So, in contracts a person can come across a definite number of
words and word combinations which make up lexical peculiarities of
their texts. They all are rather bookish and belong to formal style of
written English, not being used in informal English and rarely used in
spoken formal English.
Conclusion
The research has allowed to reveal a specific character of contract
as a type of business correspondence. The first, and most important of
all, reason for considering contract business correspondence is formal
style of its language. It means that in texts of contracts we can find
a bright example of formal written English.
Formal style of English has such main features as conventionality
of expression, absence of emotiveness, encoded character of the
language and general syntactic mode of combining several ideas within
one sentence. All that is revealed in texts of contracts through their
vocabulary, grammar and style.
Stylistic peculiarities of business correspondence are based on the
following factors. The syntactic pattern of business documents is one
long sentence which consists of separate numbered clauses divided by
commas and semicolons. Every clause is capitalised. That is done to
show the equality of items of a document.
Written business English goes impersonal style. It means there are
no direct addressees, passive constructions are used instead of
active, a great number of amount words, modal verbs might and could
instead of can and may. This all is done for a document to sound
tentative and tactful.
No connectors are used in business correspondence as they convey a
little information. In formal style whom is used instead of who. If
there is a need in prepositions, they go before whom, which is not
typical of informal style at all.
Stylistic peculiarities of formal written English also imply usage
of words in their primary logic meaning and absence of contextual
meanings. Formal English is characterised by usage of special terms.
They all are precise in meaning and rather bookish. Among them there
are a lot of words of the Latin, Greek and French origin, replaced in
spoken English by words of the Anglo-Saxon origin.
These factors make up the standard of documents’ writing. Special
forms help to focus readers’ attention on major information and
simplify process of making a deal.
There are the following theoretical problems in studying the
problem. First of all, there is a difficulty to draw a line between
formal and informal English, as the latter influences formal style
greatly. Sentences in documents are too long and bookish to be used
freely. Documents are devoid of personal pronouns I, we, you. The
language of documents lacks force and vividness to keep strict to the
point. Meanwhile, it is hard to keep one’s attention while reading
them due to this trait.
Contract is a type of a business document presenting an agreement
for the delivery of goods, services, etc., approved and signed by the
Buyer and the Seller. Its aim is to state conditions binding two
parties in a deal and to reach agreement between them.
Contract has a written standard form. It also has some essential
clauses, such as contract number, subject of contract, quality and
price of goods, delivery terms, packing and marking, transport
conditions, arbitration, force majeure, judicial addressees of the
sides and their signatures. Some articles may be supplemented and
altered. Every clause has its own specifics.
Besides a contract form, there are other forms related to it:
Supplement to Contract, Order and Order Confirmation. The Master
Pattern as a basis for standardised forms of enquires and offers is
used at pre-contract stages of a deal. Contract is supported with
requests, remindings, verifications of different terms, guarantee,
waving inspection letters, etc.
Contracts differ in the point of deliverance, the way of
deliverance, payment terms. Delivery terms are marked with the
International Commercial Terms (Incoterms), which are mostly
abbreviated. Abbreviations serve as signs of the code of documents.
Contracts can be export and import (orders). Import contracts
include harder conditions towards sellers than export ones. As textual
varieties contracts can be administrative-managerial, financial-
economical, advertising, scientific-technical and artistic-
publicational by sphere of circulation. The subject of a deal may be
ordering and purchasing of oil products, machinery tools, grain,
timber, and whatever possible.
As a type of a document, contract fixes some information. Stylistic
peculiarities of contract are concreteness, conciseness, clearness of
the idea, high capacity of information, strict logic, clear rhythm of
sentences, word repetitions which accent the main idea, no
connotations, cliches and stamps, usage of monosemantic words and
words in their direct logical meaning, division of text into chapters,
paragraphs, points, presence of definite syntactic structure.
The major difference of contract from other business papers is that
it is made up by two sides, and information in them is approved by
them both. All informational details are not suitable. Contract is
formal, complete, clear, concrete, correct and concise. It is also
neat and has an attractive arrangement. The tone of contract is
neutral and devoid of both pompous and informal language. It means
there are no colloquial words and expressions, idioms, phrasal verbs.
Abbreviations are not used if possible. Full forms of words are
preferable. Sums are written both in figures and words.
Grammatical peculiarities of contact are characterised by high
usage of verbals. Its text is presented mostly with infinitive and
participial constructions. Among infinitive constructions are singled
out those ones with the Simple / Indefinite and Perfect Infinitives as
adjuncts to active and passive (only in newspapers and contracts)
verbs and the Simple Infinitives as complex adjuncts to active verbs.
Participial constructions are of the following types. Participle I
refers to a noun in the General Case which goes before the participle.
Perfect Participles are rare. Participle II either follows or precedes
a noun.
As for the tense-aspect forms of the English verb, the Indefinite
and Perfect tenses, both in the Active and Passive voices, are used
instead of analytical forms. The past tenses are rarely used.
Shall and should are used with all numbers and persons. Omitting
if in subordinate clauses is another feature of contract. The definite
article is used with ships, the words Buyers and Sellers. It is not
used, though, after prepositions of the Latin origin per and ex, with
nouns followed by a number in sizes, codes, etc.
Lexical peculiarities of contract are the following. The lexicon of
contract is stable. All words are used in their exact meaning. There
is no emotional colouring of words. Practically in every contact there
are compounds with where-, here-, there- (whereas, thereby, herewith,
thereto, etc.), hereinafter, the aforesaid, phrases: (it’s) understood
and agreed, including without limitation, assignees and licensees,
without prejudice, as between us, solely on condition that, on
conditions that, on understanding that, subject to, and others. In
contracts are used words of the Latin origin: pro rata, pari passu,
inferior, superior, ultima, proxima, extra, and French words: force
majeure, amicably.
In such a way, all the formulated tasks have been solved and the
purpose of the research has been reached. Linguistic peculiarities of
contract, a kind of written business English, have been studied as
groups of stylistic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities.
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