| This study makes a systematic text analysis of international treaties in order to observe the particular legal property of treaties from the linguistic perspective. An integrated model of context and language elaborated by Martin, Eggins and a research group working in systematic-functional linguistics emphasize that realizational relationships exist between different contextual planes: genre, register and language; and genre is mediated through register, and genre and register are realized through language. Through a model with genre and register as layered connotative semiotics, the influence of international legal institution on treaty texts is decoded by elaborating the linguistic features of micro-coding structure and macro-textual structure of texts; and thereby these linguistic features shed light on the particular legal property of treaties----the combination of legislative and contractual nature. The contractual nature of treaties is mainly reflected in macro-textual structure of treaty texts: the schematic stages (T A A (D) A S A F A E ) and their linguistic realization, which is conducted on the genre level analysis; the legislative property of treaties is mainly reflected in the micro-coding structure of treaty texts: the transitivity pattern and mood pattern, which is conducted on the register level analysis. Thus through a systemic stratified model, text analysis of treaties gives an account of linguistic encoding of the international legal institution: the international legal institution defines and shapes treaty texts and treaty texts actively express and symbolize the international legal institution.
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