On the Functions of Nominalization in Business English Contracts

Nominalization refers to the process of producing a noun from another part of speech or the derivation of a noun phrase from an underlying clause. In order to fulfill the specific analysis of nominalization in a business English contract, a corpus has been created with typical contracts. Based on a self-built business contract corpus, aspects of English nominalization, including its frequency of use, meaning selection and discourse position and function, have been examined. This study has found that nominalization is one of the most important characteristics of business contracts, and English nominalization can function mainly to improve the conciseness, formality, objectivity and cohesiveness of the discourse. Meanwhile, close relations between the distribution of nominalization and the communicative purposes of discourse are elucidated. The fmdings of this study may have implications for the business English teaching and business practice.