Modern Business English: Lexical Scheme And Cohesion

Since China implemented its reform and opening up policies，it has made theworld-known achievement in economic construction and gradually merged with theworld economic integration. China and the world need mutual understanding tostrengthen cooperation. As one of the media, Business English plays an important rolein promoting the communication and cooperation between China and the rest of theworld. It is by Business English that we get to know the new information andknowledge to promote trades between countries, and strengthen the contact, shorten thedistance between person and person. Besides the need of acquiring information, somany Business English learners are reading texts of Business English to acquire English.However, as a variety of English, Business English does have its own linguistic features.In order to understand Business English more efficiently and accurately, learners shouldhave the basic knowledge of Business English, such as the variety of lexical featuresand the lexical cohesive devices.Based on the existing research foundations, with data and examples taken fromBusiness English research books both at home and abroad, this thesis aims to explorethe typical lexical features of Business English and their stylistic effects, and also thelexical cohesive devices employed in Business English and their functions.Researches found that abbreviations, technical terms, synonyms, and neologismsare frequently used in Business English. Abbreviations and technical terms caneffectively avoid useless repetition, making the language more concise and the layout oftexts more clear. Furthermore, they reflect precise and professional style of BusinessEnglish; synonyms exhibit flexibility and vitality of Business English; neologisms areemployed in Business English for their vitality that makes Business English keep pacewith the times. All of these words and phrases contribute much to a concise, precise,professional, and unique style of Business English. Research found that a great number of lexical cohesive devices are largelyemployed in Business English texts, especially, repetition, similarity, hyponymy, generalwords and collocations. By repetition, the main content of texts can be highlighted andthe theme can be emphasized; similarity and hyponymy can make words cohere witheach other to enhance the logicality of Business English texts; the general words areused to avoid unnecessary repetition, and also help to form a coherent text, which iscorresponded with the economic principles for the communication; collocations interactwith each other to form an integrated semantic unit of the Business English. Variouslexical cohesive devices contribute much to the coherence of Business English.