Can the を in ～を通して be replaced with は?

Question

I asked an earlier question What does 通して聞く mean when they are used together? where I was confused by how a sentence used 通して but with a は instead of a を. Can someone help to shed some light on whether this is allowed, and if so.. under what instances can we use は instead?

Thanks for reading!

Answer 1

The object of a verb is usually marked with を, but when that object is the topic of the sentence, を will be replaced with は. This is a basic grammatical rule, and it has nothing to do with the usage of 通して itself. See: What is a topic prominent language?

In your example, みなさんのパフォーマンス is the topic of the sentence, so it's marked with は even though it's the object of 聞く.

Related:

• What is the subject of this sentence? Is it the book (mentioned) or the author (who is not mentioned)?
• The meaning and nuance behind the phrase "話は通してある"
• "は + verb" instead of "を + verb"?
• Particle は replacing を - where does the stress lie?

EDIT: Note that the object of みなさんのパフォーマンス is 聞く, not 通す. 通して is the te-form of 通す, and here it's working like an adverb that describes how the main action (聞く) is done. Compare: 音楽を座って聞く ("to listen to the music while sitting"), リンゴを急いで食べる ("to eat an apple in a hurry").