Leading style features of official business style. Official business style and its features

The official business style is much more common in life than you might think. You see it in instructions, in any documents of organizations (no matter government or commercial), in legislative acts, in methodological developments and so on.

The main function of this style is to inform – convey extremely accurate and concise information. Therefore, the information richness of texts written in an official business style is very high, although difficult to understand.

Read about all styles of speech (text).

Have you assigned an essay or coursework on literature or other subjects? Now you don’t have to suffer yourself, but simply order the work. We recommend contacting >>here, they do it quickly and cheaply. Moreover, you can even bargain here
P.S.
By the way, they do homework there too 😉

Characteristics of formal business style

Among the main style features are the following:

  • informational orientation - in order to remain in the exclusively administrative and legal sphere of activity;
  • accuracy and standardization of formulations - sometimes to the detriment of ease of perception;
  • rigid logical structure of both sentences and the text itself as a whole;
  • lack of emotionality and evaluativeness - in texts written in an official business style, there are either facts or reasonable hypotheses, and a subjective approach to the things presented is completely excluded.

At linguistic levels, style features manifest themselves as follows:

  • in vocabulary - as a rule, the texts use mainly words and terms of the official business sphere;
  • in morphology - clericalisms and linguistic clichés (set expressions) are actively exploited; complex prepositions;
  • in syntax - texts of the named style are composed mainly of significant length, voluminous sentences, as a rule, complex and in various ways complicated.

Official business style: analysis of examples

Let's look at examples of our style so that its features become clearer.

Excerpt from the document:

According to the Civil Code Russian Federation, a limited liability company (hereinafter referred to as LLC) is a commercial organization approved by one or more persons, authorized capital which is divided into shares determined by the constituent documents. Unlike a joint-stock company, the right to a share is confirmed not by a security or a share, but only by a certificate, which, in accordance with the charter of the LLC, can be issued to its founders.

1 . In vocabulary From the above excerpt, the following layers can be distinguished:

  • words that are called commonly used: participants, documents, society, persons, limited;
  • terms: shares, limited liability company, code, founder, authorized capital, share, commercial organization;
  • speech clichés: according to the code, in contrast to, in accordance with.

2. Let's look at the morphology the specified excerpt from the document. The following points should be highlighted here:

  • verbal nouns predominate: organization, founders, participants;
  • often there are nouns with the general meaning of persons: persons, participants;
  • stringing of nouns in the instrumental and genitive case: Unlike a joint-stock company, the right to a share is confirmed not by a security or share, but only by a certificate that, in accordance with the charter of the LLC, can be issued to its founders;
  • predominance of participles and gerunds over verbs.

3. Syntax. There are also interesting points here:

  • proposals are usually voluminous (in in this case we have two such sentences, and they completely constitute the given passage);
  • the sentences use direct word order: a limited liability company is recognized as..., the authorized capital... is divided;
  • According to the purpose of the statement in the above passage, all sentences are narrative;
  • a complex sentence is further complicated, firstly, participial phrases(defined by the constituent documents), and secondly, homogeneous members(According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, a limited liability company (hereinafter referred to as LLC) is a commercial organization approved by one or more persons, the authorized capital of which is divided into shares).

Excerpt from the document:

During the war in the village. Borovoe, 45 houses out of 77 survived. The collective farmers had 4 cows, 3 heifers, 13 sheep, 3 piglets. Most gardens personal plots, as well as Orchard with total area 2.7 hectares belonging to the Krasnaya Zarya collective farm were cut down. The damage caused by the Nazi invaders to the property of the collective farm and collective farmers is estimated at approximately 230,700 rubles.
There were 64 out of 370 residents in the village when our military units arrived.
There were cases of forcible removal of residents to work for the occupiers... Currently, it has been completely restored in the village. Borovoye farm of the collective farm "Red Dawn".

