Stop nominalizing

What clarity we’ve gained this week! We have seen an example of an unclear conversation, leaving out important information, vague pronouns, and vague verbs. Let’s finish the week strong with our fourth strategy to clarify.

Abstract nouns (called nominalizations) such as “the problem,” or “our relationship,” or “your sensitivity” often give the false impression of being concrete.

Nominalizations don’t denote something both people can agree on.

For example, our understanding of how “your guilt” operates in your life may mean very different things to your listener.

We each have different mental models, remember?

Nominalization also turn verbs (action) into nouns (things), as in “Let’s make a decision about our designers,” which could be more clearly stated as “Let’s decide on how many designers we’ll need, and how many hours to allocate to them.”

When speakers use a static nominalization, you can get them to turn it into a dynamic, descriptive word by either asking for a specific definition of their vague noun, as in:

• I need more attention.

• What kind of attention do you need?

Or by ​​asking a question that uses their nominalization as a verb, as in:

• I’m feeling a lot of disapproval right now.

• How am I disapproving of you?

Exercise

To help you recognize nominalizations, try responding to these nominalizations with clarifying questions:

Nominalization	Clarifying question
Our relationship seems strained.
This project is nothing but problems.
All the excitement is gone.
There are just no solutions.

Adapted from Messages, The Communications Skills Book, by Dr. Matthew McKay.