Representing actions with nouns
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Reasons for representing actions with nouns | page 5 of 9 |
Expressing ideas coherently
Nominalisation helps writers structure their ideas coherently, especially when summarising what has been said previously:
The words this announcement are used to refer back to a previous stretch of writing, ie the details of who did the announcing, and when, plus the gist of what was announced: big new money is needed. By referring back in this way, the writer is able to link the given information with the new idea which follows: "(it will cast) another cloud on the nation's financial market".The federal government yesterday announced that big new money is needed.
This announcement cast another cloud on the nation's financial markets. (Bank of English)
There is a large class of nouns such as announcement, each of which refers to
and summarises a previous stretch of writing in order to provide a link between given
information and new ideas 
. The technical term for a noun which functions in this way is summarising
noun .
The use of such nouns is one of the ways in which sentences are linked together to form
coherent texts, partly because it is much easier to begin a clause or a sentence with a noun group 
than with a verb group .
The two main types of summarising nouns are:
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neutral summarising nouns, eg announcement, reason;
and
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evaluative summarising nouns. These can be used to evaluate what is referred to negatively, eg lie, boast; or, less commonly, they can be used to evaluate what is referred to positively, eg praise, endorsement. |
For further information about writing coherently, see 
Developing
cohesion: Using this to point backwards.
Expressing ideas coherently
