A Corpus-Based Analysis of Business Contract English Registers

In trades between different countries, business English is the basic step and business contract is the guarantee. In this special transaction context, the wording of business contract English is fair and rigorous; the structure of it is clear; and the style of it is solemn. Based on the register theory in systemic functional linguistics, this paper analyzes the lexical, syntactic and textual rhetorical features of contract English. Some of the data are from business English Corpus established by University of International Business and Economics. It aims to promote the writing of business contract English.