abstract: it has been many years since china adopted its policy of reform and opening to the outside world. more and more people are beginning to attach importance to studying business english. the purpose of this paper is to quest for syntactic features of legal documents of business english.  

key words: syntactic features   legal documents   business english

 

business english is an important language tool for people to pursue international business activities. with china’s successful entry into wto (the world trade organization), business english is more widely used. the legal documents of business english refer to the law-oriented documents during the course of international business activities. merchandisers or relevant translators may use them in business transactions. the legal documents use the written form to set forth the involved rights and obligations, which are stipulated in the laws. they are an indispensable part for people to carry out international business activities. syntax refers to the rules for ordering and connecting words into sentences. it allows various possibilities to be exploited for effective linguistic communication. a systematic description of syntactic features should include: sentence types, clause types, phrase types, etc. here, it is only necessary to mention the syntactic features of legal documents of business english. 

 

1. long sentences

long sentences are common in legal, political and theoretical writing, which depends on modification for accuracy. in legal documents of business english, you can find the sentences used are long and quite often the entire document is composed in the form of a single sentence. in legal documents, long sentences are more than anywhere else and in fact, a deed is usually written in one long sentence. long sentences are capable of expressing complex ideas with precision, because they may contain many modifiers. the structures of the long sentences are often intricate, which often include several clauses or modifiers. when an independent clause comprises one or more dependent clauses as its element(s), this makes a complex sentence. long sentences are often complex sentences, which include relative clauses or adverbial clauses, etc. the following example will be used to illustrate this point.

the present agreement is concluded for a period of two years and will be automatically renewed for successive two years unless denounced by one of the contracting parties in writing by an advance notice of four months, and shall thereafter be renewable accordingly. subject to special provisions explicitly provided for in this agreement, if either party has been prevented from performing its obligations under the agreement because of an event of force majeure such as earthquake, storm, flood, fire, other acts of nature, epidemic, war, riot, hostility, public disturbance, acts of public enemies, prohibition or acts by a government or public agency or labour disputes, or other unforeseeable events beyond the control of the parties, and their occurrence is unpreventable and unavoidable, the party so prevented shall notify the other party in writing within eight days after the occurrence of such event of force majeure, act to mitigate damages, if possible, and within fifteen days thereafter provide detailed information of the event, a certificate of evidence thereof issued by the relevant authorities and a statement explaining the reason for its inability to perform all or part of its obligations under the agreement.

the above paragraph consists of two sentences. the draftsman used so many words in the two sentences to make the agreement accurate and prevent misunderstanding.

2. statement & full sentence

in communication, statements are chiefly used to state a fact or non-fact that is to affirm or negate something. thus, statements may be divided into positive statements and negative statements. a full sentence is a sentence with an expressed subject and predicate. this kind of sentence is mostly used in formal speech and writing. legal documents stipulate the rights and obligations of the signatory parties instead of proposing questions or carrying out negotiation, that is to say, legal documents stipulate what is to be done. in order to make the stipulations in the legal documents clear without being twisted, the full sentences are often used. legal documents of business english are generally made up of statements and full sentences. here are some examples:

this article is without prejudice to the second supplementary provision to paragraph one of article vi in annex i to gatt 1994.

article 29 of the same law provides that, “after the trademark review and adjudication board has made the final decision maintaining or canceling the registered trademark, it shall notify the parties interested in writing.”

3. subject clauses introduced by anticipatory “it”

the draftsmen sometimes adopt subject clauses introduced by anticipatory “it” in legal documents of business english. “anticipatory it” commonly occurs in sentences with a nominal clause as subject or object. the subject or object clause is usually shifted to the end of the sentence, leaving the vacancy to be filled in by an anticipatory it. things are more complicated with subject clauses introduced by it. sentences have got it in the subject slot and the real subject clause is moved to the latter part of the sentence. you may choose to move the subject clause back to the beginning of the sentence or leave it where it is. some of the examples are listed below:

it is mutually agreed that the contracts concluded in accordance with article v of this protocol may continue to be in force until the expiry of their respective terms of validity even after the termination of this protocol.

it is stipulated that the certificate of quality and quantity or weight issued by the manufacturer shall be part of the documents to be presented to the paying bank for negotiation of payment.

