Nominalizations as Head Nouns or Modifiers

Abstract

Writing scientific articles involves not only deciding about the content of the research to be presented but also about the linguistic choices in specific sections of the article (Prina Dutra; Berber Sardinha, 2021). In-depth analyses of sections are scarce (Biber; Gray, 2013), especially regarding the use of nominalizations in discussion sections (Moreno, 2021). This study focuses on the structure of nominalized noun phrases in the discussion sections of Forestry research articles. The objective is to identify the most common nominalizing suffixes and discuss how these nominalized phrases behave in discussion sections in terms of structure and discursive function. This quantitative and qualitative research explores nominalizations in discussion sections and compares them with the study corpus, consisting of ninety high-impact Forestry articles with 511,232 words. Nominalizations were extracted using the CQL tool of Sketch Engine and analyzed based on the proposed categorization of nominalizations from Comrie & Thompson (2007). The results revealed that these sections are predominantly written with embedded nominalized noun phrases, increasing the impersonality of the text (Comrie; Thompson, 2007; Miranda, 2022; Nordquist, 2024). The high frequency of this pattern indicates information density, abstraction, and grammatical complexity (Nguyen; Edwards, 2015; Jalilifar et al., 2017; Biber; Gray, 2016), suggesting textual quality and contributing to the acceptance of the publication. The results of this research can inform researchers in the field and contribute to the international dissemination of Brazilian scientific production in English language.