1. In vocabulary Let us note the following layers:

  • words of general use: survived, residents, gardens.
  • terms and established expressions: damage, removal, total area, Nazi invaders.
  • frequent speech clichés: remained in stock, the damage caused is calculated, took place, most of the gardens.
  • despite the rare inversion (there were cases of forcible removal), the word order is most often direct: most of the gardens... were cut down, the damage... was calculated, the inhabitants... were numbered;
  • a large number of numerals expressing statistical data: 4 cows, 3 heifers, 13 sheep, 3 piglets remained.

2. Let's analyze the morphology the given passage. As you can see, in this example the same as in the first:

  • verbal nouns and nouns with abstract meaning predominate: removal, work, occupiers, arrival, time, damage;
  • nouns having general meaning persons: residents, occupiers, collective farmers;
  • there is a stringing of nouns in the instrumental and genitive case: damage caused by the Nazi invaders of the property of the collective farm and collective farmers.

3. In syntax The following points should be noted:

  • sentences are cumbersome, usually dryly informative;
  • the order of words is direct: caused by the Nazi invaders of the property of the collective farm and collective farmers;
  • In terms of purpose, the statements are usually narrative, and in terms of intonation they are non-exclamatory.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the official business style is one of the most insidious. His formulations are so refined that they are firmly etched in the memory, and therefore clericalism and linguistic clichés actively penetrate into the books, making them look like a bad translation from a foreign language.

Remember: the facelessness and detachment of business-style vocabulary for good literature is a great evil. behind the words and expressions you choose for your stories and novels. And if bureaucracy has penetrated them, drive them out mercilessly!

Official business style is a style that serves the legal and administrative and public spheres of activity. It is used when writing documents, business papers and letters in government institutions, court, as well as in various types of business oral communication.

Among book styles, the official business style stands out for its relative stability and isolation. Over time, it naturally undergoes some changes, but many of its features: historically established genres, specific vocabulary, morphology, syntactic phrases - give it a generally conservative character.

The official business style is characterized by dryness, the absence of emotionally charged words, conciseness, and compactness of presentation.

In official papers, the set of linguistic means used is predetermined. The most striking feature of the official business style is linguistic cliches, or so-called cliches. A document is not expected to show the individuality of its author; on the contrary, the more clichéd a document is, the more convenient it is to use.

Official business style is the style of documents of different genres: international treaties, state acts, legal laws, regulations, charters, instructions, official correspondence, business papers, etc. But, despite the differences in content and variety of genres, the official business style as a whole is characterized by common and most important features. These include:

  • 1). accuracy, excluding the possibility of other interpretations;
  • 2). locale standard.

These traits find their expression:

  • a) in the selection of linguistic means (lexical, morphological and syntactic);
  • b) in the preparation of business documents.

Let's consider the features of official business style.

The main area in which the official business style operates is administrative and legal activity. This style satisfies the need of society for documenting various acts of state, social, political, economic life, business relations between the state and organizations, as well as between members of society in the official sphere of their communication.

Texts of official business style of speech represent a huge variety of genres: charter, law, order, regulation, contract, instruction, complaint, recipe, various kinds of statements, autobiography, explanatory note, questionnaire, statistical report, etc.

The expression of legal will in business documents determines the properties, main features business speech and socially organizing language use. Genres of official business style perform informational, prescriptive, and ascertaining functions in various fields activity, therefore the main form of implementation of this style is writing.

Despite the differences in the content of individual genres and the degree of their complexity, official business speech has common stylistic features: accuracy of presentation, which does not allow the possibility of differences in interpretation; detail of presentation; stereotyping, standard presentation; the dutifully prescriptive nature of the presentation. To this we can add such features as formality, rigor of expression of thought, objectivity, logic - which is characteristic of scientific speech.

The function of social regulation, which plays the most important role in official business speech, imposes on the corresponding texts the requirement of unambiguous reading. In this regard, each text should be characterized by such accuracy in the presentation of information that would not allow the possibility different interpretations. An official document will serve its purpose if its content is carefully thought out and its language is impeccable.

