【正文】 an important and necessary means. Because of this, modern society is called a society of contracts and the modern economy is called economy of contracts(王利明2002:PrefaceⅡ).Without contracts, various resources can not be exchanged and cannot flow into the place in need of them. If the participant in the market has no freedom to exchange goods and services, nor freedom to choose its partner to exchange, contracts cannot exert their ultimate influence. Thus it can be said that it is economy that promotes the development of contracts. The principle of freedom and other principles are all developed from the understanding the intrinsic relationship between the two entities. In today’s society more and more people have recognized the importance of contracts, the study of contracts from the perspective of linguistics does have its practical significance.Chapter Three: A Comparison between English and Chinese Contracts“Contracts are agreements between equal natural persons, legal persons and other organizations for the purpose of establishing, altering and terminating mutual civil rights and obligations.” (胡庚申2001:78)It is true of business contracts in economic activities. They shall be binding upon both parties. This determines business contract language definitely takes on identifying linguistic forms, such as different selection of vocabulary, different types of structures and different conventions for the organization of information, etc., as pared with other styles. On the whole, both English and Chinese business contracts belong to a solemn style, characterized by plete syntactic meaning, wellknit structures and standardized style. Characteristics of business contracts may find full expression in the following six points, namely, 1) focus in content。 2) standardization in layout。 3) plexity in structures。 4) directness in reference。 5) preciseness in expression。 6) carefulness in wording.As for the analyzing method adopted in the thesis, it is well known that parison is a basic way to do researches. Just as Lu Shuxiang, a famous linguist, says, “Characteristics of one thing, only through parison with those of another, can stand out.”(許國(guó)璋1991:56)It is true of the field of translation. This thesis aims to approach EC translation of business contracts from stylistic perspective. English and Chinese business contracts will be pared to find out their similarities and differences。 therefore, the method of parison will go throughout the whole thesis. To be specific, parison is made at three levels, ., lexical, syntactic and textual. In the following discussions, these three levels are to be covered In detail. Lexical ComparisonThe range of vocabulary adopted in business contracts is extremely wide, totally different from that in ordinary English. Drafters of business contracts have developed marked preferences in their choice of words. In short, the following distinct characteristics should be taken into consideration. Frequent Employment of Archaic WordsEnglish business contracts possess a peculiar kind of vocabularyarchaic words or phrases. Archaisms can add to the formality of language, thus endowing business contracts with solemn and archaic atmosphere. In fact, these words are rarely used in our daily life。 however, drafters of business contracts must choose them as a tradition. Their wide usage fulfills two purposes: one is to make sentences more solemn and formal。 the other is to make sentences mare exact and concise. There are three mon types of archaicwords, which appear as hereprep, thereprep and whereprep. For example:. The specific contents and procedures of auditing accounts are detailed in Appendix 4 hereto.: The contract for the contractual joint venture shall continue from a period of two years thereafter.In conclusion。 it is justified to make sure that archaic words contribute to the formality of this contract register. This is a distinct feature of English business contracts.Likewise, in Chinese business contracts, a touch of archaic truce can also be seen easily. Although their appearance is not the same odd as archaic words in English business contracts, they still enhance solemnity and formality of the subvariety. Even in other formal varieties, these archaic Chinese words are frequently employed. For example, certain Chinese words such as亦、若、倘、惟、概，which are typically ancient expressions(劉宓慶, 1986:23), are often used in Chinese business contracts. In essence, they can be viewed as an equivalent use of archaic words in English business contracts as well. Careful Choice of Legal WordsContract language falls into the category of law, thus certainly reflecting its authority and solemnity. It is a mon phenomenon that r legal words are widely used in both English and Chinese business contracts. Generally speaking, most of them originate from Latin, French or other languages. Please pare Column I with Column II: Special TerminologiesOwing to this special language register, it is natural that many unique terminologies can be found in English business contracts. It is known that business contracts may cover a variety of contents or involve many specialized fields in which different technical terms are employed. For instance, Force Majeure, Letter of Credit, draft at sight, Bill of Lading, technology transfer, share prospectus, firm offer, etc. All these refer to some specific field while they seldom appear in our daily English. Correspondingly, Chinese business contracts also contain many such technical terms. Terms such as跟單匯票、不可撤銷信用證、報(bào)盤、承兌、議付、標(biāo)的物are highly technical. Thus, it is not difficult to notice that both English and Chinese business contracts abound in unique terminologies. Preference for the Parallel Synonyms in English ContractsIn English business contracts, the parallel synonyms are extremely mon. Usually, two or more synonyms or near synonyms are connected by and/or to express the same meaning.Thi