What does "voice" mean in the context of written language?

Question

The two most common frames of reference seem to be (1) agency attribution at the level of sentence structure (active vs. passive voice) and (2) the use of stylistic elements to stamp the persona of the author(and/or a character) with identity characteristics- this is closely related to the idea of point of view (POV).

Complexities emerge when we look more closely at (2), since "voice" is used in all kinds of more-or-less metaphorical ways. To refer to Dorothy Sayers' "dry voice" is to say something about her outlook as well as her writing style. "Voice is also associated with direct quotation, which may or may not include dialect or style markers that flesh out social identity, i.e. the "Black voice" of Jim, the formerly enslaved character in Huckleberry Finn is based in speech patterns that Twain may have heard and studied. "Voice" is also associated with individual as well as collective perspectives of a more general nature. One could describe Questlove's recent film Summer of Soul (which is about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969) as simultaneously showcasing Black voices and as redeeming the erasure of "the Black voice" from the mainstream cultural history of the 1960s.

So, is there a common thread to these different ways fo referring "voice" in written language? What is it? Are there other ways of using "voice" that I haven't mentioned?

I'd be especially interested in perspectives from rhetoric, since there seem to be several implicit distinctions and variables in play, and I could use some help in parsing them out.

There's a useful thread What does voice in writing mean?, from 9 years ago, but I don't think it fully answers my question.

(Added on 8/15): After mulling over the comments below and seeing that my question has just been reopened, let me try a second iteration. (I trust somebody will let me know if this ought to be posted as a fresh question.)

Why is the grammatical category of "voice," which I have referred to above as (1), so named?

My understanding is that generally speaking, "voice" has to do with the relationship of participants to the action contained in a sentence. Possible forms of voice extend beyond active and passive, for languages have developed many ways for expressing different ways ways of acting/being acted upon. This is even true in English: "the book sold well" is technically passive but it imputes some agency to the book itself - unlike, say, "the book was sold by Amazon."

OK, BUT: how/why did the ancient grammarians who were in the business of inscribing speech as writing even come to denote this category as voice ? I just don't see that acting/acting upon has any intrinsic/logical relationship with vocalization, certainly not pre-Christianity.

It would be great if somebody could explain the linkage - or perhaps the "dead metaphor." Which brings me to an ancillary question: would it be correct to conclude that the grammatical idea of voice is (or was) in fact a metaphor, qualitatively no different than the various metaphorical uses of "voice" in writing- see (2)- above- which Lawler so helpfully describes in his 2012 post?

Answer 1

Why is the grammatical category of "voice" so named?

Good question. I wondered about that, too, and figured it was Latin -- vox, vocis, after all -- so I checked Donatus. But he doesn't use the term at all, and doesn't even group active and passive in a separate category; they're called 'types of verbs' (genera verborum -- given the definitions, this seems to be like what we would now call "verb forms"). Passive and Active verbs are identified only by their endings, not by their uses or meanings, and they're classed with deponent and semideponent verbs, also by types of endings. So that's a dead end. Grammatical "voice" is not a Latin term.

The OED's first examples of the grammatical sense of voice in English are remarkably recent:

• 1382 Wyclif Prol. 57 A participle of a present tens, either preterit, of actif vois, eithir passif.
• 1591 Percival Span. Dict. C 2 By changing e of the future of the Indicatiue into ia, you make the third voice of the preterimperfect tense of the Subiunctiue.
  (the OED adds that it was "used instead of 'person'" here; i.e, it's a typo)
• 1612 Brinsley Pos. Parts (1615) 20 b, Giue the terminations of the first Persons of the Actiue voice alone.

These appear to be discussing Latin grammar. Looking at related languages, German just says im Passiv, but French and Spanish both use reflexes of Latin vox.

So somewhere along the line, the term 'voice' got picked up and stuck with this meaning. Probly nobody had any use for the term any more, what with all this newfangled printing and reformation and renaissance and all that stuff going on.

English, of course, doesn't have any grammatical Voice; there's a Passive construction (transformation, rule), and a Middle alternation (which, incidentally, is what's going on with The book is selling well), but no Active construction, rule, transformation, or alternation. Or voice.

This is just linguistic terminology, used conservatively. I'm not a conservative person, but I use grammatical terms conservatively because when they're used liberally, they tend to smear across every topic we can possibly associate with language, which is pretty much everything.

Answer 2

So, is there a common thread to these different ways for referring "voice" in written language?

Yes, it all relates back to the idea of a noise produced by a person (or later, an animal or other sentient creature.) The OED gives 3 main meanings of "voice" Together these have 14 sub-meanings and about 36 nuances and uses. It would be unreasonable to reproduce them all.

I. Sound produced by and characteristic of a specific person or animal. (A particularized instance of the phenomenon described in branch II.) From c.1300

II. The sound that can be produced by the vocal organs of humans or animals, considered as a general fact or phenomenon. from c1330

III. Grammar.

A category used in the classification of verb forms serving to indicate the relation of the subject to the action.

c1425 in C. R. Bland Teaching Gram. in Late Medieval Eng. (1991) 160 (MED) Þo secund coniugaciun..of passyf wowus, þat as -e- long befor þo -ris indecatyf, as doceris.

a1450 (▸a1397) Prol. Old Test. in Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Cambr. Mm.2.15) (1850) xv. 57 A participle of a present tens, either preterit, of actif vois, eithir passif.

1991 ‘J. le Carré’ Secret Pilgrim vi. 128 An effort now being made, he said—making suspicious use of the passive voice.

The noun itself comes via Norman French and Latin (vox) from the same Indo-European base as Sanskrit vāc, Avestan vač, ancient Greek ὄπα (accusative).