It is this goal that determines the standard design of many business documents (personnel records sheet, questionnaire, receipt for payment of housing and communal services, etc.).

Consider an example: “When studying any international agreement, and in particular an agreement on the elimination of double taxation, it is first necessary to clearly define its scope in two aspects:

  • - taxes covered by the agreement;
  • - territories covered by the agreement.”

Even in this short passage there are words and phrases with an official legal connotation (international agreement, double taxation, taxes), the phrase “needs to be determined” expressing the obligation, such features as the severity of expression of thought, impartial statement, complete impersonality of presentation.

The official business style is characterized by a tendency to reduce the number of meanings of words, up to narrow terminology. Therefore, texts of this style often give precise definitions the words and concepts used. Polysemy (polysemy), metaphorical use of words, use of words in figurative meanings are unacceptable, synonyms are used to an insignificant extent (as a rule, they belong to the same style).

Typical for business language are Difficult words, formed from two or more words: tenant, employer, material and technical, above mentioned, below named, etc. The formation of such words is explained by the desire of business language to accurately convey meaning and unambiguous interpretation. The same purpose is served by phrases of a “non-idiomatic” nature, for example, destination, higher education institution, tax return, Joint-Stock Company, housing cooperative, etc. The uniformity of such phrases and their high repetition lead to the clichédness of the linguistic means used, which gives the texts of an official business style a standard character.

Official business speech reflects not individual, but social experience, as a result of which its vocabulary is extremely generalized in semantic terms, i.e. Everything that is sharply unique, concrete, and unique has been eliminated, and the typical has been brought to the fore.

Business speech is characterized by the use of verbal nouns (replenishing the budget, providing housing, serving the population, taking measures) and participles (given, indicated, above-named). Complex denominative prepositions are widely used (in part, along the line, on the subject, in order to avoid, upon reaching, upon returning).

Typically, a sentence contains a fairly large amount of information and is designed to be read again. Simple sentences are often complicated by homogeneous members, which is due to the need to exhaust the subject of the message. Actively used passive designs; complex sentences with subordinate clause: “The procedure for conducting the meeting and examining additional evidence, if it has been presented, to the appellate instance is determined by the presiding officer. By general rule First, explanations from the persons participating in the case and their representatives are heard. First, the person who filed the appeal and his representative speak. In the event of an appeal by both parties, the plaintiff will act first.”

In this passage, the first sentence is a complex sentence with a subordinate clause. The following sentences contain several participles (participating, submitting), a passive verb (being heard), and a complex denominative preposition (in the case). Strict logic and precision of presentation determine the sequence of actions in the presented situation. This text acts as a regulation and establishes the procedure for considering an appeal.

Introduction

Currently, the term “rhetoric” is used in a narrow and broad sense. Rhetoric (in the narrow sense) is the designation of a philological discipline that studies the theory of eloquence, methods of constructing expressive speech in all areas speech activity(primarily in various oral and written genres). Rhetoric (in a broad sense) is called non-rhetoric or general rhetoric. Its rapid and productive development is caused by the emergence of new linguistic sciences - text linguistics, semiotics, hermeneutics, theory of speech activity, psycholinguistics. Neorhetoric is searching for ways practical application of these disciplines, is developed at the intersection of linguistics, literary theory, logic, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and psychology.

The goal of the work is to master the culture of business speech and communication, develop your own style of office relationships, and form an image.

For a management specialist or businessman, achieving this goal means acquiring the most important component of professional activity.

Thus, speech, communication skills, etiquette are the main “tools” for creating an image business man, i.e. self-presentation, constructing one’s image for others. A noble image guarantees a leader or entrepreneur half the success and constant satisfaction from work. We must not forget that harmonious communication is always based on awareness of the importance of life and adherence to ethical standards, such as tact, delicacy, respect for the honor and dignity of the individual, and justice. Intelligence as a quality of internal culture - a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people - is invariably reflected in external behavior and manifests itself in charm.

