A Corpus-based Analysis Of Nominalization In Ph.D Dissertation Abstracts By Chinese Advanced Learners And Native Writers

Abstract is so highly nominalized because nominalization tends to be associatedwith academic writing as it can maintain an impersonal tone, creating textual cohesion,etc. Due to its practical functions, it is of great significance for Chinese writers,especially for those who want to submit articles for publication, to master thenominalization applications in abstract. Though much work has already been devotedto the examination of nominalization, few empirical ones have been done. Based onthe previous work concerning the use of nominalization in abstract writing, a questionarises that the paper tends to address. Suppose that nominalization is, to some extent,a feature of accomplished abstract, when compared with native authors, what are thegeneral situations of Chinese advanced learners on the use of nominalizations? Inorder to address the question, the paper employs a corpus-based approach which aimsat finding out the differences of nominalization in Ph.D dissertation abstracts byChinese advanced learners and native writers for the four disciplines (appliedlinguistics, computer science, economics and sociology). After making a contrastivestatistic analysis of the use and frequency of nominalization between the two groups,the results indicates that there are significant differences both on the general use oflexical and clausal nominalizations between the two groups. On the basis of theresults, we came to the conclusion that Chinese learners have little sense ofnominalization and thus could not apply nominalizations as proficiently as natives toexpress their ideas and further their writings. Therefore, the paper suggests thatChinese learners should attach more importance to nominalization so as to developthe awareness of nominalization and strengthen the ability of applying nominalization and finally improve the quality of abstract writing and promote academic exchange.