Application Of Functional Stylistics Into Analysis Of International Business Contracts

International business English plays a more and more important role in the field of international trade. English of international business contracts is a sub-variety of business English. The study of this type of English is of great importance, which provides assistance for teaching and learning.International business contracts can be approached from different angles. The study can be placed in the context of situation either commercial or legal and studied by using different types of linguistic theories, Functional Linguistics or others. This thesis aims to find out stylistic features of international business English by applying Functional Linguistics by M.A.K. Halliday and his group. In the course of discovering the features, this thesis shows its emphasis on the legal context of international business contracts.This thesis is designed to include five parts.Part One provides a brief introduction of the background of the writing of this thesis. It states clearly that it is necessary to conduct the study of this thesis from the perspective of Functional Linguistics and in the legal context; meanwhile it points out that based on the relevant research on the topic this thesis will improve by designing a reasonable framework and emphasizing the legal context in the analysis.Part Two introduces common knowledge of contracts by referring to main functions of contracts and its statutory nature. It establishes the relationship between contracts and law. In this part, three types of international business contracts are decided for use of the study: sales contract, overseas employment and technology transfer.Part Three introduces Functional Linguistics and Functional Stylistics. It begins with three important concepts or called theories: meta-functions, context of situation and register, all of which are correlated. The second half of this part discusses on"style", with an emphasis on terms like"prominence","motivated prominence"or"foregrounding"and on steps in finding out the stylistic features.Part Four is the most important part. It analyses the three contracts in the grammatical framework of Functional Grammar, mainly including Transitivity, Mood and Modality, and Generic structure and Cohesion. After each elaborate analysis is followed a summary, according to which prominence is picked up and examined with the standard of relevance or function in the context. At the end of this part is a general summary which provides stylistic features of international business contracts according to the analysis made before.Part Five is the last part of this thesis, which shows what this thesis has accomplished and what needs to be studied further. First, it has constructed a relatively complete theoretical framework, combining the statutory nature of contracts and Functional Stylistics into the stylistic analysis. Second, it has conducted a relatively comprehensive analysis which has revealed the lexico-grammatical prominent features of the contracts. Third, it has explained the prominent features in the legal context of international business contracts. At last, according to the standard of relevance, it has determined the stylistic features of the language. The thesis meanwhile admits that the stylistic features found in its research are only a part of the whole and therefore more work is necessary.