A Pragmatic Study Of Chinese Contract Discourse

In the modern market economy, the contract is an important element of economic development, market economy is contract economy. The contract bears the economic development objectives and responsibilities, and reflects the formation of a national economy and national productivity. The contract as a basic law format of economic transactions, for the protection of economic transactions under the security market mechanism and promoting the orderly operation of the social economy, plays a decisive role. In addition, the signment and the fulfillment of the contract happen all the time in the event of contract disputes and the trial judgment accordingly exist. Therefore, the paper uses the research method of pragmatics, and studies the reason or the root of discourse disputes of contracts, and aslo analyses the specific speech acts and their behavioral intentions or purposes. This study has both interdisciplinary research importance and some practical significance.Contract discourse is a legal discourse. It has the connection not only with the law and economics related, but also involves other disciplines related to legal linguistics. As a product of social history and the development of market economy, the contract involves a specific speech acts or verbal behavior between the two or three parties produced in a particular contractual context. The contract has the social characteristics and features. This paper, based on the literature of real contract discourse, takes the contract discourse as the research object. Besides, on the literature basis of the specific speech acts and their behavioral intentions or purposes, combining the research home and abroad, thus, the pragmatic theories including the Speech Act Theory, the Indirect Speech Act Theory and the Goal-driven Principle are used to study and explain the qualitative description of contract discourse, and pragmatic interpretation and three-dimensional theoretical framework analysis, and further study the root or cause of the contract discourse.The study of contract discoure helps the people (or the parties of the contract) understand the contract forensic or law language correctly and clearly, and make sure of the specific speech acts and the purposes of two parties or more parties so as to avoid the occurance of the contract discourse disputes. Moreover, the research of contract discourse, is in favor of judicial personnel to deal with contractual disputes, and find the real meaning implied in the indirect speech acts of contract discourse and real purposes behind the words or lines in the contract.From the pragmatic points of view, the study provides a new method to analyse the reason or the root of contract discourse disputes. Thus, the study is expected to offer or find an applied or practical value in this paper. The Classical Theory of Speech Acts, Indirect Speech Act Theory and Goal-Driven Principle are applicable to the Chinese contract discourse. The difference between the contract parties' speech acts, and implication of indirect speech acts and the discourse purpose, is the root of the contract disputes arising. The contract is not a simple language, but an act. Contract is a work, in other words, the contract is a speech act, containing letters and indirect speech acts between the lines with a purposeful discourse. In the realization of contract purposes and the contract interests, the traps and "seeds"of contract risks are probably planted to result in contract disputes arising discourse. As for contract disputes arising discourse, the paper proposes classified game strategy, extensive information game strategy and centipede- style game strategy to solve contract disputes and purpose conflicts'speech acts.The research results will be used to serve the contract parties and law officers or judiciaries for signing contracts or proceeding contract disputes so as to improve the quality of contract signment and the efficiency of the case-hearing or contract trial.The main characteristics and research innovations of this paper are as follows:(1) three-dimensional analytical framework formed through the conjunction of Sino-Western pragmatic theories is used to analyze contract speech acts and discourse purposes.(2) put forward an idea of regarding the contract as a two-way or multi-way speech acts.(3) the contract speech act sequence is the bond for the contract discourse coherence.(4) the dynamic contexts of asymmetric conditions, inconsistent purposes and uncertain benefits, evoke the speech acts implications.(5) the achievement of contract discourse objectives is a process from the purpose contradiction to purpose unity of the contract discourse.(6) the application of the Goal-Driven Principle in the contract discourse, enriches and expands the research contents and research fields under the Goal-Driven Principles.(7) the pragmatic study of Chinese contract discourse is covered by a whole process of legislative acts, legal acts, and judicial conducts.The research contents:the paper is divided into seven chapters as follows:Chapter I. Introduction. Introduce the concept of contract discourse, and overview research value, purpose and significance, research methods, corpus and chapter layout.Chapter II. Literature Review. From the aspects of contract speech acts, goal-driven discourse and other studies to review foreign and domestic research and make discourse commentary at home and abroad, and summarize the research achievements and shortcomings.Chapter ?. Theoretical Framework. Elaborate the dimensional analytical framework of Classical Speech Acts and Indirect Speech Acts Theories and Goal-Driven Principle.Chapter ?. To analyse the Chinese contract discourse from the perspective of Speech Acts and focus on the studies of the contract speec acts and their sequences, etc.Chapter ?. To analyse the Chinese contract discourse from the perspective of Indirect Speech Acts and focus on the implications and dynamic contexts of the contract speech acts.Chapter ?. To analyse the Chinese contract discourse from the perspective of Goal-Driven Principle and focus on contract conflict game strategies, goal-driven levels and discourse coherence.Chapter ?. Conclusion and Outlook:Research results, conclusions, research enlightenment, innovations, limitations, deficiencies, future prospects, are summarized in the paper.