• The Graeco-Latin (GL) Vocabulary - The co-existence of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary of everyday speech and the academic vocabulary of the GL vocabulary creates a barrier to learners.
• The concrete-abstract continuum - GL vocabulary is frequently used for abstract/non-concrete concepts raising the learning difficulty.
• Low -frequency - Specialist meaning of GL words means that they do not occur in daily use, so they are in low frequency for many people.
• Morphological complexity - The GL vocabulary is highly productive in that morphemes ('-ed', '-es', '-ion') can be added to 'roots' to change the use and to some extent the meaning of words.

  This morphological complexity enables the nominalisation of processes (ie, verbs become nouns)

  Divide Compare Describe Multiply Indicate Terminate

  Division Comparison Description Multiplication Indication Termination

  [Adapted from Bloor & Bloor (1995)The functional analysis of English : a Hallidayan approach]

Some scientific terms occur more often as nouns than as verbs:

Thus:

Another important feature of scientific writing is the use of reporting verbs. Thompson and Ye Yiyun (1991) provide the following classification:

• Textual - used for verbal exchange (state, write, challenge, point out, deny)
• Mental - used for mental processes (believe, think, consider, prefer)
• Research - used for research activities (measure, calculate, quantify, obtain, find)

GL vocabulary not only provides use with the content words of our learning areas but also the vocabulary to link these content words. Thus the above set (assert, assume, claim, concede ...) might be used across learning areas, while ecosystem, herbivores, preCambrian belong to specific content areas.

The difference between GL vocabulary and Anglo Saxon vocabulary gives us the difference between formal and casual registers.

Compare the following:

These same degrees of formality can apply at the phrase level: