Nominalisation

Share

Nominalisations: Other words as nouns

Nominalisation describes a word formation in which a verb (or other part of speech) is used as (or transformed into) a noun.

We’ll take a look at why we use them and why these noun forms can be useful in formal writing. 

Explanation

When we use verb forms it makes the language more immediate, easier to understand, and often less formal.

By using the noun form instead, we can make we what we say or write a lot more formal.

Let’s look at an example

  • When the auditors analysed the accounts they showed there were missing funds.
  • The analysis of the accounts showed missing funds.

What we can see from these examples is that the focus is different in each. Sentence 1 focuses on the action, whereas our second example emphasises the activity or noun. 

In this respect the use of the noun form is similar to why we use the passive form, in order to focus on the action.  

There are a number of reasons why we use nominalisations.

  • To avoid mentioning the agent, as we do with the passive.

  • It allows us to change the focus of the sentence, as new important information is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence.

  • It can sometimes communicate the idea a lot more precisely.

Noun Phrases

Commonly, we are are looking at more than a simple verb -> noun change. Noun phrases are also used as a form of nominalisation.

A noun phrase is a group of two or more words headed by a noun that includes modifiers. Just as nouns can act as subjects, objects, and prepositional objects, the same applies to noun phrases.

Examples

  • He had to sit beside the horribly angry girl.
  • The first release of the song was in 1984.
  • Scientists have noticed a sudden rise in the average temperature. 

Noun phrases can be very useful as they allow us to reduce extended  information to a single more precise and often more elegant idea.

Compare the original information below with the modified version which use noun phrases.

  • They raced up the hill.  The race exhausted them.
  • They had an exhausting race up the hill.

  • The boys laughed loudly and they work the baby.
  • The boys’ loud laughter woke the baby.

  • We walked for charity. We raised money for the Cancer Society.
  • The charity walk raised money for the Cancer Society.

In all three examples the use of a noun structure has made the meaning very clear and produced shorter, more precise sentences.    

Take a look at other topics in our C1 Advanced English Corner. Read about using inversion forms for formal writing and how we can use cause and reason expressions to improve writing.

More Posts

Futures – The forms we use

Share In this post we’re going to talk about the future. There are lots of different ways to talk about the future in English so

Proficiency Exam Corner

Share Proficiency Exam Corner Share Proficiency Exam Corner Share More Posts Read More Using… Read More Using Topic Sentences Share   In the Cambridge Advanced

Would Rather & Would Prefer

Share Rather & Prefer  In this post we will look at the different grammar of would rather and would prefer and the way we use each

Verb & Adverb Suffixes

Share Verb & Adverb Suffix Types We use a prefix at the beginning of the word to change the meaning and a suffix at the

Using Topic Sentences

Share   In the Cambridge Advanced and Proficiency writing exams, the quality of answers depends on very good organisation of ideas and topics. In this