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I was asked to nominalize 「傾聴」とは耳を傾けて熱心に聞く(--?--)。 These were the options:

(1)「傾聴」とは耳を傾けて熱心に聞くということである
(2)「傾聴」とは耳を傾けて熱心に聞くというのである

With regard to grammar, I'd think that というのである can be substituted for ということである and be grammatically correct and have the same basic meaning. I feel that というのである is a superset of ということである.

I found When choose の/こと or というの/ということ but the answer is not very good.

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  • 『「傾聴」とは耳を傾けて熱心に聞くことである。』でいいのでは・・・?選択問題ですか?
    – chocolate
    Nov 30, 2015 at 8:42
  • To be fair, question 12590 is about comparison between ~するのは and ~するというのは rather than comparison between の and こと, and is not very relevant here. A much more relevant question is japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1395. See “Cases where only こと is allowed: […] 2. When the following clause is one of だ, です, or である” in Derek Schaab’s answer there. Nov 30, 2015 at 21:51

1 Answer 1

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They are not interchangeable. Only 「聞くということである」 is correct.

Firstly, the という doesn't change anything important, so it ultimately comes down to the difference between the nominalizers こと and の.

When the nominalizer immediately precedes the copula, only the nominalizer こと can be used to prevent confusion with the のだ/のである grammar. This rule applies even if the copula isn't explicitly said, as can be seen in the actual dictionary.goo.ne.jp definition of 傾聴.

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  • If and である are "copula" (I think?), then isn't When the nominalizer immediately precedes the copula, only the nominalizer こと can be used to prevent confusion with the のだ/のである grammar. a self-contradiction? What is the のだ/のである grammar. that might cause confusion? I don't know about the grammar, but I do hear 〜なのです and 〜なのですか and 〜なのですよ in conversation. Is that what you mean?
    – david.t
    Nov 30, 2015 at 17:06
  • @david, good point. The の in のだ can syntactically be analyzed as a noun, but のだ is used for a specific meaning different from the "the act of -ing" meaning aimed for here, see e.g. japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5398/…
    – dainichi
    Nov 30, 2015 at 19:41
  • I do not see how the answer you link to states that the sentence you mark by × is wrong. I find both of them strange in writing without at least 「」 around 傾聴. More natural would be 耳を傾けて熱心に聞くの・ことを傾聴という, with a strong preference for こと to express the generality/abstractness.
    – dainichi
    Nov 30, 2015 at 20:09
  • @Blavius I can accept the japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1395/… answer because that kind of blows me away. How did that guy know that? I gotta get real about actually studying Japanese...
    – david.t
    Dec 1, 2015 at 0:24
  • Blavius, the answer is referring to the following verb. Judging from the examples that means the verb whose object is the nominalized clause. NOT the verb OF the nominalized clause.
    – dainichi
    Dec 1, 2015 at 5:34

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