Publication: Exploring nominalization in scientific textbooks: A cross-disciplinary study of hard and soft sciences
Authors
Jalilifar, Alireza ; White, Peter ; Malekizadeh, N.
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info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Description
Abstract
Given the importance of disciplinary specificity in terms of the potential differences in the functionality of
nominalizations in scientific textbooks and the dearth of studies of this type, the current study explores the
extent to which nominalization is realized across two disciplines. To this aim, eight academic textbooks from
Physics and Applied Linguistics are analyzed to identify the nominal patterns and expressions and their related
types. Findings indicate that, despite the similarity of the first three most prevalent patterns in the sample
textbooks, the distribution of these patterns marks disciplinary distinctions. That is, Physics academic writers
tend to (a) use a more complex, lexically dense style of writing and package more information into compound
nominal phrases by deploying a pattern where nominals are followed by strings of prepositional phrases in
comparison to writers in Applied Linguistics; and (b) express particularity using nominals preceded by
classifiers more frequently than Applied Linguistics writers. Writers in Applied Linguistics, on the other hand,
are found to manifest a greater tendency toward conveying generality by using a pattern where nominals are
realized with few pre/post modifiers.
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