Nominalization And Its Information Transmission Function In EST

In the modern world, why can science and technology develop at an explosive speed and produce rich research fruits? One of the factors is that the exchange tool, English for science and technology (EST), plays a crucial role in scientific paper writing, idea communication and theory translation; its typical feature is the common use of nouns and nominal phrases. If one grammatical constituent is demonstrated by a verb or an adjective in everyday English or other styles, in EST it is by a corresponding noun. Such a phenomenon is called nominalization. As a significant feature, nominalizing has been already studied, which mainly is qualitative introduction and about its role in reflecting discourse styles. Few shed light on its function in transmitting information.Therefore, the present research was conducted with a quantitative sample analysis of original scientific English papers from PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA), a weekly published and multi-disciplinary journal. The studied material is 100 randomly chosen paragraphs of 40 environmental science papers from journals of Vol.104, 2007 PNAS. This paper discusses how nominalization is realized in grammatical structures and its functions in information transmission, with a detailed analysis of dozens of examples.The major findings are as follows. In EST, the lexical density is comparatively high out of brief wordings and compacted structures. The themes of scientific discourses are unmarked in majority, more than four fifths of which are nominal phrases. Linear, parallel and split modes are most adopted in EST thematic progression. The above three features are largely attributed to the frequent use of nominalization in EST. Nominalizing compacts clauses into nominal structures and generates Expanded Noun Premodifiers, so that information is conveyed with tersest words. Standing at the beginning of sentences, nominalizations always function as unmarked themes and give prominence to topics. In addition, it is a significant feature that abundant nouns and few pronouns are used in EST to meet the requirement of objectivity. Last but not the least, referring back to former concepts by taking advantage of repetition, synonym, superordinate and general word, nominalizations play a vital role in linking up sentences and developing discourses forward. In this way, information carried by language is transmitted down. All in all, nominalization makes EST discourses concise, prominent, objective and cohesive, which is consistent with the principles of information transmission, i.e., rapidity, low cost, large quantity and high quality. This proves that nominalizing really functions in progressing information in EST.This paper is intended to throw some light on EST learning. It is recommended that one pay much attention to nominalizations when reading EST discourses, which might be helpful to understand long and complicated structures and the academic tone. Bearing in mind that nominalizing is frequently used in EST and functions in developing discourse, one may have a better practice in lexical use in scientific writing.