Features of official business style

Modern official business style is a functional variety of Russian literary language, used in the field of public relations. Business speech serves as a means of communication between states, the state with an individual and society as a whole; a means of communication between enterprises, institutions, organizations; a means of official communication between people in production and in the service sector.

The official business style refers to the bookish and written styles of the literary language. It is implemented in the texts of laws, orders, decrees, orders, agreements, acts, certificates, certificates, powers of attorney, in business correspondence institutions. The oral form of official business speech is represented by speeches and reports at meetings and conferences, judicial speech, office telephone conversations, and oral orders.

The general extralinguistic and actual linguistic features of this style include the following:

1) accuracy, detail of presentation;

2) standardization of presentation;

3) the obligatory prescriptive nature of the presentation.

Indeed, the language of laws requires, first of all, accuracy, not allowing any discrepancies; speed of understanding is not important, since the interested person, if necessary, will read the article of the law two or three times, striving for complete understanding. The standardization of the presentation is manifested in the fact that the heterogeneous phenomena of life in a business style fit into a limited number of standard forms.

Business speech is impersonal, stereotypical, and lacks an emotional element.

A specific property of business speech is the expression of will. Voluntariness in texts is expressed semantically (choice of words) and grammatically. Thus, in management documentation we constantly encounter first-person forms of the verb (I ask, I propose, I order, I congratulate), with modal forms, obligation (must, necessary, follows, proposed).

Depending on the scope of business speech and the stylistic originality of the corresponding texts, three substyles are usually distinguished within OA:

1) diplomatic (types of documents: international treaties, agreements, conventions, memoranda, notes, communiques, etc.; oral forms are practically not used);

2) legislative (types of documents such as laws, decrees, civil, criminal and other acts of state importance; the main oral form is judicial speech);

3) managerial (types of documents: charters, contracts, orders, instructions, statements, characteristics, powers of attorney, receipts, etc.; oral forms - report, speech, official phone conversation, oral order).

Diplomatic style. This variety of OA style serves the area international relations. The scope of documentation of the diplomatic substyle is law and to a greater extent than in other substyles. - politics, as it is associated with the implementation of the international policy of the state.

Legislative substyle. Legal documents are distinguished by greater stylistic and linguistic homogeneity than documents of other substyles. In these texts one can note the widespread use of legal terminology.

In the legislative substyle, abstract vocabulary is used and there is practically no expressive-emotional language means or evaluative vocabulary. Evaluative words of this kind, such as parasite, criminal, acquire terminological meaning in legal texts. There are many antonyms here, since legislative speech reflects opposing interests, contrasts and compares concepts: rights and obligations, work and rest, personal and public, plaintiff and defendant, crime and punishment, marriage registration and divorce, adoption of a child and deprivation of parental rights, voluntarily and compulsorily, withhold and accrue.

The language of laws had a great influence on the formation of the entire official business style; it has originally been the basis of business speech. Of course, the language of laws should be a model for the language of management documentation. But the managerial substyle, like the diplomatic one, has its own norms and linguistic diversity, determined by the content and composition of documents.

Managerial substyle. The scope of application of the managerial sub-style is various administrative and departmental, relations of production. The types of documents of the management sub-style differ most from each other in compositional, stylistic and linguistic terms.

In the texts of the managerial substyle, along with neutral and book vocabulary words and stable phrases with the coloring of an official business style are used (undersigned, proper, following, housing tax, lump sum allowance, notify).

The managerial substyle has its own administrative and managerial terminology, for example: the name of institutions, positions, types official documents. Due to the fact that this substyle serves different areas of social and production activities, a wide variety of terminology is used in the texts of the substyle. In official texts, it is not recommended to use synonyms, replacing with them the direct names of objects and actions. Unlike the legislative substyle, there are few antonyms here. In management sub-style texts, abbreviations, complex abbreviations, various means codification.

