论英文本对外经贸合同的语言特征

Linguistic Features of English Business Contract

实务中有不少涉外经济合同纠纷是因各方对合同文字的理解不一而引起的,究其原因,主要是起草者对合同语言的特殊性缺乏应有的了解,结果导致合同语言的模糊性和不确定性。本文从词法、句法及篇章等三个层面对英文经贸合同语言的特殊性及其变化规律进行探讨,以期能有助于对此类合同的理解和起草。

In practice, the occurrence of inconsistency in interpretation of the business contract has resulted in a good few cases of disputes. In essence, it is largely due to the draftsman's failure to have a deep-in understanding of the underlying features of the contract language, which might lead to the ambiguities and uncertainties of the contract wording. This paper tries to analyze the linguistic features of English business contracts at the morphological, syntactical and discourse levels respectively with a view to rendering a help in the interpretation and drafting the contracts.