International Journal of Innovative Interdisciplinary Research Issue 4 2013 15 ISSN 1839‐9053 A Comparative Study of Nominalisation in IELTS Writing Test Papers Vinh To 1 , Thao Lê 2 , Quynh Lê 3 1, 2, 3 University of Tasmania, Australia ABSTRACT Adopting the Functional Grammar advanced by Halliday (1985a), this paper investigates the nominalisation of two IELTS writing test papers of candidates achieving band 7 and band 5. The study aims to identify the frequency of nominalisation employed in these texts and the distribution of verbal and adjectival nominalisations. The study also looks at the other aspects that contribute to the complexity of writing: lexical density and readability. The result shows that the numbers of nominalisation in the writing test paper at band 7 doubled the amount of the writing test paper at band 5. In the two texts, verbal nominalisation is mainly used while adjectival nominalisation is low. With reference to lexical density and readability, it is revealed that the text with higher marks was denser and more difficult to read whilst the lower‐graded text was less dense and easier to comprehend. Two conclusions are drawn from the findings. Firstly, nominalisation packed the information in a text and made it denser and difficult to read. Secondly, marking tends to reflex the complexity of grammatical features. Keywords: Nominalisation, IELTS writing tests, comparative study, lexical density, readability. INTRODUCTION As English has become an internationally used language, the need of learning English is essential. International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is widely used to assess English language ability of people who wants to study or work in countries where English is the main tool of instruction or communication (Jones, 2008). The tests consist of four modules: listening, reading, speaking and writing. Regarding writing, task 2 is required to justify an opinion or suggest a solution to a problem (McCabe, 1999). This study investigates the two writing test papers of candidates achieving band 7 and band 5 respectively in terms of their use of nominalisation. The study also compares the nominalisation with the lexical density and readability of the two writings to find out the relationship between them in terms of linguistic complexity. THE CONCEPT “NOMINALISATION” Nominalisation is an aspect of complexity in written language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). It interprets or reconstructs “the world as a place where things relate to other things” (Halliday & Martin, 1993, p. 220). Bloor and Bloor (1995) note that nominalisation allows a process, in which a verb turns out to be realised as a noun and comes to be a participant in a further process. According to Eggins