Only in the texts of the managerial substyle are used verb forms in the 1st person, sometimes personal pronouns. This is due to specification, with a precise indication of the author of the text. In the managerial style, verbs in the imperative mood are not used, and constructions with the words must and must are used relatively rarely. The meaning of obligation is softened in the texts by the use of such phrases as impute, oblige, impose an obligation.

Official business style. Stylistic features. Language features.

Among book styles, the official business style is the most clearly defined. It serves legal and administrative activities when communicating in government agencies, in court, during business and diplomatic negotiations: business speech provides the sphere of official business relations and functions in the field of law and politics. The official business style is implemented in the texts of laws, decrees, orders, instructions, contracts, agreements, orders, acts, in business correspondence of institutions, as well as in legal certificates, etc. Despite the fact that this style has undergone major changes under the influence of socio-historical changes in society, it stands out among others functional varieties language with its stability, traditionalism, isolation and standardization.

The authors of the textbook “Culture of Russian Speech” note: “Business style is a set of linguistic means, the function of which is to serve the sphere of official business relations, i.e. relations that arise between state bodies, between or within organizations, between organizations and individuals in the process of their production, economic, legal activity" And further: “The breadth of this sphere allows us to distinguish at least three substyles (varieties) of business style: 1) the actual official business style (clerical); 2) legal (the language of laws and decrees); 3) diplomatic."

Standardization of business speech (primarily the language of mass standard documentation) ¾ one of the most noticeable features of the official business style. The standardization process is developing mainly in two directions: a) the widespread use of ready-made, already established verbal formulas, stencils, stamps (for example, standard syntactic models with denominate prepositions in order, in connection with, in accordance with, etc., which is quite is natural, since it greatly simplifies and facilitates the process of compiling standard texts of business papers), b) in the frequent repetition of the same words, forms, phrases, structures, in the desire for uniformity in the ways of expressing thoughts in similar situations, in the refusal to use expressive means language.

The process of standardization of business speech is closely related to the process of phraseologization. This can be seen in examples of the use of verbonominants (verb-nominal phrases) in numerous documentation, which in business language become universal remedy and are often used instead of the verb forms that are parallel to them: provide assistance (instead of help), make repairs (instead of repair), carry out an investigation (instead of investigate), etc. Verbonominants widely penetrate into business language due to the fact that in some cases their use becomes mandatory (there is no other way to say it): to allow a marriage, to commit a crime, to perform duties, to take a position, to assign responsibility. Their meaning may not coincide with the meaning of the verbs parallel to them: the combination conduct competition is not identical to the verb compete. Verbonominants not only name the action, but also express certain additional semantic shades and accurately qualify certain phenomena. For example, hit-and-run is a terminological phrase that is the official name for a certain type of road accident.

Other features of the official business style (besides standardization) are accuracy, imperativeness, objectivity and documentation, specificity, formality, and conciseness.

The linguistic means of the official business style form a relatively closed system, the basis of which is specific units of three levels: lexical, morphological and syntactic.

At the lexical level, in addition to commonly used and neutral words, we can distinguish: a) words and phrases used mainly in official documents and fixed in administrative and clerical speech (proper, due, above, undersigned, failure to fulfill, forward, bearer, guarantor, protect rights and freedom, ensure equality, etc.); b) terms, professionalisms and phrases of a terminological nature, which is determined by the content of official documents (the most common terms are legal, diplomatic, accounting: act, collection, legislation, respondent, recall (ambassador), ratify, applicant, etc.).

Many of the words with the coloring of an official business style form antonymic pairs: plaintiff ¾ defendant, democracy ¾ dictatorship, punished ¾ acquitted, aggravating ¾ mitigating (circumstances), etc.

