A contrastive analysis of deverbal nominalization in english and vietnamese on the bbc co uk and the nhandan com vn from 2010 to 2014 from cognitive perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES


ĐOÀN THỊ HUYỀN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF DEVERBAL NOMINALIZATION
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
ON THE BBC.CO.UK AND THE NHANDAN.COM.VN
FROM 2010 TO 2014 FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

( PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU SỰ DANH HÓA ĐỘNG TỪ TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TRONG BÁO BBC.CO.UK VÀ
NHANDAN.COM.VN TỪ NĂM 2010 ĐẾN 2014 DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ TRI
NHẬN)

MA MINOR THESIS

Major: English Linguistics
Code: 60220201

Hanoi – 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES


ĐOÀN THỊ HUYỀN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF DEVERBAL NOMINALIZATION
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
ON THE BBC.CO.UK AND THE NHANDAN.COM.VN
FROM 2010 TO 2014 FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
( PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU SỰ DANH HÓA ĐỘNG TỪ TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TRONG BÁO BBC.CO.UK VÀ
NHANDAN.COM.VN TỪ NĂM 2010 ĐẾN 2014 DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ TRI
NHẬN)

MA MINOR THESIS

Major: English Linguistics
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan
Hanoi – 2016


DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this thesis is the result of my own work and effort, and that it
has not been submitted for a degree of any other universities. Where other sources
of information have been used, they have been acknowledged.

Signature of the candidate:
Date: October 31th, 2016

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, it is my great pleasure to express my sincere gratitude to my
supervisor Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan for his invaluable advice, guidance, support and
encouragement for the completion of this study. My special thanks also go to the
library staff and all lecturers of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies - University of
Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi for
providing me with the necessary research materials, precious lectures and
suggestions.
I also would like to express my great gratitude to my family and beloved
friends for the love and support which make a substantial contribution to my
fulfillment of this thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT

This research is an attempt to carry out a contrastive analysis of deverbal
nominalization in English and in Vietnamese from cognitive perspective. The
sources of data for this study were articles on the bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn
from 2010 to 2014. The research is intended to find out the linguistic realization of
deverbal nominalization in English and Vietnamese sample articles, which serves as
the basis to draw a contrastive comparison of the linguistic realization of deverbal
nominalization in the two languages. It also aims to identify the underlying reasons
for the differences in the realizations of deverbal nominalizations in the two
languages. Some pedagogical implications are also suggested in the hope of
assisting Vietnamese teachers and learners in teaching and learning English writing
and translation.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration ..................................................................................................................i
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................... ii
Abstract..................................................................................................................... iii
Table of contents .......................................................................................................iv
List of figures and tables ........................................................................................ vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale ..................................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study .....................................................................................................2
3. Research questions ...................................................................................................3
4. Scope of the study ....................................................................................................3
5. Significance of the study .........................................................................................3
6. Research methodology.............................................................................................4
7. Design of the study ..................................................................................................4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE
REVIEW ............................................................................................5
1.1. Theoretical background ........................................................................................5
1.1.1. Contrastive analysis ........................................................................................5
1.1.2. Cognitive linguistics .......................................................................................6
1.1.3. The relation of grammar to cognition .............................................................7
1.1.4. Definition of Nouns in English and in Vietnamese ........................................7
1.1.4.1. English nouns .......................................................................................7
1.1.4.2. Vietnamese nouns .................................................................................8
1.1.5. Nominalization..............................................................................................10
1.1.5.1. Deverbal nominalization in English ..................................................14
1.1.5.2. Deverbal nominalization in Vietnamese ............................................16

