商务合同英语的文体特征.doc

商务合同英语的文体特征The business contract is a document with legal position, which is signed in business activities. Therefore, English for business contract is the language that formed and used in business activities, on the basis of the English language with the characteristics of business English and law English. It is also the language function changing style with special use and self-regulation in the long-term using according to some language factors. English for business contract is not the special language material and private grammar system but the language area with special use in business. The American linguist Martin Joes offers the five classification methods of the regular degree of language in his writing “The Five Clocks” according to the some factors that reflected the formal degree in language using. That is frozen style, formal style, consultative style, casual or informal style and intimate style. It is generally think that the business contract belongs to the frozen style, which is a kind of the highest formal degree in the literary style. So it has the clearly stylistic characteristics in the phrase, sentence construction and passage.1. 词汇特征(Vocabulary Characteristics)1.1 Use technical terms of business, literary words and juxtaposed words in Business:The technical terms have the feature of international generally use, accurate meaning, clarity stylistic characteristic, have no private affection. In order to describe the variety documents of each dealing step within business activity, the English for business contract used a great deal of clearly expressed technical terms of business.e.g Within the validity period of Contract, Licensee shall not disclose or divulge know-how to any third party without prior written consent of Licensor. The meaning of know- how is very accurate, especially means all the technical information, design, technical specification, production process and other information of the production, the usage and the sales of the concerning products, it cant confuse with other phrases.1.2 Use technical terms of law: The law terms include the common phrases 3 in law. Such as: action (lawsuit which refers to a legal proceeding instituted by one party against another), party (a person or group involved in a legal proceeding), decision, final etc.e.g In cases of losses caused by a breach of contract, the financial responsibility shall be borne by the party who has breached the contract. “The economic responsibility” in law is the responsibility of breaking ones promise, especially means the “compensating loss”, “paying penalty” and “paying the interest of money”, this professional phrases have the feature of law.1.3 The application of clarity expressed literary words: The English for business contracts should have the clearly stylistic characteristic, have no private affection. In order to describe the variety documents of each dealing step within business activity. The English for business contracts usually use the Latinate words instead of some English vocabularies with the same meaning, which is the literary words or learned words, which are the so-called big words.e.g For example: The Agreement shall commence on this day and automatically terminate 5 upon the bankruptcy or insolvency of either of the parties hereto. (Use the words commence and terminate instead of the words begins and end).In addition, in order to reflect its formally and strictly style characteristic, the English for business contract used some complicated preposition phrases to replace the simple prepositions and conjunctions.1.4 Juxtaposition of words and phrases In business contracts some words and phrases are juxtaposed, i.e., synonym, opposites and related words and phrases are connected with “and” or “or”. The following four forms are commonly used in business contracts.2句法特征(Syntax Characteristics)2.1 More declarative sentences: The function of English sentence type is different; there is obvious tendency and particular emphasis in choosing the sentence types of business contracts. Because we need to explain and require the related right and obligation of both party in the contract accurately, be accurate to illustrate objectively to get with the related power of the contract the party concerned of provision with the duty, therefore, the frequency of declaration sentences used in the business contracts is much higher than in any other literary styles.2.2 More long sentences: Compare with common English, the sentence structure in the business contract is more complicate. The use of the complete long sentence in the business contract style can define the relevant right and obligation of both parties accurately. Thus makes no mistakes in the business contract to support the both parties legal benefits.2.3 Juxtaposition of periodic sentences: loose sentences and balanced sentences From the arrangement of information, we can divide the sentences into three classes: that is periodic sentence, loose sentence and balanced sentence. In business contracts, the use of periodic sentence is frequent. We can 10 express with the formula for subordinate clause + main clause = periodic sentence = emphatic sentence.3. 文体特征(The Text Characteristics)What the characteristic of a whole text is the compound body that the 11 article should have, is a certain linguistic object that refracts in society and the social supervision. Generally speaking, the society and the social supervision can be reflecting in the language st