Linguistic Pecularities Of Contracts in English

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Contents of contract also have specific clauses, and they ensure division of contracts into certain types in accordance with a side initiating a deal, a sphere of making a deal, types of goods and their delivery terms. Very often a way of deliverance is encoded with the help of special abbreviations. Contracts also possess remarkable linguistic features revealed in their texts, and they are the subject of Chapter 2.

Chapter 2. Linguistic peculiarities of contracts

2.1. Contract as a type of text and its stylistic characteristics

From the linguistic point of view, a contract is a type of a document, because any agreement is a completed document fixing some information. As a type of text, contract has its own specific characteristics. Stylistic peculiarities of all document texts are:

concreteness, conciseness, clearness of the stated idea;

high capacity of information;

strict logic;

clear rhyth of sentences;

accenting on the main idea with the help of word repetitions;

absence of connotational information;

a special system of clichés and stamps;

usage of abbreviations, conventional symbols and marks;

usage of terms in their direct semantic meaning; preferential usage of monosemantic words;

division of a text into chapters, paragraphs, points, often numbered (clear compositional structure of a document);

usage of definite syntactic models;

graphic decoration of a document: quality of paper, quantity and quality of illustrations, size and kind of print.

The main features of the style of contract are:

steady system of linguistic means in the text of contract;

lack of emotional colouring;

decoding character of language;

usage of a special symbolic system;

definite syntactic structure (the 12 above-enumerated items).

The style of contract defines some peculiarities and techniques of its writing. Making contracts is different in some points from writing business letters, such as an offer, an inquiry, a complaint, etc. Some considerations important for business letters are not important for contracts, and v.v. The main difference is that any contract is made up by two contracting parties and contains information about many subjects. So all points are to be approved by both parties. There are certain clearly definable requirements for how to write contracts.

Generally, contracts should be formal, complete, clear, concrete, correct and concise.* In contracts all possible informational details are not suitable. So, while writing contracts we must observe all peculiarities of standard English grammar, vocabulary use and stylistic appropriation. A formal contract or agreement requires considerations of neatness and attractive arrangement. Completeness of any contract suggests the scope of all significant facts that have reference to the issue of the agreement. Actually, you are expected to explain what, how, and when you are going to deal with your partner.

The next element, - clearness, - is one of the most important, because much depends on it. Clearness could be reached by the use of simple short words, phrases and paragraphs where the both parties of a contract explain their intentions and issues. Clearness of any arguments actually defines your striking a deal or not.

The component which is closely connected with the previous one is concreteness. Concreteness of a contract or an agreement is a part and a parcel of any legal document. Besides that, the longer the document is, the more attractive and vivid its contents should be.

The next two components are also significant. They are correctness and conciseness. Correctness involves proper grammar use (tense-aspect forms of the verb, verbals, articles, etc.), vocabulary use, punctuation and formal style. Grammar should be checked with a special care, otherwise it may produce a poor impression of the document and non-seriousness of your interests. Conciseness is usually achieved by the use of minimum words to express maximum of information.

Реферат опубликован: 28/01/2009