1.2 Literature review ..................................................................................................18
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................19
2.1. Research questions ..............................................................................................19

iv


2.2. Research approach ..............................................................................................19
2.3. Research method .................................................................................................20
2.4. Data collection procedure ...................................................................................20
2.5. Data analysis .......................................................................................................21
2.6. Design of the study .............................................................................................21
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS .........................................................................23
3.1. The realizations of deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese on the
bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn ............................................................................23
3.1.1. Linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in English .....................23
3.1.2. Linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in Vietnamese ..............26
3.2. A contrastive analysis of linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in
English and in Vietnamese on the bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn .....................33
3.2.1. The similarities in linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in
English and in Vietnameses….. ......................................................................33
3.2.2.The differences in realizations of deverbal nominalization in English and in
Vietnameses….. ..............................................................................................35
3.3. The underlying reasons for the differences in linguistic realizations of
deverbalization in English and in Vietnamese from cognitive perspective...............36
3.3.1. Deverbal nominalization in English seen from cognitive view ....................36
3.3.2. Deverbal nominalization in Vietnamese seen from cognitive view .............38
3.3.3. The underlying reasons for the differences in linguistic realizations of deverbal
nominalization in English and in Vietnamese from cognitive perspective ....... 39

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS .............................................42
4.1. Findings ..............................................................................................................42
4.1.1. The similarities in linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in
English and in Vietnamese……………. .......................................................42
4.1.2. The differences in linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in
English and in Vietnamese……………. .......................................................42
4.1.3. The underlying reasons for the differences in linguistic realizations of
deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese ................................43
4.2. Teaching implications .........................................................................................45
v


PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Recaptulation .........................................................................................................46
2. Limitations of the study .........................................................................................47
3. Suggestions for further studies ..............................................................................48
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................49
Appendix A .............................................................................................................. I
Appendix B ....................................................................................................... XVII

vi


LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: The semantic structure of a grounded nominal

page 9

Figure 2: Things, relation, situation (state) and reified thing

page 14

Table 1: Linguistic realization of deverbal nominalization in English

page 24

Table 2: Linguistic realizations of deverbal nominalization in Vietnamese

page 28

Table 3: The distribution of count nouns and mass nouns
in English samples

page 38

Table 4: The distribution of count nouns and mass nouns
in Vietnamese samples

page 39

vii


PARTA: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In

“A

Cognitive-Functional

Approach

to

Nominalization

in

English”

(2006:9),Heyvaert, L.emphasizes that “Nominalization represents a theoretical
challenge and has to be situated in an overall theory of the language
system.”Haliday (1994) also views nominalization as the most influentialmeans
ofconstructinggrammatical metaphor. This shows that nominalization plays a crucial
role in the English language, which stimulates me to read more about this
grammatical phenomenon. In an article of April 2nd, 2005 on www.cambridge.org,
Nigel Caplan suggests that nominalization is a “very common feature of academic
writing”, functioning as a factor to minimize finite clauses in a sentence,
contributing to a concision in writing and limiting the use of vague words like
“people” in a sentence. For example:
EVERYDAY: People who are creative need to be exposed to many different ideas.
MORE ACADEMIC: Creativity requires exposure to many different ideas.
( 2015/
04/ from-everyday-to-academic-writing-style-part-2-from-verbs-to-nouns).
Whenever the researcher reads an article in English, she finds there are lots of cases
of nominalization. For example, a student unaware of the role of nominalization in
academic writing may write a sentence as follows:
“New York City Medical Examiner’s Office said that after the dead body had been

initially examined, further tests would be carried out to determine why she died.”
However, in fact, this sentence can be expressed more academically as follows:
“The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office said that after an initial
examination, further tests would be carried out to determine the cause of the
death.” (Taken from the article “Joan Rivers funeral: Stars mourn late comedian”,
September 7th, 2014)
The two sentences convey the same meaning, but the second one, taken from an
article on the bbc.co.uk,employs two phrases with deverbalized nouns seems to be
more academic than the first one which uses two verb phrases.

