The Grammar of Accountability
Grammar: Nominalisation
A Level 6 English lesson exploring crime.
What's in this lesson
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL lesson on crime, practising nominalisation. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.
From the reading: The Grammar of Accountability
"Justice is not abstract," said Amal Clooney, the British-Lebanese human rights barrister, addressing the International Bar Association in 2019. "But the language of justice almost always is." She was making a point that legal scholars have debated for decades: that the moment a court begins drafting its judgment, the human beings at the centre of the case — the perpetrators, the victims, the witnesses — begin to disappear behind a wall of noun phrases. The perpetration of harm replaces someone who harmed. The adjudication of liability replaces a judge who decided. The indictment replaces a prosecutor who accused. Grammar, it turns out, is never neutral.
Vocabulary
- criminal conspiracy
- exercise jurisdiction
- lexical density
- rhetorical distance
Grammar: Nominalisation
- Verb → Noun
- The court determined liability. → The court's determination of liability. — agent recedes into possessive
- Adjective → Noun
- Accountable conduct → a culture of accountability. — abstract concept replaces descriptive quality
Discussion questions
- Describe a time when official language made you feel excluded or confused.
- Have you ever read a legal document and lost track of who was responsible?
- When did you last feel that bureaucratic language was hiding something important?
The Grammar of Accountability
Grammar: Nominalisation
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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