What is nominalisation?

Put simply, nominalisation means talking about a process or quality as if it were a thing.

Usually:

Verb groups describe actions or processes.
Adjectives describe qualities.
Noun groups describe things.

Nominalisation is when we take something that would usually be expressed with a verb group or adjective group, and express it with a noun group.

(Another term for noun group is ‘nominal group’; hence nominalisation.)

We can see this in the two snippets about participatory mapping.

In our concrete, more conversational version, we say:

People have been talking a lot...

The compressed, nominalised original says:

There has been much discussion…

The conversational version says:

A large and diverse group of people are drawing and contributing to maps...

The compressed version says:

Participatory mapping and the democratization of cartography...

The conversational version says:

We don't just get maps that are drawn by a small group of professional map makers...

The compressed version says:

Maps are no longer the sole province of the "professionals"...

See if you can find the three nominalisations in this snippet about the European invasion of the Americas:

Nominalisations are by definition noun groups, so:

Find each noun group.
Decide whether it represents a thing (object/concept), or an action (event/process).
- If it represents a thing, it's a regular noun group.
- If it represents an action, it's a nominalisation.

Examples

For example, does ‘communications between the tribes of the New World’ represent a thing or an action?

What do you picture in your head?
You might picture people talking to each other, or sending messages, or lighting beacons.
Those are all actions.
That’s a good sign that we’re dealing with a nominalisation!

Now picture ‘the Europeans’ barbarities’.

What do you see?
What makes this a nominalisation and not a regular noun group?

What about ‘the rapid spread of new conquests and settlements’?

Communications between the tribes of the New World were slow, and news of the Europeans’ barbarities rarely overtook the rapid spread of new conquests and settlements.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee(1970)

Take a moment to rewrite the Bury My Heart passage in a more concrete and conversational way.

Don’t worry about doing "good" writing—the point is to just get something down that sounds a bit more natural than the original snippet. One or more of these methods might help you:

Make sure you understand what the snippet is describing. Take a moment to actually picture what’s going on. Once you have a clear idea, don’t look back at the original snippet at all—just describe what’s in your head!
Focus on using concrete nouns and verbs. For example, instead of the abstract ‘communications’, you might use verbs like ‘talk’ or nouns like ‘message’.
Without thinking too much about it, describe the passage out loud, and then write down what you said.

Write a more concrete, conversational version of the last snippet. Highlight the noun groups, verb groups, and connectors. Notice anything?

We tried this exercise with a few students, who each had their own way of retelling the snippet.

Example 1

The Native Americans didn’t talk to each other much, so when they found out what the Europeans were doing it was already too late, and the settlers and conquerors were already taking over their land.

Example 2

The natives weren’t communicating very well, and the Europeans took over all their land and placed settlements everywhere.

Example 3

The Europeans overtook the native tribes before they could spread the word about what was happening, then the Europeans conquered them and planted new settlements.

Discussion

Like our rewrite of the participatory mapping snippet, these re-written snippets use more verb groups and connectors, and the noun groups tend to be simpler and more concrete than in the original.

How did you go? How does your version compare to these and to the original snippet?

Now that we have a sense of what nominalisation is and how it's valuable, let's practice using it.