The peculiarities in texts of business documents

The peculiarities in texts of business documents, problems of their translation, interpretation and analysis of essential clauses. The main features of formal English as the language of business papers: stylistic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities.
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Introduction

Actuality: Nowadays due to the development of international business partnership the interpreters are faced with the necessity of translating official business papers from English into Ukrainian because English is considered to be the language of world business relationships. In comparison with literary texts the texts of official documents are highly standardized: it concerns both the structure of the whole text and the arrangement of special paragraphs.

The analysis of researches is devoted to the linguistic peculiarities of official business papers. And it shows that theory of writing business documents, on the one hand, reflects highly subjective approaches. On the other hand, such approaches are not unified in accordance with existing rules of formal English. Such influence really exists, but there are no accepted criteria for changes that should be taken into consideration. Thus, the main problems of people who write business papers are: how should they write it to sound correctly in the foreign language? How formal should they be in the content of documents, if even English-speaking people meet difficulties drawing a line between formal and informal English?

The language of documents is characterized by specific terms and expressions and also by those grammatical and syntactical patterns where translation can cause some difficulties. That is why we should know sufficient knowledge of grammatical, stylistic and lexical peculiarities of business papers to translate them correctly.

The object of the research is official business papers.

Its subject comprises investigation of linguistic peculiarities of official business papers and the specific character of translation.

The theoretical basis for the investigation is founded on the researches of well-known linguists: Arnold, Galperin, Gordon.

The Purpose of the research is to analyze peculiarities in texts of business documents, problems of their translation. It is performed through comprehension, interpretation and analysis of essential clauses.

The tasks of the research are:

to point out main features of formal English as the language of business papers;

to describe the peculiarities of official business papers' translation.

to expose stylistic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities of business papers.

In order to solve these tasks have been used the methods of studying and analysis of theoretical literature and practical manuals.

In fact, the linguistic peculiarities of the structure and function of contracts in the world of business have not been given a clear understanding of the subject. The main factors of the theoretical significance of the research is to state the connection between all types of business papers while describing and analyzing distinctive features of the content of documents.

The practical significance of the research is to underline the main rules of writing business correspondence for those who are concerned about drawing up the official documents. It also can be interesting for people studying problems of functional usage of formal and informal styles in English. The results of the research can be taken into consideration by students who are involved in studying English and English stylistics. As well it can be used for special courses of business English for students of Linguistics, Business and Economics.

business document paper peculiarity

1. General characteristics of official documents

1.1 The distinctive features of English language in official documents

It is quite obvious that any business deal cannot be done without documents. A document, in its any appearance, has always been an important part of business doing. Business contracts are impossible without correspondence all over the world. It does not matter, whether you communicate with your partner using the phone (orally) or telexes (in writing). All decisions and terms must be confirmed by documents.

Such business papers as correspondence (letters), telexes, enquiries, offers, claims (complaints) and contracts (agreements) are of legal importance. And as a result, business documents, written in accordance with some officially accepted forms, are the same for everybody.

As it has been noted, the official business language differs from other kinds of the English language, mostly because of the specific character of its functional usage that can be illustrated in classical terms of style, its predestination, and main features.

The style of official documents is the most conservative one. It preserves the structural forms and the use of syntactical constructions. Archaic words are not observed anywhere else but here. Addressing documents and official letters, signing them, expressing the reasons and considerations leading to the subject of the document letter are regulated as lexically as syntactically. All emotiveness and subjective modality are completely banned out of this style. It is represented by the following sub-styles or variants: the language of business documents, legal documents, diplomacy, and military documents. Like other styles of language, this style has a definite communicative aim and, accordingly, has its own system of interrelated language and stylistic means. The main aim of this type of communication is to state the conditions binding two parties in an undertaking and to reach agreement between two contracting parties.

Every subdivision of this style has its own peculiar terms, phrases and expressions, which differ from the terms of correspondence, phrases and expressions of other variants of this style.

The peculiar features common for all stylistic varieties of official documents are the following:

- the use of abbreviations, conventional symbols and contractions;

the use of words in their logical dictionary meaning;

absence of emotiveness;

general syntactical mode of combining several pronouncement into one sentence.

It also should be noted that the syntactical construction of this style is as important as the vocabulary.

The syntactical pattern of business correspondence style is made up from compositional patterns of variants of this style which have their own designs. The form of a document itself is informative, because it tells something about the matter dealt with. From the point of view on its stylistic structure, the whole document is one sentence. It looks like separate shaped clauses often divided by commas or semicolons, and not by full stops, often numbered. Every predicative construction begins with a capital letter in participle form or infinitive construction. For example:

Claims:

any claim concerning the quality of the goods must be presented within two months from the date of delivery;

no one claim can be considered by Sellers after expiration of the above period;

This example while illustrating structurally illogical way of combining definite ideas has its sense. It serves to show the equality of the items and similar dependence of participle and infinitive constructions or predicative constructions.

One of the most striking features of this style is usage of words in their logical dictionary meaning.

Every type of business documents has its own set phrases and cliches, e.g. invoice, book value, currency clause, promissory note, assets, etc.

Indeed, there are many differences in the vocabulary between formal and informal business correspondence. The main part of vocabulary of formal English is of French, Latin and Greek origin. Often it can be translated into informal language by replacing words or phrases of the Anglo-Saxon origin. For example:

Formal style_____Informal style

commence begin, start

conclude end, finish, stop

prolong, continue go on

Let us compare examples where these words are used in different styles.

e.g. The meeting concluded with signing the contract (Formal style).

The meeting ended with signing the contract (Informal style).

Informal style is characterized by using phrasal and prepositional verbs. That is why they are not used in business correspondence. Their formal equivalents are used in official texts instead.

Formal style_____Informal style

explode blow up

encounter come across

investigate look into

Such expressions on informal style cannot be used in written business English, both logically and stylistically. They are logically excluded because they convey a little amount of information. Business documents, on the contrary, convey a lot of information almost in any word. Thus, a person should be aware of these factors and not mix up colloquial and business English drawing up a document.

Informal terms have emoti...