In connection with the streamlining of the approach to terminology, two concepts began to be distinguished: “vocabulary with the coloring of an official business style” and “clericalism”. The first name reflects the place of the corresponding words in the system of general literary language, their functional and stylistic coloring. For example, lexical units recipient (this) or due, non-subordinate, undersigned, compensation, appeal, collection, discovery, superior, etc. in business documents should be considered functionally colored. The second name, “clericalisms,” can refer to the same lexical units, but only when they are unintentionally used in a text with a different stylistic overtones, for example, in a journalistic or conversational style, i.e. in cases of functionally unjustified transfer. For example, in N. Kislik’s poem we read: “I am writing to you, ¾ everything to you. I have loaded the communication service to capacity...”. The phrase “communication service” can be attributed to clericalism (though it performs a certain stylistic function in this literary text). In the lexical system of the official business style, it is not clericalisms that function, but words with the coloring of the official business style. A specific feature of the lexical system of the official business style is also the presence in it of archaisms and historicisms, often used in the nominative function (for example, in the texts of diplomatic documents - assurance of respect, this, such, that, His Majesty, His Excellency, sir, etc. ). This style completely lacks slang, colloquial words, dialectisms, and words with an emotionally expressive connotation. Often used here are complex abbreviations for elephants, abbreviated names of various organizations and institutions (ZhREO, ZhES, research institutes, Central Design Bureau, KTS, Labor Code, student council, trade union committee, workshop, etc.).



The phraseology of the official business style also has specific features. There are no figurative phrases, no phrases with reduced stylistic coloring, etc. But stylistically neutral and cross-style phraseological units are very widely represented (to have meaning, to play a role, to hold a position, scope of application, to cause damage, location, etc.). There is also a frequent use of expressions related to assessment, but devoid of any expressiveness: to be, to be at the level of something; bottleneck; common place, etc. In the official business style, standard figures of speech are frequent, stable in nature, containing denominative prepositions, indicating the nature of the motivation for actions such as in connection with the instruction, stay, order (Ministry, head office, management), in accordance with the achieved by agreement (agreement), in order to provide technical (material, production) assistance, etc. In the language of official documents, they perform the same function as stable combinations such as take note, take into account, bring to attention, etc. A characteristic feature of this style is the functioning of attributive-nominal phrases such as: conviction, writ of execution, disciplinary sanctions, acquittal, preliminary investigation, cassation appeal, higher authorities, established procedure.

It should also be noted the purely nominal nature of the official business style. The same noun in business texts can be repeated even in adjacent sentences and not be replaced by a pronoun. In colloquial speech or in a literary text, such use would be qualified as a tautology (unjustified repetition of the same word). In an official business style, such repetitions are functionally determined, since with their help it is possible to avoid misinterpretations. For example:

The territory of the Republic of Belarus is a natural condition of existence and the spatial limit of self-determination of the people, the basis of their well-being and sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus.

The territory of Belarus is united and inalienable.

The territory is divided into regions, districts, cities and other administrative-territorial units. The administrative-territorial division of the state is determined by legislation (Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, Art. 9).

In the official business style, nouns are widely used that name people on the basis of some action or relationship: adoptive parent, tenant, plaintiff, defendant, witness, tenant, applicant, etc. The use of nouns denoting positions and ranks in this style is possible only in the masculine form: police officer Lavrenova, witness Vilchinskaya, applicant Fedorova, etc.

Verbal nouns with -nie, -enie are widely represented in the official business style: execution, notification, offense, resolution, resolution (of disputes), subordination, division, etc.; Verbal nouns with the prefix non- are high-frequency: non-election, non-recognition, non-return, shortfall, non-fulfillment, etc.

A striking feature of the official business style is the use of denominate prepositions in it: by virtue of, for the purpose of, in part, on the subject, in the name of, in the course of, etc. (in accordance with the plan of scientific, technical and cultural cooperation; in order to improve the teaching of Russian language in universities; in case of failure by the administration to comply with the decision of the commission; higher authorities in the order of subordination; list No. 2 compared to list No. 1; in case of recognition of valid reasons).

To indicate cause and effect, the preposition by with the dative case is used: for family reasons, for illness, for good reasons, etc.

