DENOMINAL NOMINALIZATION (VERBIFICATION) IN MODERN ENGLISH: CULTURAL AND PRAGMATIC DIMENSIONS

Iryna O. Golubovska, igolubovska777@gmail.com

ORCID: 0000-0003-1870-4914

Doctor of Sciences in Linguistics, Full Professor,

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/StudLing2024.25.32-45

PDF (ENGLISH)

ABSTRACT

This article explores denominal nominalization, also known as verbification, based on modern English-language journalistic discourse material. Denominal nominalization appears to be a type of conversion that presupposes the usage of affixless means of word formation, which results in the formation of a new part of speech – verb based on the same root of the source word-noun. Traditionally, it is deverbal substantiation, which is considered the most widespread type of conversion in English, though recently, the processes of the reverse character show their activity and are supposed to attract attention from the side of linguists.

The study demonstrates the processes of transforming nouns into verbs and analyzes the general linguistic consequences of such transformations: linguistic economy and contextual efficiency. The role of digital communication and the latest technological advances for creating and applying verbified linguistic units is particularly emphasized. (e.g., to Google, to Zoom, to DM, to email). Examples from modern journalistic discourse illustrate how verbification enhances dynamism and expressiveness in media language.

It seems that denominational nominalization is closely related to the British-American communicative values of clarity, directness, and logical communication, as well as to Anglo-American values such as action–work orientation. Through the prism of verbification as a grammatical phenomenon, Grice’s cooperative principle and relevance theory are manifested since verbification increases the efficiency of the meaning transmission. In addition, denominalization can contribute to the development of social identity and professional group linguistic norms, especially in the field of business and digital communication.

The article emphasizes the role of verbification in adapting English to modern needs, marking cultural identity, and facilitating linguistic innovation. Future research directions include cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons of this grammatical phenomenon, particularly between English and Ukrainian as focal languages, to study both changes in syntactic functions and sentence structures, as well as the pragmatic and cultural consequences of the spread of this phenomenon.

Keywords: conversion, denominal nominalization (verbification), cooperative principle, relevance theory, cultural values, language evolutionю

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