ways, but it's often formed with
modal auxiliaries. So you might say "I
could do that," or "I would do that," or "I
might." These are forms of
the subjunctive, and they're all
hypothetical statements. Something might
happen, but it did not necessarily happen.
If you look at the first sentence, then,
we start with the imperative: "Finish
sorting the receipts and you might wipe ..."
And this one is subjunctive, then -- the
second verb. The reason for this might be
that you're shouting at somebody and then you
realize that maybe you should be a
little bit nicer! And in the middle of
your sentence you shift to the
subjunctive mood. But in an academic
essay (in a formal context), you want to be
more consistent. So you might write,
"Finish sorting the receipts and also
wipe the counters" (not "might wipe"). Or if
you want to be really nice you might say
"You might finish sorting the receipts
and wiping the counters." So try to be
consistent in your use of mood. The
second one reads, "I could have won if I
was in the right age group." Here we
start with the subjunctive again ("I could
have won"), and then we switch to the
indicative ("if I was"). But notice that we
still have this kind of
hypothetical "if" and that's why technically
this should be "were." Watch out, then, for
this "was" / "were" distinction because it's a
mistake people often make. And "were" is
subjunctive and "was" is indicative. Our
last kind of shift is a shift in voice.
In English there are two kinds of
voice: there's the active voice, which
refers to when the subject of a sentence
is actively doing the action of the verb,
and then the passive voice refers to
when the action of the verb happens to
the subject. So the first one, then, reads,
"Sarah argues" -- that's very much an active
kind of verb. Sarah is doing the
action, so "Sarah argues that constantly
shopping for clothing is unethical" -- "is" is
another active voiced verb here -- "as
sweatshops are encouraged and sustained
by such behavior. So "are encouraged" -- this
is a passive voice verb, and you can see
that usually we use a kind of linking, or
helping verb here rather, and then we use
the past participle to go with it. If we
want to make this both active, we would
say "And such behavior encourages and
sustains sweatshops." And then they would
both be active. So that would be a little
bit more elegant. I would say that this
kind of shift in voice is not always
problematic. It may simply be awkward ... you
know, not completely wrong. But it is one
to watch out for if you want to be a
little bit more consistent in your use
of voice. But sometimes, and I really like
to point out these cases where
the shift is fine -- sometimes
it's acceptable to switch from the
passive to the active, or vice-versa. So
here we write "Fiona is learning Latin" -- "is [learning]"
is active. "She is taught by a retired
high school teacher," and "is taught" is
passive. The reason why we kept it [the subjects] the
same is because we want the subjects to
be the same here, so "Fiona" and "she" -- these
subjects refer to the same person, and if
we made the high school teacher here the
subject, in the second instance, so "the
high school teacher taught her ...
or teaches her," then you can see that that would
be ... a little
bit awkward. The point then, just to
sum up, is that a shift in perspective
can be wrong but there may be good
reason for it and if you're conscious
and aware of what you're doing then
you may be able to determine whether
that shift in perspective is right or
not. That's it for shifts in perspective.