4. the frequent use of adverbials &adverbial clauses of condition

an adverbial is a clause element. adverbials fall into three categories: adjuncts, disjuncts, and conjuncts. strictly speaking, it is only the first category — the adjunct — that can be rightly labeled an adverbial, which is generally treated as one of the five elements of a clause. semantically, adjuncts may denote time, place, manner, purpose, cause, result, condition, concession, and accompanying circumstances. a legal document of business english, when setting forth rights or obligations, must exactly point out that in what instances, at what point of time, in what place or in what manner an action can be undertaken. this requires adverbials of time, place, condition, concession, manner, etc. adverbials are used as a means of clarifying meaning and avoiding ambiguity. examples are:

the stipulations in the relative letter of credit should strictly conform to the terms stated in the sales confirmation in order to avoid the trouble of subsequent amendments.

the agenda shall be established by mutual agreement.

legal documents of business english have many adverbial clauses of condition. since most of legal documents stipulate the obligations and confirm the rights, conditional sentences are often used to educe a certain conclusion. adverbial clauses of condition are generally introduced by if, in case (that), in the event (that), unless, provided that, should, etc. for instance:

in the event that the documents supplied by party b are not in conformity with the stipulations in sections 8.2, party b shall, within the shortest possible time but not later than 30 days after the receipt of the party a’s written notice, dispatch free of charge to party a the missing or the correct and legible documents.

unless otherwise stipulated in the credit, banks will accept a document bearing a date of issuance prior to that of the credit, subject to such document being presented within the time limits set out in the credit.

partial inversion usually takes place when a sentence is introduced by “should”, e.g.

should either party be prevented from performing all or part of its obligations owing to force majeure, it shall be relieved of all or part of its obligations.

should the sellers fail to load the goods within the time as notified by the buyers, on board the vessel booked by the buyers after its arrival the port of shipment, all expenses such as dead freight, demurrage, etc., and consequences thereof shall be borne by the sellers.

5. postmodifiers

modification is an important grammatical device for description and sentence expansion. modifiers in a noun phrase may be classified into premodifiers and postmodifiers. postmodifiers include all the items that appear after the headword. they are chiefly prepositional phrases (a textbook on english grammar), non-finite clauses (pupils standing outside the classroom), relative clauses (the actor who was absent) etc. one of the obvious tendencies in the development of modern english is a greater frequency of premodifiers. this tendency, as it helps to achieve economy of expression, is most obvious in journalistic english. but in legal documents of business english, we often use nouns with long, complicated postmodifiers. this is another striking characteristic of written legal english to achieve precision. postmodifiers are preferred because phrases or clauses can better define the noun they modify than single words that precede a noun. here are two examples:

other matters relating to this contract shall be dealt with in accordance with the terms of delivery as specified overleaf.

routine duties of the joint venture company are to be discharged by the general manager appointed by the board of directors.

in particular, draftsmen like to use restrictive relative clauses as postmodifiers in legal documents of business english. the purpose of using restrictive relative clauses is to make the content more definite and distinct in the interest of eliminating misunderstanding. a restrictive relative clause is closely attached to the head. it gives essential information about the meaning of the antecedent. it forms an integral part of the noun phrase, without which the head cannot be identified as the specific object. for instances:

however, the party who suspends performances should promptly inform the other party.

the joint venture shall establish and maintain books and records in accordance with accounting principles and procedures that are agreeable to both parties.

since legal documents of business english should be clear, accurate and complete, and leave no room for misinterpretation, it is necessary for draftsmen or translators to master the syntactic features of legal documents so as to deal with the like documents efficiently.

 

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