(合同是当事人之间设立.pptVIP

Characteristics and Translation of English of Business Contract /Legal English 1.1 General Introduction of Business Contract 1.1.1 What is Business Contract According to the description of law, A contract shall be an agreement whereby the parties establish, change or terminate their civil relationship. （合同是当事人之间设立、变更、终止民事关系的协议。） Other prescription：Contracts referred to in this Law are agreements between equal natural persons， legal persons and other organizations for the purpose of establishing，altering and terminating mutual civil rights and obligations. (合同是平等主体的自然人、法人、其他组织之间设立、变更、终止民事权利义务关系的协议。） We will not spend too long on this area，for two reasons：firstly, it overlaps with Legal English, since contracts are legal documents; secondly, the English of contracts is highly specialized. To understand Business Contract better, we should know some knowledge of Legal English, especially written legal language. 1.1.2 Characteristics of Legal Languages Lawyers claim that statutes, contracts, wills and other legal documents must be written with unusual prescription, to ensure that they can be interpreted only in the manner intended. Let us look at some of the features of Legal English. In this we will follow the classifications of Melinkoff, who identified nine characteristics of Legal English. 1) Words which are common in everyday English but which have specialized legal meanings “action” = law suit, “serve” = deliver legal papers, “determine” =end 2) Rare words from Old and Middle English aforesaid (上述的), forthwith (即刻), witnesseth (作证) Many of these are compounds built on the roots of here, there and where, e.g. hereof, hereby, hereinafter, therewith. 3) Latin words and phrases These dates from the time when much of the law was conducted in Latin. Some are known only to lawyers: mens rea =with a guilty mind, i.e. with intent to do wrong; nolle prosequi =not willing to carry on ----- a note that someone is not continui