合同是約定當事人權(quán)利義務(wù)的正式文件,對英文合同中的語言的要求不同于一般基礎(chǔ)英語或者文學作品.Martin Joos按照語言使用的正式程度提出了英語的五種變體,即莊重文體、正式文體、商議文體、隨便文體和親密文體.一般認為合同英語屬于莊重文體,即文體中正式程度最高的一種.合同英語在詞匯和句法等方面具有鮮明的文體特征.

　　如何起草一份優(yōu)秀的合同

　　寫完合同的初稿算是一項大工程取得了階段性的勝利。不過這還不是放松的時候，你需要認真的檢查初稿，改正錯誤和矛盾的地方。

　　1.Let your secretary or paralegal read it. Not only will your staff frequently find spelling and grammar errors missed by your word processor's spell checker, but they will find inconsistencies and confusing areas that you missed when drafting.

　　讓你的秘書或者助手閱讀你草擬的合同。你的同事不僅能幫你檢查到你的文字處理軟件沒有查到的拼寫和語法錯誤，而且他們還能發(fā)現(xiàn)你起草時沒有察覺到的矛盾和混淆之處。

　　2.Check spelling, paragraph numbering, and cross references both manually and with your word processor's spelling and grammar checker. This almost goes without saying today, especially since Microsoft Word now checks your spelling and grammar as you type. (Unfortunately it also changes "per stirpes" to "per stupid" if you fail to watch it closely.) And now there are even computer programs that check contract documents for undefined terms. DealProof is packaged with Corel WordPerfect for law offices, and DocProofReader is available for download for MS Word 97 and 2000.

　　核實合同的拼寫情況、段落序號以及上下文的注解，你可以自己手動來做，也可以用文字編輯軟件中的拼寫和語法檢查功能來完成，特別是自從有了微軟的word軟件后，做這樣的工作你似乎不要費多少精力(但機器有時也不可靠，如果你不看仔細，它就會把“per stirpes”改成 “per stupid”)?，F(xiàn)在，有些專業(yè)的軟件甚至可以幫你檢測到合同中沒有釋義的術(shù)語，如：Corel公司專門為法律辦公開發(fā)的文字處理軟件包中的DealProof軟件，還有可供word97和word2000下載安裝的DocProofReader軟件。

　　3. Stamp "Draft #1 6/22/2000" on it. This may be the first of many drafts, so avoid confusion early by numbering and dating all drafts at the top of the first page. It is also a good idea to write "DRAFT" across the face of each draft to preclude the possibility of an impatient client signing a draft rather than waiting for the final version.

　　在合同上注明“第一稿于2000年6月22日”，第一稿完成后，可能還要草擬幾個版本，為了避免他混淆，最好在每份草稿首頁的頂部注上序號和起草時間。另外，在每一個版本的封面上注明“草稿”字樣，也能夠避免你那急躁的客戶不等到最后的定稿文本就急于簽字。

　　4. Let your client read it. Letting the client in on reading the first draft assures that your drafting will stay in tune with the client's wishes.

　　讓你的客戶讀你草擬的合同。這樣可以確保你起草的東西和客戶的愿望相符。

　　5. Save the drafts as multiple files on your computer. If you save the first draft on your computer as two files, you will have one file identified as the first draft and the other identified as the current version. This can be done by naming the current version "contract" and the first draft as "contract.d1." Then, subsequent versions can be named "contract.d2", "contract.d3," etc., where the "d" in the extension indicates draft.

　　在電腦中將草擬的合同多保存幾個復(fù)本。如果你將第一稿合同存了兩份在電腦中，那么其中的一份可以用來存檔，另一份則可以用來繼續(xù)修改。用來存檔的文件可以命名為“合同.草1”。用來修改的文件可以命名為“合同”。以此類推，以后修改的版本就命名為“合同.草2”，“合同.草3”，等等。帶“草”字的擴展名表示此合同是草擬版本。

　　6. Compare the current version to prior versions. If you save draft versions, it is very easy to compare one version to another using the word processor's compare feature or using the CompareRite computer program. When you compare "contract.d1" to "contract.d2", save the comparison as "contract.c21" and print it to show the client what changes were made.

　　將當前的草擬版本和以前的版本進行比較。如果你存了很多個草擬版本，那么你就可以很容易地用文字處理軟件或者是CompareRite軟件來比較分析兩個合同版本。當你用軟件比較“合同.草1”和“合同.草2”兩個版本時，最好將軟件的分析結(jié)果打印出來給客戶看，讓他知道變化在哪里。