Nominalisation in high scoring primary and secondary school persuasive texts

This paper makes visible particular persuasive language choices made by the highest scoring Tasmanian primary and secondary school students who completed the 2011 NAPLAN writing test. Specifically, it draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to consider how these students used different forms of nominalisation to persuade readers about the 2011 writing prompt: that too much money is being spent on toys and games. The paper explores how the use of nominalisation differed across the primary and secondary school years and draws links to the Australian Curriculum: English which introduces the nominalisation in Year 8. Recommendations are made for primary and secondary school teachers who wish to equip students with the language resources to deal with the demands of NAPLAN testing, but also to write persuasively in more authentic educational and social contexts.