【正文】 last thing to happen． Although absence or dearth of punctuation forfeits the ease of reading a traditional English contract,pared with removing an opportunity for relatively simpler 7 fery,which is something a contract should prevent,the difficulty in reading and understanding may 3worthwhile,especially for the party concerned4． 3Archaism Both of the samples contain the main verbwitnessethwhich shows the preservation of anethor ancient inflexional ending for the third person singular present tense form of the verb． It is interesting that except this verb ending in this way,all the other verbs end in a modern way． This isolated usage seems to show thatwitnessethis used simply as a matter of tradition,forwitnessescan be a perfectly acceptable alternative ． Other examples of the archaism of a traditional English contract embody the pound adverbs that are posed of adverbs suchashere． thereandwherewith one or more prepositions attached to them． Only from the Samples One and Two,we can findhereto,hereon,thereof,hereunder,thereforand so on． There are some archaic usages of verbs． For example the verbsufferhere meansallow． The archaism of the contract English helps to enforce the extremely formal quality and can be safely regarded as one of the characteristics of the traditional contract English． Terms Another outstanding feature of the contract English is that the tradtional English contract uses many a special term． The contract English,for itself,has built up many words that have narrowness or breath of meaning and keep only one of a range of meanings of the words． For example the wordlessor(Line 4,Sample one)refers to the person who are letting the fiat and making the lease． Of the one part means the legal concept that the interests in the lease are in two parts,one concerning Residential Properties and the other Stephen Jackson． In line 9． the verbdemise conveys the meaning ofgranting a lease． In line 10． mansionis used legally for a dwelling at home,possibly in relation to buying,leasing or renting a home,insurance,loans and mortgages,telephone,inter or fuel supply。三類合同在語言特征上存在鮮明差異 ,也反映了英文合同的發(fā)展趨勢。 現(xiàn)代合同在語言特征上與傳統(tǒng)合同與正式合同有著明顯的區(qū)別 ,其主要采用短句子 ,有時甚至用短語來充當(dāng)句子 ,許多描述性以及規(guī)范性的形容詞和副詞都被英語的現(xiàn)代合同中 ,大量 非謂語性動詞被當(dāng)做后置修飾 ,現(xiàn)代合同的語言特征是精確、明了和簡潔。place together with any surrounding buildings which belong to it,but are not actually joined to it by some covered way,In normal use,amansion is a large and imposing house． In line 7． reserveddenotes that although the landlords have granted the use of the fiat by 8 means of the lease,they have made areservation for themselves.In line 20 the wordschedule stands for any extra pieces of information which are indispensable for clarity of prehension but are not really incorporated in the part of the document． In Sample Two． the wordproposalmeans an application or an application form． In line 1． the society refers tothe insurer． In line 20,the meaning ofliablekeeps strictly to heel within the discipline of the insurance． The definition isof having the obligation or duty rather thanof being likelyorof suffering． In line 10． The definition of the previous deathisthe earlier destine than the expiration of insurance term5. B Summary of Lingual Styles of Traditional Contract On the basis of what have been discussed above,we are able to soundly summarize the stylistic features of the traditional contract English： One of features of the traditional contract English is formal to an extreme degree with its long sentence structures,archaic words,special term and plicated nominal groups． The second,also the most important one,is its preciseness． This characteristic is embodied by use of paired words,plex expression,scarcity of pronouns,repetition of words and so on． The last feature is the conservation of the traditional contract English． It is externalized by dearth of punctuation and the set framework that consists of a beginning with the two parties concerned expressed in capitals and sometimes with the date that sees the contract signed written out fully in words and withwhereas clauseexpressed or implied． The main verbwitnessethis followed by a very long abject and the ending is often characterized byin witness where of． 9 IV .Formal Contract Although the traditional English contract is still operative and can be read occasionally,the English contracts that are often adopted in international businesses have changed significantly in dictation and grammar． Therefore it is necessary to analyze and discuss in terms of lingual styles the current English contracts,which I boldly divide into the two kinds,the formal one and the modern one,and then pare them with the traditional ones． We take the formal contracts in to account first． Both of the Samples Three and Four are still difficult to peruse,but not so difficult as the two of the traditional contracts； at least,we feel that theflavoris a little different． A. Features of Lingual Styles of Formal Contract of Long and Short Sentences These two samples contain many lengthy sentences,though some sentences in them are short． Sample Three is made up of five sentences． Each of three of them is constituted by 1 00 words or so． They bear similarity in length to those presented in the traditional contracts． The other two,one with about 50words,and the other with 29 words,may be called midlength sentences． In Sample Four,there are six sentences in a11． Three of them deserve the name of long sentences with 93,72 and 81 words other three are of normal length and the shortest of them is coral： lost of 13 words． I have also read a good number of other formal English contracts and counted the words that form a sentence． The findings are similar to what have been analyzed above． Therefore,