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4. RHETORIC AND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE IN THE EModE PERIOD<br />

action expressed by the verb. The reasons for this reduction are mainly three. First, they<br />

can be inferred from the linguistic or extralinguistic context. Secondly, they are<br />

considered to be irrelevant. Third, the speaker/writer is interested in omitting the<br />

participants for some reason (Albentosa-Hernández and Moya-Guijarro 2001: 452-453).<br />

By means of this reduction, “nominalization raises the representation of the situation to a<br />

higher level of abstraction, objectifying, stratifying and depersonalizing the event”<br />

(Downing 2000: 356). When a clause is nominalized, the distance between the event and<br />

the speaker increases. As a result, it seems that the event expressed in the nominalization<br />

represents “an acknowledged piece of information” (Maynard 1994: 243). In a similar<br />

vein, Halliday and Martin (1993: 39) claim that “you can argue with a clause but you<br />

can’t argue with a nominal group. It (…) is taken for granted (…); it cannot easily be<br />

challenged.”<br />

However, the potential of NPs for condensation of information is sometimes<br />

controversial. The search for precision and concretion in academic writing sometimes<br />

goes against clarity and plainness in the transmission of information (Albentosa-<br />

Hernández and Moya-Guijarro 2001: 465). This is the reason why academic writing is<br />

hard to understand for non-experts. It is true that this “nominal style” has been criticized<br />

and referred to as a “noun disease” which is undesirable and should be avoided (cf.<br />

Varantola 1984: 1). Jespersen (1924: 139) also satirized this nominal style when he stated<br />

that “it now and then does nothing but disguise simple thought in the garb of profound<br />

wisdom.” Nevertheless, Biber and Gray (2011: 60) support the use of nominalizations by<br />

claiming that<br />

95

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