1


The fact that nominalization has become one typical feature of academic English
makes the researcher wonder whether it is a typical feature in academic Vietnamese
and whether there are any similarities or differences between nominalization in
English and in Vietnamese. Besides, as a teacher of English, the researcher is
motivated to find out more about nominalization so that she can help English
learners to be aware of this linguistic phenomenon and apply it to their writings.
According to Talmy (2000:43), nominalization is the signalization of the
cognitive process of “reification”, through which what the verb refers to will be
“conceptualized” as a thing.When referring to the grammatical phenomenon of
nominalization, Tamly makes a distinction between the languages which tend to use
more verbs and those which are in favor of nouns. Basing on this characteristic of
languages, he divides languages into two “typological categories”, namely, objectdominant languages and action-dominant ones. The former category consists of the
languages that favor nouns, while the latter includes those that favor verbs.
There exist some studies on the contrastive analysis of nominalization
phenomenon, but nominalization has been viewed from different perspectives,
mainly syntactic and systemic functional. This study will be about a contrastive
analysis of only deverbal nominalization in English and Vietnamese based on

cognitive view.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
The study aims at making a contrastive analysis of deverbal nominalization
in English and Vietnamese from cognitive perspective, and then giving some
implications for teaching and learning English for Vietnamese learners.
To be more specific, to achieve these aims, the specific objectives of the study are:
 First, examining how deverbal nominalization is linguistically realized in
English and in Vietnamese.
 Second, comparing deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese in
order to find out the similarities and, specifically differences in linguistic
realizations ofdeverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese.

2


 Third, finding out the underlying reasons for the similarities and differences
between deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese from
cognitive perspective.
 Last, giving some implications for the teaching of writing skill and
translation.
3. Research questions
This study, entitled “A contrastive analysis of deverbal nominalization in English
and Vietnamese on the bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn from 2010 to 2014 from
cognitive perspective”, is carried out in order to answer the questions that follow:
1.

How

isdeverbal

nominalizationlinguisticallyrealizedin

English

and

Vietnameseon the bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn from 2010 to 2014?
2. What are the similarities and differences in linguisticrealizationsbetween
deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnameseon the bbc.co.uk and the
nhandan.com.vn from 2010 to 2014?
3. What are the underlying reasons for the differences in linguistic realizations
betweendeverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese from cognitive
perspective?
4. Scope of the study
Nominalization is quite a big linguistic phenomenon to be investigated and
compared in English and Vietnamese in such minor thesis. Moreover,
nominalization can be studied from different perspectives. Therefore, this research
only focuses on the contrastive analysis of the phenomenon of deverbal
nominalization in English and in Vietnamese from cognitive perspective. The data
for analysis is taken from English and Vietnamese online newspapers, the bbc.co.uk
and the nhandan.com.vn, respectively, from 2010 to 2014.
5. Significance of the study
Since the study is concerned with a contrastive analysis of deverbal
nominalization in English and Vietnamese on the bbc.co.uk and the nhandan.com.vn
from 2010 to 2014 from cognitive approach, the researcher hopes that it will
contribute to helping teachers and learners of English to not only be aware of but
3


also compare the use of deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese as

well as how to form it. To put it more specifically, the findings of the research will
hopefully help teachers and students in the teaching as well as learning of writing
and translating.
6. Research methodology
The study aims at investigating comparingdeverbal nominalization in English
and Vietnamese based on cognitive approach.
This is a contrastive study; thus, the methods used are qualitative and
quantitative ones which are conducted by carefully collecting and referring to
materials from online newspapers in English and in Vietnamese on the bbc.com.uk
and the nhandan.com.vn. There are some criteria for choosing the articles:
 First, the article must have at least one case of deverbal nominalization
 Second, it must be published in the period from 2010 to 2004
 Third, it must be taken from the two sources - the bbc.com.uk and the
nhandan.com.vn.
Thirty online newspaper articles in English and in Vietnamese will be carefully
analyzed and examined to see how deverbal nominalization are linguistically
realized and cognitively perceived in the two languages and what similarities and
differences they have from cognitive perspective.
7. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The main part of the study, Development, consists of four chapters:
Chapter 1: TheoreticalBackground and Literature Review of the study.
Chapter 2: Research Methodology of the study. It provides a detailed description of
the study including the aims, the scope, the methodology, the data collection
procedure and the data analysis.
Chapter 3:Data Analysis, whichprovides a description and analysis ofdeverbal
nominalization in English and in Vietnamesesample articles on the bbc.co.uk and
the nhandan.com.vn, makes a contrastive analysis of the realizations of deverbal
nominalization in the two languages, and finds out the underlying reasons for the
4