To indicate a period, the prepositions from - to, and not from ¾ to: from 1983 to 1989 (and not: from 1983 to 1989) are usually used.

Numerals in official business style are written in numbers, with the exception of such monetary documents, such as bills, powers of attorney, receipts, etc.

A feature of the official business style is also the predominant use of the infinitive compared to other verbal forms. For example:

Everyone has the right to independently determine their attitude to religion, to profess any religion alone or jointly with others or not to profess any, to express and disseminate beliefs related to their attitude to religion, to participate in the performance of religious cults, rituals, and ceremonies not prohibited by law (Constitution of the Republic Belarus, art. 31).

Of the conjugated ones here, the forms of verbs most often used are the present tense, the so-called “present instructions”: If the defense attorney is unable to appear within this period, the investigator takes the measures provided for in part 3 of Article 47 of this Code (Fundamentals of Criminal Proceedings). The meaning of this form is to indicate the action that the law requires to be performed, i.e. on what should be done.

The imperative nature of speech, which presupposes subsequent obligatory actions of the addressee, requires completeness and accuracy of expression in this style. This largely explains the complexity of the syntax of official business speech, which reflects the tendency towards detail and classification, towards consideration in the unity of the stating and prescriptive sides, cause-and-effect and conditional-effect relationships.

The syntactic features of the style under consideration are closely related to lexical and morphological ones. High-frequency constructions are with denominal prepositions:

For the purpose of reviewing the progress made by States Parties in fulfilling the obligations undertaken in accordance with this Convention, a Committee on the Rights of the Child shall be established which shall perform the functions provided for below.

The initial elections to the Committee shall be held no later than six months from the date of entry into force of this Convention (Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 43).

It is not uncommon to use constructions containing an infinitive with the meaning of must, for example: Decisions made by the meeting must be announced to everyone working at the enterprise. Simple sentences with homogeneous members are widespread, the number of which sometimes reaches ten or more: Training in higher educational institutions is carried out on the basis of achievements modern science and technology, in conditions of close integration educational process with scientific, practical (creative) activities of students and teachers. For this purpose, research institutions, laboratories, educational, production and research enterprises, design, engineering and technological bureaus, workshops, other enterprises and organizations specialized in training specialists are created in higher educational institutions or at them (Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Education in Republic of Belarus”, Article 20).

In the official business style, compared to others, the use of passive constructions increases significantly. For example:

It should be borne in mind that these changes are made only to the birth certificate (in both copies). A new birth certificate is issued (the old one is destroyed) (Commentary to the Code on Marriage and Family of the Republic of Belarus).

Complex sentences (especially with subordinate clauses) are widespread in the style under consideration. For example:

A judge does not have the right to accept an application to establish paternity if a certain person is indicated as the father in the child’s birth record. The application is refused on the basis of clause 9 of Art. 125 Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus.

If the birth of a child has not yet been registered with the registry office, then the application is refused on the basis of clause 9 of Art. 125 Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus (Comments to the Code on Marriage and Family of the Republic of Belarus).

Word order is often used in which the rheme of the preceding sentence becomes the theme of the subsequent one, which contributes to a special logical cohesion of statements in a coherent text. For example: The Executive Committee issues a warrant for the occupation of residential premises. The order specifies its validity period. During this period, the order must be submitted to the house management (from the instructions).

IN simple sentences the usual is: a) placing the subject before the predicate; b) definitions ¾ before the word being defined; c) circumstances ¾ closer to the word being defined; d) introductory words ¾ at the beginning of the sentence (see examples above).

