A Functional Approach To English Nominalization

This thesis is an attempt to analyze nominalization in a functional approach. Nominalization is a very common phenomenon in English. Bussman says in his dictionary that any word(or element) can be nominalized. Many linguists have discussed nominalization from different approaches. In this thesis, nominalization is discussed from the functional approach based on Halliday's functional grammar. I try to answer the following questions: How to define nominalization in a functional point of view? what are the functions of nominalization in clauses? How grammatical metaphors are realized by nominalization? In the first part of the thesis, I will survey studies of nominalization from other approaches: traditional grammar, structural approach, cognitive grammar and transformational-generative grammar. In the second part of the thesis , I have discussed the nominalization in a function assumption: its definition, types and patterns and the relationship of nominal group and nominalization. In the third part nominalization is discussed in three metafunctions: thematic structure and information structure; mood structure and modality; transitivity. Nominalizing is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor. In the fourth part, I have discussed how the three types of grammatical metaphor are realized by nominalization.