differences in realizations of deverbal nominalization in English and in Vietnamese
from cognitive perspective.
Chapter 4:Findings and Implications. It shows major findings from the study and
suggests several recommendations concerning the research topic.

5


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theoretical background
1.1.1. Contrastive analysis
In his book, “Contrastive Analysis”, James, C. (1980:2) states that contrastive
analysis (CA) is a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted two-valued
typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages) and founded on the
assumption that languages can be compared. James, C. also asserts that CA belongs
to inter-language, which is interested in emergence of the languages rather than in
the finished product, and that CA is a central concern of applied linguistics.
In “Theoretical Issues in Contrastive Linguistics”, Fisiak, J. states that
“Contrastive linguistics may be roughly defined as a sub-discipline of linguistics
concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of
languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them”
(Fisiak 1981: 1). Fisiak‟s definition can cause us to confuse contrastive linguistics
and comparative linguistics because it puts the emphasis on the contrastive
methodology in finding out the similarities and differences between two or more
languages.
Krzeszowski (1990: 11) remarks the term “Contrastive Linguistics” refers to
the whole field of cross-language comparison, slightly focusing on the instances

related to the theory or methodology of comparisons, and can be used
interchangeably with “Contrastive Analysis”, but the latter tend to refer to the
comparison proper.
Xu Yulong (1992: 2, quoted by Wenguo, P. & Mun, T.W. (2007:207) defines
contrastive linguistics as “a branch of linguistic studies whose aim is to contrast
synchronically two or more languages for description of their similarity and
differences, particularly the differences to aid application in relevant fields.”
From the above definitions, it can be seen that CA is a branch of linguistics that
plays an important role in language teaching and learning because it helps to find
out similarities and, especially, differences between two languages.
6


1.1.2. Cognitive linguistics
As Ungerer, F.&Schmid, H.J. (2013) put it, cognitive linguistics is an
approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we
perceive and conceptualize it. Cognitive focuses on the language use because
language is an integral part of cognition which reflects the interaction of social,
cultural, psychological, communicative and functional cognitive development and
mental processing, which can only be understood in the context of a realistic view of
acquisition.
Talmy (2000:2) considers cognitive linguistics the conceptual approach
which is concerned with the patterns in which and the processes by which
conceptual content is organized in language. In other words, cognitive linguistics
deals with how a language organizes the conceptual content. For example, it deals
not only with such simple types of conceptualizations as space and time, motion and
location, scenes and events, etc.; with what considered related to cognitive agents
like attention and perspective, expectation and affect, and volition and intention;
with semantic structure of grammatical patterns, vocabulary forms and
morphological structures, but also with the relationships between conceptual

structures, for example, the ones between text and context. Talmy, therefore,
believes that the foremost aim of cognitive linguistics is to grasp “the global
integrated system of conceptual structuring in language” (2000: 3). Also, the reason
for Talmy to refer “cognitive linguistics” as “cognitive semantics” is that the term
“semantics” is “specifically concerned with the conceptual organization of
language.(2003:4)
Though expressing in different ways, it can be seen that both of the above
views agree that cognitive linguistics interprets language in terms of the concepts
and is, therefore, closely associated with semantics. From the cognitive linguistics
perspective, it can be understood that the knowledge of language is generated out of
language use, and that language is not at all autonomous.