The complexity of the syntax of the official business style is most often created due to specific distributors in phrases and the abundance of homogeneous members in the listed series:

States Parties recognize the important role of the media and ensure that the child has access to information and materials from a variety of national and international sources, especially those aimed at promoting social, spiritual and moral well-being, as well as healthy physical and mental health. mental development child. To this end, participating States:

a) encourage the media to disseminate information and materials that are socially and culturally beneficial to the child, and in the spirit of Article 29;

b) encourage international cooperation in the preparation, exchange and dissemination of such information and materials from various cultural, national and international sources;

c) encourage the production and distribution of children's literature;

d) encourage the media to focus on special attention the linguistic needs of a child belonging to a minority group or indigenous population (Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 17).

Most often found in official business documents coordinating conjunctions, For example:

Students of higher education and students of secondary specialized and vocational schools educational institutions have the right to conclude contracts with enterprises and organizations in the manner determined by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus. Contracts may provide for partial or full payment of the cost of training, payment of scholarships and other conditions, as well as obligations of students or students (Law “On Education in the Republic of Belarus”, Article 30).

A feature of the syntax of this style is also the predominant use indirect speech. Direct speech is resorted to only when legislative acts and other documents are quoted verbatim.

Some syntactic complexity of the official business style is compensated for by clichés and standardization. Sometimes mastering them requires special training. If it is necessary to use clichés on a large scale, printed forms and certain forms are used, which are given in special reference books.

In addition to all these features, the style in question also has some other characteristics. For example, the heading and paragraph division of texts, as well as the so-called details (permanent elements): title of the document, indication of the addressee and author, statement of the essence of the case, date and signature of the author (person or organization), etc., play an important role. The person preparing this or that document needs to know the amount of details, their relationship and sequence of presentation. This forms the form of the document. Below are examples of some business papers.

To the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov

Professor Smirnov A.I.

Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science Melnikov F.I.

Characteristic for legal, administrative and social activities. For such a phenomenon as the culture of speech, the official business style is very important, because with its help documents and business papers relating to government tasks, court cases and diplomatic communication are drawn up. It is characterized by isolation, stability of many speech patterns, specific vocabulary and special syntactic patterns. Documents written in a formal business manner are compact and filled with cliches and linguistic cliches. These are international treaties, government decrees and acts, legal laws and court decisions, various charters and official correspondence, as well as other types of business papers that differ in the accuracy of presentation and language standard.

This is a special culture of speech. The official business style, in addition to cliches and language clichés, includes an abundance of professional terminology and archaisms. When using this style, ambiguous words are not used at all. Documents also avoid synonyms, and if they are used, their style is also strictly adhered to and the vocabulary is, as it were, shackled within a framework, beyond which it is prohibited.

But the official business style uses nouns in abundance, naming people based on their activities; positions are always called in the masculine gender. Words with a particle are often used not as antonyms for the same words when they are used without a negative particle. Complex and infinitives are also popular in business documents to denote actions performed or being performed. Quite a large place in this style of speech is given to complex words.

Formal business style gives preference to homogeneous members. Passive constructions are also often used, that is, impersonal offers without specifying the person performing the action. The genitive case of nouns forms a chain syntactic constructions, proposals are often very common and burdened with subordinate clause conditions.

The official business style has two varieties: official-documentary and everyday business. The first group is the language of such legislative acts as the Constitutions of the Russian Federation and its constituent entities, charters and programs of parties, as well as diplomatic documents of international importance, such as communiqués, memorandums, conventions, etc. The second group includes the language used in the process of conducting official correspondence and drawing up private business papers. These include a variety of certificates, business letters, powers of attorney, announcements, statements, receipts, autobiographies, etc. It is known how standardized the listed papers are, which greatly facilitates their preparation. The information they contain is brief and used in minimal quantities.

It is known that English is a means of international communication. Therefore, formal business style in English used in diplomatic settings when business papers need to be translated. The types of business speech in this case are determined by the sphere of use. Trade agreements and contracts are conducted in the style of commercial correspondence. In the legal field, the language of codes, statutes, state and parliamentary decisions is used. The language of militarized business papers stands out separately.

Thus, the official business style of the English language is intended to serve as a tool with the help of which the parties understand the essence of the matter, which leads to the signing of various agreements.

Share