| Nominalization is a prominent phenomenon in written language. The present studyadopted functional approach for a contrastive study on nominalization between Chinese andEnglish financial news discourse. The study aimed to find the characteristics ofnominalization types and functions in Chinese and English financial news discourse.Meanwhile, the relationship between the type and function of nominalization were to befound. Sixty financial news reports were collected at random from December,2011to April,2012as the subject of the study from the online edition of newspaper People’s Daily and TheNew York Times,30from each. Financial news reports were selected for the reason thatfinance plays an increasing important role in a country’s development as well as people’sdaily life. The sample texts were analyzed in light of nominalization theories proposed byHalliday (2007).It was found that nominalization was more frequently applied in English financial newsdiscourse than in Chinese financial news discourse. The significant difference could beattributed to linguistic and social factors. English emphasizes reason and logic, andnominalization is an effective way for reasoning and logical progression, whereas, Chineseemphasizes the configuration of meaning, allowing sentences without subjects. To meet theinterests of the widespread readers, most privately-owned newspapers in English-speakingcountries have to employ various writing techniques such as the application ofnominalizations to achieve a sense of objectivity. Chinese newspapers, however, are lessinfluenced by individuals and maintain objectivity with fewer nominalizations in that nearlyall the newspapers are owned by the governments at all levels. It was also found that therewere some commonalities and differences in the distribution of the five nominalization typesbetween Chinese and English financial discourses. The application of nominalizations wascommon both in Chinese and English financial news discourse. The five types ofnominalization were distributed in similar order of frequency: process nominalization>quality nominalization> relator nominalization/circumstance nominalization> zeronominalization. The dominant type was process nominalization in both Chinese and Englishnews discourse. Nominalizations in news discourse were not as prominent as that in scientificdiscourse with the intention of catering to different levels of literacy of its widespread readers.Moreover, there was no significant difference in the functions performed by nominalizationsbetween Chinese and English financial news discourse and the type of nominalizations was not correlated to nominalization functions.Therefore it is of great significance to explore nominalizations. The finding of thepresent study may help enhance readers’ awareness of the importance of nominalization andenable them to understand Chinese and English News discourse in a more rational way. |
PDF Full Text Request