7


1.1.3. The relation of Grammar to Cognition
In his book “Toward a Cognitive Semantics”, volume 1-Concept Structuring
Systems (2000), Talmy L. states that language as a cognitive system contains two
basic sub-systems, namely the grammatical and the lexical. They are respectively
responsible for two functions that are interrelated: giving conceptual content and
deciding conceptual structure. In a sentence, the structure of the cognitive
representation is almost ruled by its grammatical parts, and its content is mainly
made up of by the lexical components. Thus, the grammatical components play the
role of providing a conceptual foundation for the lexical elements in a sentence.
Hence, Talmy asserts that grammar, in a broad sense, is the decisive factor of the
conceptual framework in a cognitive system of a language.
In brief, it can be understood that grammar and cognition has a close
relationship in which grammar is the fundamental element that determines the
conceptual structure ofa sentence and contributes to the cognition of that sentence.
1.1.4. Definition of Nouns in English and in Vietnamese

1.1.4.1. English nouns
In relation to nominalization, it is necessary to make clear the concepts of
noun, nominal and noun phrase. As Taylor, J.R (2002:343) puts it, “a noun
designates a kind, or type of thing; a noun phrase designates an instance of the
type.” He considers that a noun syntactically refers to a “bare noun”, and a noun
phrase is also a nominal which is made up of a noun along with optional modifiers,
complements, a determiner and/or a quantifier. Cognitively, Taylor (2002) stated
that a nominal comprises four parts which together make up a “layer” conceptual
structure as follow:
(Grounding ( Quantification ( Instantiation ( Specification (Type) ) ) ) )
Specification indicates how the type is specified by modifiers. In other
words, modifiers characterize the type in greater detail. For example, the type
nominated by room is regarded as less specific than that nominated by new car as
the noun car is specified in greater detail by the additional of adjectival modifier
new.
8


Taylor (2002: 343) cites that there exist countless instances of a type, and
instantiation shows the relation between the type and its own instances. For
example, the house, the house that I bought last year, the big house on the hill, my
house, the big house over there, etc. (examples are taken from Taylor (2002:344))
are some instances of the type designed by house. Taylor stated that if a type is
specified, it is described as instantiated.
Quantification expresses the quantity of the instance that is designated.
Taylor (2002:355) stated that quantifiers are the numerals and such items as one, all,
both, each, a few, most, many, much, some, several and so on.
Grounding is the process related to the context of the speech event. It
identifies such things associated with the speech event of the instance as the
participants, the situational content, previous discourse and shared knowledge of the

participants.
Four components of a noun phrase are logically related to each other. If a
type is specified, it is instantiated. The instance of the specified type is considered to
be grounded if it is quantified. Then, if the instance is quantified, it is grounded.
Taylor (2002: 349) gave a description of the semantic structure of a grounded
nominal by using the following figure:
T
S

S: Speaker
H: Hearer
G: Ground
T: Type
I: Instantiation

I

H

G
Domain of instantiation

Figure 1. The semantic structure of a grounded nominal
1.1.4.2. Vietnamese nouns
According toDiep, Q.B. &Hoang, D. (2005:474), a noun refers to a kind of
word indicating entities. Used to indicate things and can be combined with premodifiers and/or post-modifiers, a noun often plays the role of subject or
complement in a sentence.
9

