Nominalization is the most typical structure of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM), particularly in scientific and political discourses as well as academic writing. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) point out that information density, nominalization and GM are as the foremost lexico-grammatical features of the academic and written language. we are doing an empirical research based on the explicit teaching of Nominalization to advanced EFL learners to find out its impact on their writing skills. What do you think of it? State your informative experiences and advice please.
I think it is important to remember that nominalisation is a central feature of academic discourse and texts - it is what makes both reading and writing in the university so difficult for so many students on entry. Alerting students to the fact that academic discourse is no-one's mother tongue helps them to recognise the strangeness of this particular use of language and that which sets it apart from everyday speech. So pointing out explicit evidence of how nominalisation works is, from my experience, very useful for all students. The fact that the use of the passive emerges is also crucial to draw attention to - the one response here shows how it works in the Sciences, but the other key work it does is to overtly conceal agency - in many contexts, the deliberate choice to use the passive is underpinned by sinister motives. So yes, teach it, but don't go over the top with it. It will become more and more apparent to students anyway, as they progress through their studies. It is also possible to create authentic activities - within a discipline, derived from a relevant text s.
Nominalization is generally bad for readability, so I do not understand why it would be taught apart from understanding that the latin/greek root may be common in noun, verb, and even adjective or adverb. Nominalization encourages the use of the passive voice. However, I do use nominalization in my teaching, first to highlight its danger (increase in the number of syllables, therefore decrease in readability), but also to highlight its advantages, namely, dilution of expectation and emphasis when one wants to move the reader away from the direction the sentence is going, and also fluid chain transition when the verb of one sentence returns in noun form as the subject of the next sentence.
Nominalization is not bad per se: science uses it strongly, for example. We cases of "We tested 5 materials. The TEST showed that...".
Basically, nominalisation allows us to talk about processes as if they are things: the process can be a participant in another process (e.g., 'show' above), they can be counted (e.g., 'the five tests'), sequenced ("the next test"), evaluated ("the least successful test"), etc.
So, nominalisation is not bad by itself, it is bad when used inappropriately. When used appropriately, it is a natural and essential part of our language. And this should be taught. But yes, the teaching should emphasise the appropriate use of nominalisation.
Nominalization definitely makes sentences longer because replacing a proper verb with its noun form creates the need to replace the verb with another one such as "results in"," leads to", "allows", or "permits". These causal links are emphasized and the actions of the objects are de-emphasized as in the following example.
This analytic approach permits accurate predictions of voice distortions.
One could have emphasized the accuracy of the prediction as in
Voice distortions are accurately predicted with this analytic approach
or the usefulness of the approach as in This analytic approach is useful to predict voice distortions accurately.
I think it is important to remember that nominalisation is a central feature of academic discourse and texts - it is what makes both reading and writing in the university so difficult for so many students on entry. Alerting students to the fact that academic discourse is no-one's mother tongue helps them to recognise the strangeness of this particular use of language and that which sets it apart from everyday speech. So pointing out explicit evidence of how nominalisation works is, from my experience, very useful for all students. The fact that the use of the passive emerges is also crucial to draw attention to - the one response here shows how it works in the Sciences, but the other key work it does is to overtly conceal agency - in many contexts, the deliberate choice to use the passive is underpinned by sinister motives. So yes, teach it, but don't go over the top with it. It will become more and more apparent to students anyway, as they progress through their studies. It is also possible to create authentic activities - within a discipline, derived from a relevant text s.
Dear Carol Thomson and all other valued colleagues, thank you very much for sharing your ideas. I appreciate all of your contributions.
Dear Bahram,
If I could just add a footnote to Carol’s very full explanations of the functions of nominalisation in scientific and scholarly writing and (I might add) reasoning, I notice that Carol doesn’t mention the vital role that nominalisation plays in the information structure of sentences and texts. What is new information in Sentence 1 (a claim, a proposition) can be treated as old information (i.e. the Theme or Topic) in Sentence 2, a procedure illustrated neatly by Jean-Luc (June 1): “We tested …” > “The test resulted in…”. (This procedure usually entails deleting most of the participants in the process, details that were specified in the first sentence, but readers are expected to be able to supply these from memory.)
Moreover (again as Jean-Luc notes) this procedure allows the writer to make the original claim or proposition itself a participant in higher-order (more abstract) argumentation of the kind that allows science to move from empirical observations to (testable) generalisations, from cases to “laws”. It is here we use “relational verbs” (like is/was [identical with; equivalent to, etc.], causes, results in, suggests, points towards, means… ) And of course each successive nominalised Theme or Topic, essentially an anaphoric, moves the argument in the direction of ever more general claims and statements.
I suggest that the teaching of relational verbs (simple and complex) should form an important part of the preparation of all students engaged in tertiary level study. These allow writers to be very precise in specifying the types of logical relationships they put forward in their arguments – a crucial part of any testable/falsifiable claims.
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