Language and
Literacy Levels
Module 1.2 C:
Nominalisation
Instructions
• If after reading the glossary, indicators and
examples about this language item in the
Levels you still need to learn more, it is
anticipated that you will work through this
PowerPoint at your own pace and without
the need to be supported by a trainer.
However, depending upon your school's
implementation plan, you may be able to
email or post any questions to your trainer or
discuss them with your Professional
Learning Community or similar group.
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Nominalisation
• Nominalisation are formed by changing words that
are not things (nouns) into a certain type of thing
(noun). For example:
 from verbs: reaction from react or departure from
depart
 adjectives: length from long; eagerness from eager
 conjunctions: cause or reason from because; in
addition from and
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Purposes of Nominalisation
• Nominalisation helps achieve a higher
degree of abstraction and technicality.
• Nominalisation is significant in constructing a
distant and abstract world that can be
reflected on.
• Nominalisation is one of the language
choices that enables movement towards
highly written-like texts.
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What is the “thing”?
• The clown amused us for a
while.
What “thing” is this sentence about?
• The amusement provided by
the clown faded.
What “thing” is this sentence about? Is it
the clown or the amusement?
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What is the “thing”?
• The clown amused us for a
while.
Clown is the “thing”.
• The amusement provided by
the clown faded.
Amusement is the “thing”.
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Nominalisation
• The circus arrived in town with much
noise.
What “thing” is this sentence about?
• The arrival of the circus was noisy.
What “thing” is this sentence about?
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Nominalisation
• The circus arrived in town with
much noise.
Circus is the “thing”.
• The arrival of the circus was
noisy.
Arrival is the “thing”.
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Checkpoint
• If clown, amusement, circus
and arrival are all “things”, we
can call them nouns (names of
things).
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Nominalisation
• Let’s now consider two of these
nouns: clown and circus.
• You can detect these nouns with
your five senses.
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Nominalisation
• Reflect for a moment about whether detecting
“things” with all your five senses can truly be
said about nouns like amusement and arrival.
You’ll probably agree that amusement and
arrival are a different sort of noun compared to
clown and circus. The first two are names of
concepts, ideas or phenomenon so there is
more to nominalisation than simply changing a
non-noun to a noun.
• Now let’s look at some nominalisations in
school.
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Nominalisation in Schooling
Nominalisations are only included in the Levels
because students are expected to understand
them in written and multimodal texts, including
teacher talk, from a young age. Students are
expected to start using them with ever
increasing complexity from about year 3.
- Across curriculum (e.g. attention, assessment,
co-operation, intelligence, behaviour)
- Mathematics (e.g. width, division)
- Science (e.g. sight, reproduction)
- Society & Environment (e.g. relief, invasion)
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Nominalisation in Science
• “Steam is coming off the hot water.”
The first sentence might be typical language of a child in year 2 observing some
water being heated.
• The water is evaporating. The second sentence
might be the language produced by a child in year 4 who has begun using the
topic words “evaporating” instead everyday words to explain the same
phenomenon.
• Evaporation is occurring. The third sentence is
what a child at year 7/8 would be expected to write. It includes the nominalisation
“evaporation” which has come form the verb “evaporating”.
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Nominalisation in History
• “People coming here set up towns
along the coast.” This is very spoken-like language.
• The coast was settled by people
migrating to Australia. This sentence uses topic words like
“coast”, “settled” and “migrating”.
• Migration to Australia resulted in
coastal settlement. The verb “migrating” has been changed
into the nominalisation “migration” and the verb “settled” changed into “settlement”.
This help the text more written-like.
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Nominalisation in the Levels
•
•
•
Locate ‘Nominalisation’ in the left hand column in
Levels 7-14.
Read the examples across the Levels to see how they
progress.
At higher levels of schooling children are expected to
reflect on their own and others’ viewpoints and ideas
and may use nominalisations formed from thinking
verbs (eg to consider>consideration, to
reflect>reflection, to recall>recollection).
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Fancy a challenge?
• In the first sentence below “settlement” is a
nominalisation but not in the second. Why?
• Migration to Australia resulted in
coastal settlement.
• Adelaide is a coastal settlement..
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Fancy a challenge?
• In the second sentence it is not the
name of a process but the name of a
concrete thing. It could be replaced by
other nouns like “city” or “site”.
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Checkpoint
• Nominalisations name concepts, ideas or
phenomenon so there is more to
nominalisation than simply changing a nonnoun to a noun.
• Students are required to comprehend simple
nominalisations in R-2 and begin composing
them from year 3 across different learning
areas.
• The use of nominalisations make texts, even
spoken ones, more written-like.
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•
•
•
•
•
Advantages of Nominalisation
Once a verb or other type of word is changed
into a nominalisation all sorts of grammatical
possibilities open up.
It becomes less cumbersome to discuss or
reflect upon the nominalisation.
Compare “It was unfair when the settlers
colonised.” with “The unfair colonisation …”
Nominalisations as well as concrete nouns
can start doing things.
Compare “The researchers discovered the
cause and then developed a cure” with “The
discovery lead to a cure.”
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Purposes of Nominalisation
• You saw this slide early in the
PowerPoint. Hopefully the purposes
are even clearer now.
• Nominalisation helps achieve a higher degree of
abstraction and technicality.
• Nominalisation is significant in constructing a distant
and abstract world that can be reflected on.
• Nominalisation is one of the language choices that
enables movement towards highly written-like texts.
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Optional Extension Activities
The remaining slides extend this
module by providing opportunities to
change isolated words and words
within sentences into nominalisations.
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Creating Nominalisations
• Nominalisations are most often formed from
verbs (e.g. discover > discovery, achieve >
achievement, present > presentation, permit >
permission)
• but they can also be formed from adjectives/
describers (e.g. brave > bravery, wide > width,
tense > tension)
• and from conjunctions (e.g. because > cause,
whereas > difference, if > possibility)
• and from prepositions (e.g. during > duration).
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Creating Nominalisations
• The next few slides allow you to
change words that are either verbs or
adjectives/describers into
nominalisations from a couple of
learning areas. areas
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Complete the table of some
common nominalisations in Maths
Word
Nominalisation
deep
addition
distance
multiply
estimation
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Some common nominalisations
in Maths
Word
Nominalisation
deep
depth
add
addition
distant
distance
multiply
multiplication
estimate
estimation
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Complete the table of some common
nominalisations in the Arts
Word
Nominalisation
perform
movement
originality
exhibition
surrealism
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Some common nominalisations
in the Arts
Word
Nominalisation
perform
performance
move
movement
original
originality
exhibit
exhibition
surreal
surrealism
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Understanding Nominalisation
Original Version
Nominalised Versions
They were
She made an impression
impressed by how because she was brave.
brave she was.
They were impressed by
her bravery.
She made an impression
with her bravery.
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Write a version of the sentence using
nominalisations made from the underlined words
Original Version
Nominalised Versions
Jill placed the
flowers perfectly on
the table.
The coach was
amazed by Nina’s
brilliant effort.
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Some possible versions
Original Version
Nominalised Versions
Jill placed the flowers
perfectly on the table.
Her placement of the flowers
on the table was perfect.
Jill’s perfect placement of the
flowers on the table delighted
everyone.
The coach was
amazed by Nina’s
brilliant effort.
Nina’s brilliance amazed the
coach.
The coach’s amazement was
due to Nina’s brilliance.
NB It may not be appropriate to nominalise
every possibility
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