With regard to the cognition of nouns, Diep, Q.B. & Hoang, D. (2005: 483)
states that there are two pairs of concepts countable nouns/uncountable nouns and
count nouns/mass nouns. He claims that the two ways of classifying nouns in
Vietnam are based on different aspects, and cannot be interchangeable.
Respectively, the former distinction is based on the possibility of whether the noun
is countable or not, which is considered within the system of language, while the
latter is a distinction made when a noun is in its own context - or from pragmatic
perspective. However, in “Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt” (2005), the distinction between
countable nouns and uncountable nouns was dealt with. Uncountable nouns which
cannot directly follow numbers usually include nouns referring to substances like
hai lít dầu, hai tấn sắt, etc. or collective nous such as hai bộ quần áo, hai chục
kilômét đường sá... Meanwhile, countable nouns are those which can directly follow
numbers. Diep, Q.B. & Hoang, D. (2005: 485) divides them into two types:
absolutely countable nouns and relatively countable nouns. The formal consists of
the following groups:
 Nouns referring to units of quantity by scientific conventions: mét, mét
vuông, mẫu, sào, lít, át-mốt-phe,…
 Nouns referring to administrative bodies, social and occupational
organizations: nước, tỉnh, xã, ban, hệ, tổ, đoàn, đội, ngành, nghề, môn…
 Nouns referring to space: chỗ, nơi, chốn, xứ, miền, khoảnh, miếng, vùng,
phía, bên, hướng, phương…
 Nouns referring to time: dạo, khi, hồi, lúc, chốc, giây, phút, giờ, buổi, ngày,
tháng, vụ, mùa, năm…
 Nouns referring to the number of times of an event or an incident: lần, lượt,
phen, chuyến, trận, đợt…
 Nouns referring to colours, tates, sounds: màu, sắc, mùi, vị, tiếng, giọng…
 Nouns referring to titles: nhà văn, nghệ sỹ, giám đốc, chủ tịch, học trò, kỹ sư,
bác sĩ…
 Nouns referring to abstract concepts: tính, thói, tật, nết, tài năng, trí tuệ, lý
lẽ… and those referring to concepts of units in science: nguyên tử, phân tử, tế

bào…
10


The latter, relatively countable nouns, includes those initially uncountable, but can
be considered countable in certain contexts:
Nouns in a list of things: Làng này có năm ao, ba giếng. Nhà ấy có hai xe đạp, một
xe máy…
Nouns used as a factor of categorization: đồng hồ ba kim, bàn tám chân, mì hai
tôm…
Diep, Q.B. & Hoang, D. (2005: 486) also adds that one special thing about the
Vietnamese language is that it has no nouns indicating natures, colors, tastes and
actions. There are two ways of making compensation for that:
 Using some nouns which can be used to create other nouns indicating
natures, colors, tastes and actions: cái đẹp, cái nõn nường, tính vui, tính buồn,
tính nóng nảy, sự nóng nảy, điều lành, điềm xấu, niềm vui, nỗi khổ,…; màu
đỏ, màu xanh da trời,…; vị đắng, vị cay…; việc giận giữ, việc đi lại, cuộc
chạy đua,… Such way of combining the words cái, vị, điều, việc, … with
others is seen as nominalization.
 Using conversion, a verb or an adjective is used as a noun. This can only be
identified in the context which the word is used. For example:
- Vượt khó được mới giỏi (noun)
- Việc khó ai cũng ngại (adj)
(Diep Quang Ban (2000: 486))
1.1.5. Nominalization
Monika

Rathert

and

Artermis

Alexiadou

(2010:

73)

stated

that

nominalizations are reclassifications of verbs into nouns; however, only when the
function of the noun matches with the one of the clause, can such reclassifications
are possible. Gibson R. Ferguson (2011) considers nominalizations as nouns that are
related to verbs or adjectives morphologically and are said to be derived from the
verb or the adjective. Similarly, Radden, G. et. Dirven,. R. (2007:79) indicates that
“nominalization refers either to the process of deriving abstract nouns from other
word classes or to the resulting abstract noun itself, and that nominal zed abstract
nouns are typically derived from verbs, adjectives or nouns.”Likewise,
nominalization is simply defined as the process of using a noun instead of a verb or
11


adjective,

or

of

turning

a

verb

or

adjective

into

a

noun

( />In brief, nominalization is a grammatical phenomenal that is related to the
formation of a noun from a verb, an adjective or even another noun. However, in
this study, the author only focuses on deverbal nominalization, that is, the
nominalization that relates to turning a verb into a noun.
In cognitive linguistics, deverbal nominalization is regarded as a process of
turning a root verb indicating an act into a thing expressing that act, which is
referred to by Talmy (2000:52) as a signal of “cognitive reification”. The following
are some examples taken from “Toward a cognitive semantics – Volume I – Concept
Structuring System”
An act

Reified as an object

 John called me.

