| Nominalization is a remarkable feature of written English. It is a complicated processinvolving both morphology and syntactics. The study conducts a longitudinal study onnominalization through quantitative and qualitative approaches based on a learner corpuswhich is composed of compositions written by English majors. The study analyzes thefrequencies and characteristics of nominalization used by30English majors from Grade1toGrade3. It is found that with the rise of their grades, the frequencies of nominalization usedby Chinese English majors raise continuously, and the significant difference appears betweenGrade2and Grade3. The frequency of lexical nominalization is more than that of phrasalnominalization, which is more than that of clausal nominalization. From the perspective oflexical nominalization, there is significant difference between the frequency of Grade2andthat of Grade3, and the topic words exert a great influence on the production ofnominalization of Chinese English majors, but the great influence becomes weak with the riseof their grades and English majors begin to use more abstract words. From the perspective ofphrasal nominalization, the significant difference also appears between the frequency ofGrade2and that of Grade3, and the Chinese English majors tend to use common phrases,instead of topic phrases and abstract phrases. And from the perspective of clausalnominalization, the frequencies of Grade2and Grade3outnumber significantly that of Grade1, and Chinese English majors have a tendency of using nominal clauses, especially objectclauses. Moreover, this study offers some suggestions on the teaching of nominalization. |
