Nominalisation: Recognise and Decode
Nominalisation is the conversion of verbs and adjectives into nouns — and one of the defining features of formal, academic, and professional English. The company decided to expand becomes The company’s decision to expand. They failed to implement the policy becomes The failure to implement the policy. The suffixes do the work: -tion / -sion (decision, expansion), -ment (development, achievement), -ance / -ence (performance, dependence), -al (approval, removal), -ing (funding, training), -ure (failure, exposure). From adjectives: -ity (flexibility), -ness (effectiveness), -ce (significance). The register shift is decisive: nominalised English is denser, more formal, and the dominant register of academic and corporate writing.
This worksheet builds C1 recognition and decoding of nominalisation in academic and professional texts.
Worksheet preview
What’s inside:
- Grammar Box with all eight major suffixes, paired with verb-to-noun and adjective-to-noun examples
- Suffix identification: scan a formal text and identify every nominalisation with its suffix and source word
- Decoding: convert nominalised phrases back into verb-based versions (the implementation of the policy → they implemented the policy)
- Parallel-register rewriting: produce both nominalised and verb-based versions of the same content
- Full Answer Key plus Teacher Notes on register, the over-nominalisation trap, and academic-writing applications
Common mistakes addressed: wrong suffix choice (developement instead of development), missing article with the nominalisation (Decision to expand was risky instead of The decision to expand was risky), and producing dense unreadable prose by stacking nominalisations.
For: Adult and teenage learners (14+) at CEFR C1, in advanced classes, 1:1 lessons, or self-study. Nominalisation is a defining marker of Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE) and C2 Proficiency (CPE) Writing — particularly in the essay and report tasks. Part of the Advanced Grammar collection — the natural next step is Nominalisation: Academic Writing, which moves from recognition into active production.
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