 John gave me a call.

 I was called by John.

 I got a call from John

Activity

Reified as mass

 John helped me.

 John gave me some help.

 I was helped by John.

 I got some help from John.
Talmy (2000:52)

From the above examples, it can be seen that each verb in the first column,
representing an act or an activity, plays the role of expressing the act of the Agent
which has an influence on the Patient. Meanwhile in the examples in the second
column, when the each of the verbs is converted into the nouns, representing
anobject or mass, the Agent now actsas the Source, and the Patient as the Goal.
Talmy also claims that deverbal nounstend to allow a more flexibility of
conceptual manipulations. The following examples with the verb “attend” and its
nominalized noun “attention”are taken from his book (2000:53) as illustrations for
his claim. There are only few ways to make a sentence with the verb “attend” when

the action is represented by the verb:
 I attended to the music
 She had me attend to the music
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However, whenconceptual reification is employed, the action of “attending” is
represented by the deverbal noun “attention”, there is a more flexible way of using
this noun to make complete clauses. For example, it can be a subject of a sentence:
 My attention was fixed on the music
The deverbal noun can operate as a direct object of a sentence:
 The story caught/riveted my attention.
Besides, it can play the role of an indirect object of a sentence:
 The sound was now (squarely/firmly) in (the center of) my attention.
Talmy explainsthat the reason for the reified nounto be used with greater
flexibility than the equivalent verb is that in most casethe deverbal noun can
combine with a wide variety of verbs to express complete thoughts. However, the
verb itself has to rely on the combination with such a limited number of other word
classes as prepositions. Thus, it can be concluded that deverbal nominalization can
enable a wider range of word choiceand writing expressions, which contributes to
providing more openness in writing.
Furthermore, Talmy (2000)states that, deverbal nominalization also indicate
the conceptual conversions between Space and Time. As he puts it, in cognitive
grammar, there exist two types of notions in the schematic category of domain,
namely space and time:
Domain
space:
time:

Continuous Discrete

mass
objects
activity
acts

Talmy (2000:42)

As can be seen, “mass” and “objects” belong to the notion of space, and
“activity” and “act” belong to the notion of time. Thus, through the process of
reification, a verb indicating an act or activity is changed into a noun referring to a
mass or an object. To put it another way, deverbal nominalization is the conceptual
process that switch between the two sorts of the domain, Time and Space. In
addition to that, the domain category is also considered to be related to the notion of
state ofprogression(Talmy, 2000: 42), in which Talmy asserts that of allthe domains,
there is the only one that is basically connected with progression –involving a
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continuity of consecutiveness. It is the domain of time. All other domains are
associated with “stativity” which refers to the state of being constant.
In “Cognitive English Grammar” by Radden, G. & Dirven, R.,
nominalization is regarded as a linguistic counterpart of reification, which is defined
as “the conceptual shift from relational concept to a thing” or ontological metaphors
(2007: 78). Radden& Dirven state that nominalization indicates either the process
in which abstract nouns are derived from other word classes or the resulting abstract
noun itself.

The process of reification is said to have little influence on the

conceptual content of the original relational concept. Reification is considered a

mean to help us perceive relational concepts or situations in terms of things.Radden,
G & Dirven, R. illustrate reification in the following figure (2007: 80):
things

