Many of us are familiar with this conventional grammar wisdom: turning verbs into nouns—or what is termed “nominalization” in linguistics—is bad for the health of our prose. The evidence that this is so is, of course, painfully clear. Take this particularly turgid example of bureaucratic writing: “The conclusion of this interim faculty performance evaluation committee is that there has been an inadequate information dissemination effort with respect to the new instruction performance standards as mandated and enforced by the Department of Education effective January 1, 2004.”
The sentence above is obviously not only difficult to understand but also sounds overly authoritative. The unfortunate thing, however, is that many academics and bureaucrats think they are doing a great job by making such convoluted semantic constructions. Few of them ever realize that for every verb that they assiduously convert to a noun-form in their vaunted circulars and directives, they are erecting just one more formidable barrier to good communication with their constituencies.
IMAGE CREDIT: WWW.OPEN.EDUNOMINALIZATION: FROM CONCRETE TO ABSTRACT
Let’s check precisely what have been “nominalized” in the sentence in question. The following verbs, we can readily see, were converted to nouns: “conclude” to “conclusion” and “disseminate” to “dissemination.” And this nominalization binge gave rise to two inevitable things: (1) a passive sentence in which nobody or nothing seems to be doing anything, and (2) long noun-strings whose constituent nouns already cross-modify themselves into near incomprehension even before the adjective can do its own modifying job, like “interim faculty performance evaluation committee,” “inadequate information dissemination effort,” and “new instruction performance standards.” The horrible “-ion” words simply multiplied like rabbits.
Is there a way out of this semantic rigmarole? A good way to begin is, of course, to restore the nominalizations into their active verb-forms and to clearly establish who or what the doers of the action are in the passive sentence. Try this one for size and clarity: “This interim committee has ascertained that the new standards for measuring the teaching performance of faculty members have not been properly disseminated. Faculty members have not clearly understood the new instruction standards put in force by the Department of Education last January 1, 2004.”
IMAGE CREDIT: WWW.CBSETUTS.COMFORMATION OF NOUNS FROM VERBS
Even with this indictment against nominalizations, however, we mustn’t think that they have no value whatsoever in exposition. Nominalizations can actually prove useful in at least five semantic situations. Here are those situations:
Nominalization to make abstract things more concrete and credible. As we have already seen above, this is actually what many academics and bureaucrats do to their prose—but to sordid excess. If done sparingly and with restraint, however, this form of nominalization can actually make abstract statements more convincing. Without nominalization: “The woman couldn’t believe that her son’s decision was a wise one.” More convincing with “wise” nominalized to “wisdom”: “The woman couldn’t believe the wisdom of her son’s decision.”
Nominalization as a transitional device. By serving as a subject referring to an idea in a previous sentence, a nominalization can provide smooth transition: “The election losers finally accepted defeat after a perfunctory protest filing. This acceptance paved the way for better governance in a country notorious for unceasing politics.” Here, the noun-form “this acceptance” in the second sentence nominalizes the verb-phrase “accepted defeat after...” of the first sentence, thus effortlessly leading the reader to the next idea.
Nominalization to attenuate extremely harsh or forceful statements. In making extremely sensitive statements, it’s often prudent to use a nominalization instead of its more direct and vigorous verb form. Too pointed and insensitive: “The prison officials will electrocute the convict tomorrow at exactly 9:00 a.m.” A more prudent statement with “electrocute” nominalized: “The prison officials set the electrocution of the convict tomorrow at exactly 9:00 a.m.”
Nominalization to more clearly identify the object of its verb-form. For stronger emphasis, it is sometimes desirable to use a nominalization to identify the object of the verb in a sentence. Without nominalization: “The job applicants are not aware of what are required by the newly created position.” Smoother and more concise by nominalizing the phrase “what are required by...”: “The job applicants are not aware of the requirements of the newly created position.”
Nominalization to replace awkward “the fact that....” phrases. When making a transition to a succeeding sentence, the easy but lazy way is to use the phrase “the fact that...”: “The fact that she was able to convert a virtually certain defeat to a resounding victory is a miracle of sorts.” Nominalization of that phrase results in a better sounding sentence and a more elegant transition: “Her conversion of a virtually certain defeat into a resounding victory is a miracle of sorts.”
Knowing now that nominalizations aren’t all that bad for the health of our prose, let’s not hesitate to let them do their job when the semantic situation calls for it.
This essay first appeared in my “English Plain and Simple” column in The Manila Times
and subsequently became Chapter 123 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge
, ©2009 and published by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times
:
Making nominalization work for our prose
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and X (Twitter) and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
Next week: The wonderful thing called voice (July 11, 2024)
