Nominalisation in written English

Elliot make summery with Nominalisation  from <Cambridge Grammar for IELTS> below .

When we choose to give the main information in a clause as a noun phrase rather than as a verb this is called Nominalisation.

1.Nominalisation in written English
In spoken English we usually use a subject + verb to describe an event .

In formal Written Language we use language that is less personal , so we often use a noun form instead of a verb . The written scientific account describes the same reaction like this :
Following a bee sting the normal reaction is redness , irritation and itching.

In the spoken example the events are expressed by verbs (go red ). In the written examples the events have been changed into nouns (redness) . Notice that the only verb in written examples is the none action verb be.

We can also change some adjectives to nouns. Compare:
The cathedral is tall and can be seen from all over the town.
The cathedral's height makes it visible all over the town.

The common differences between spoken and written English are :
A.Spoken:
action or events are expressed as verbs;
events happen to people or are carried out by people ;
personal pronouns are used as subjects;
verbs are often action or event verbs;
B.Written:
actions or events may be expressed as nouns or noun phrases;
events are expressed impersonally;
nouns used as subjects;
verbs are often not action or event verbs ;
sentences have a lot of vocabulary words;

2.Reasons for using Nominalisation
Make texts impersonal and authoritative
By turning actions into nouns we make the text sound less personal and more authoritative.We don't use personal pronouns as much .Compare :
Following a bee sting the normal reaction is burning pain ,redness , irritation and itching . In this situation there may be swelling in the area around the bite .
Then really quickly my foot began to go red  and swell up . It just got bigger and bigger .It itched a bit too . I was really surprised by how much it hurts .


ADDING INFORMATION:
Nominalisation is particularly useful for Academic Written Task 1 because we can do several things to add information to nouns in English:
count : the two charts;
describe: the two coloured charts ;
classify: the two coloured bar charts;
We can not do the same with verbs.  It is only by changing verbs into nouns that we can add information words to a text in such a concise way .

Avoiding repetition:
We can use nominalisation to avoid repetition when we want to refer back to a previously mentioned idea.
Nominalisation can also be used to paraphrase what has been said. In IELTS listening and reading tests different words are used in the texts and the questions .

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