(a) Bill, Jane
are married

relation

(b) be married

state

(c) Bill and Jane

reified thing

(d) Bill and Jane‟s

marriage

Figure 2. Things, relation, situation (state) and reified thing
As can be seen from the figure, the two things in diagram (a) - Bill & Jane are
independent, but in diagram (b), the relation between these two things “be married”
is indicated by a line joining two things. The state of being married is expressed in
diagram (c) by a succession of the relations in diagram (b) and a time arrow.
Through reification process, the state of being married is turned into a reifined
thing-“marriage”, which is illustrated by a circle around the succession of the
relations and the arrow in diagram (d). Radden & Dirven classify reification into
four kinds: episodic events are objects, episodic states are objects, steady events are

substances, andsteady states are substances.
Episodic eventsare reified as objectsusually referring to a beginning, a process phase
or a result which exist for a limited time and may happen again. For example, in the
two sentences “The stewardess gave the safety instructions” and “The instructions

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are on the leaflet in the seats” (2007: 82), the noun “instructions” indicates the
process of instructing and the result of instructing respectively.
Episodic states are refined as objects which are typically transient states like war,
pain, disease, etc.
Steady events are refined as substancesexpressing such social acts as helping (help),
advising (advice), permitting (permission), informing (information) and so on.
Steady states are also refined as substances, but these substances involve either
permanent attributeslike being healthy (health), being strong (strength), or
emotional states such as being happy (happiness) or culturally and socially states
like peace,patriotismand justice.In certain context, many substances can be used as
objects. For example, the noun “strength” is a substance in “Admitting you have
made a mistake is a sign of strength, not weakness”, but it is viewed as an object in
“My strengths are good English speaking ability and good computer skills.”
1.1.5.1. Deverbal nominalization in English
According to Langacker (2008), deverbal nominalization falls into three types:
 Action Nominalization: a verb is nominalized without any actants (the
arguments accompanied the verb), which form a new lexical item referring to
a generic type of action or event.
 Factive Nominalization: a verb is nominalized together with all of its actants
apart from the subject, which form a noun indicating an instance of an event
not “uniquely identified”. Such kinds of nouns are usually called "participles"
or "gerunds".

 Sentential Nominalization: a verb as well as all its actants is nominalized,
which forms an instance of an event distinguished from all others located for
the listener in conceptual space.
The scope of this research covers only the first two types of deverbal
nominalization. In English, there are four ways of turning a verb into a noun:
 Adding suffixes
When nouns are formed by adding suffixes to the root verbs, Biber et al. (1992:
89)claimthat they are derivational nominalizations. The nominalizing suffixes that
are most widely used in English are: -ability, -age, -al, -ance, -ant, -cy, -dom, -ee, 15


ence, -ent, -er, -ery, -an, -ion, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ive, -ment, -ness, -or, -side, -ure, etc.
(Biber et al. (1992:89)
According to Biber, et al. (1992), nouns created by adding suffixes to verbs can
function as:
 The action, state or instance of verb:
-age: blockage, wastage, shrinkage, breakage, marriage, shortage, orphanage, etc.
-al: approval, betrayal, proposal, renewal, arrival, etc.
-ance: maintenance, performance, assistance, attendance, acceptance, etc.
-ence: violence, occurrence, transference, reference, etc.
-ion (-ation, -tion, -cion, -sion): formation, reaction, destruction, decision, etc.
-ure: departure, closure, pressure, etc.
-ing: teaching, feeling, meeting, training, etc.
-ment: employment, enjoyment, achievement, amendment, etc.
E.g.: An outline planning application for the development was expected to be
submitted

following

the

consultation.( />
oxfordshire-30727795)
 The agent of the verb
-ant: participant, redundant, attendant, assistant, applicant, etc.
-er: driver, worker, employer, discoverer manager, sender, dishwasher, singer, etc.
-or: competitor, visitor, inventor, actor, etc.
-ar: liar, beggar, burglar, etc.
 The patient of the verb
-ee: addressee, retiree, employee, refugee, etc.
 The instrument of the verb
-age: carriage, package, etc.
-ant: disinfectant, pollutant, sealant, etc.
-er: mixer, printer, recorder, camcorder, computer, cooker, etc.
 Using stress shift
Some nouns in English, especially two-syllable ones, can be turned into verbs when
shifting the stress: report, export, import, rebel, present, produce, contrast, desert,

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