A Comparative Analysis Of Nominalization In English And Chinese Medical Texts From A Functional Perspective

Nominalization is an important linguistic phenomenon,which is commonly found in science and technology,news reports,medicine,and legal text.Many scholars have deeply conducted research on nominalization.For example,some scholars discuss the phenomenon of nominalization of scientific and technological text from the perspective of functionalism,while others discuss the issue of nominalization in English-Chinese translation.Little attention has been paid to the research on the nominalization of medical texts.This paper aims at discussing the phenomenon of nominalization in medical texts.The research text of this paper selects the currently widely concerned medical text of COVID-19 as the research object,and conducts a comparative analysis of nominalization in English and Chinese,aiming to explore the mechanism of nominalization,the function of nominalization,and the differences in the use of nominalization in English and Chinese.This paper is guided by Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics.He believes that language has three metafunctions: ideational function,interpersonal function,and textual function;these three functions embody grammatical metaphors.Grammatical metaphor is divided into ideational grammatical metaphor,interpersonal grammatical metaphor and discourse grammatical metaphor.Nominalization is the main form of ideational metaphor and a powerful means to realize grammatical metaphor.This paper selected 15 English medical articles related to COVID-19 and 15 Chinese medical articles related to COVID-19.The following three issues were discussed:(1)What are the characteristics of nominalization at the vocabulary,clause and discourse level in English and Chinese medical texts?(2)What are the similarities and differences of nominalization at the vocabulary,clause and discourse level in English and Chinese medical texts?(3)What are the possible reasons that influence the use of nominalization in English and Chinese medical texts?Through focusing on qualitative analysis and supplemented by quantitative research,the research shows that:(1)The characteristics of nominalization in English medical text are as follows: at the lexical level,both verbs or adjectives used directly as nouns and verbs or adjectives derived as nouns have meanings related to or similar to the original nouns and adjectives.The use of nominalization is not particularly abundant at the small clause level.The use of nominalization expands the meaning of the sentence structure.At the level of discourse,the conceptual function of nominalization in English medical text is reflected in the use of nominalization to make the language more professional and express concepts more logically,the interpersonal function is reflected in the expression of more objective authority,and the discourse function is reflected in the conciseness of the language.The features of nominalization in Chinese medical text are: at the lexical level,the structural form remains the same as “verb/adjective + 的”,but at the clause level,it changes to “noun/noun component + 的” and “verb + verb”.“verb + verb”.The change in meaning is a semantic expansion.In Chinese medical text,there are a lot of“noun + 的+ noun” structures at the clause level,and the nominalization phenomenon caused by the sentence type is much higher than that caused by the vocabulary.In terms of function,the ideational function of nominalization in Chinese medical text is reflected in the use of nominalization to make the language more formal and concise,the interpersonal function is reflected in the more objective and formal language,and the textual function is reflected in the more objective,strict and concise chapter.(2)The similarities between English and Chinese medical text at the lexical level are reflected in the fact that both English and Chinese medical text use verbal nominalization and adjectival nominalization,and verbal nominalization is used more frequently than adjectival nominalization.The differences are reflected in the use of derived vocabulary for the phenomenon of nominalization in the lexical level of English medical text.At the clause level,the similarities of nominalization in English-Chinese medical text are reflected in the fact that the use of nominalization both enriches the meaning of sentences,while the differences are that the frequency of nominalization at the clause level in Chinese medical text is higher than that at the small clause level in English medical text.At the level of discourse,nominalization makes the text more objective,formal and articulate in both English and Chinese medical text.(3)The reason for the similarity is that the universality of human cognitive ability has led to a large number of nominalizations in both English and Chinese medical text.In the process of nominalization,information is highly condensed,concrete concepts are abstracted,and expressions are more concise,making the text more objective and concise.The reason for the difference between the use of nominalization in English and Chinese medical text is that the English vocabulary is characterized by the ability to derive more words.In contrast,there is a large number of “noun + 的 + noun”structures in Chinese medical text,and the use of this structure increases the use of nominalization in Chinese medical text.This paper explores the nominalization of English and Chinese medical texts,makes an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of nominalization,and compares the use of nominalization in terms of vocabulary,clause,and discourse levels,and conducts a statistical analysis of the frequency of use.The paper has some reference value for further research on medical texts related to COVID-19.