Unit 2 The Style of Official Documents

The style of official documents is not homogeneous and is represented by four major substyles: the language of business documents; the language of legal documents; the language of diplomacy; the language of military documents.

This style has a definite communicative aim and, accordingly, has its own system of interrelated language and stylistic means. The main aim of this type of communication is to state the condition binding two parties in an undertaking. Put otherwise, the aim of communication in this style of language is to reach agreement between two contracting parties. Even protest against violations of statutes, contracts, regulations, etc., can also be regarded as a form by which normal cooperation is sought on the basis of previously attained concordance. While each variety of the style has its own special characteristics, there are features that are common to all varieties. Among these features are the following: the prevalent use of words in their logical dictionary meaning (in military documents metaphorical names are sometimes given to mountains, rivers, hills or villages); avoidance of words with emotive meanings except those which are used in business letters as conventional phrases of greeting, close, thanks, gratitude, etc. (Dear Sir; Sincerely yours; We appreciate your participation); the use of abbreviations (M.P.), conventional symbols ($), contractions (info); the use of a special system of clichs (We hereby confirm), terms (revenue) and terminological expressions (liability to profit tax); the use of established and non-flexible compositional design; restricted choice of syntactic patterns; fixed paragraphing; the use of genre-specific morphological forms and function words.

All the distinctive properties of the style of official documents appear as a system. This means that the style is recognizable not only through its vocabulary and/or lexical characteristics of particular words and expressions. Syntactic patterns and methods of text structuring characterizing the style are equally significant, though in some cases not always immediately apparent.

Exercises Exercise 1. The following two letters are written in two different styles: letter 1 (to a friend) - in an informal style, letter 2 (to insurance company) in a formal style. Match the italicized colloquial expressions in letter 1 with their literary (including bookish) equivalents given after the letter and fill in the gaps in letter 2 using these equivalents in the appropriate grammatical form.

Letter 1 (An extract from letter to a friend) A week ago, I parked my car in the street, which I dont normally do, instead of in the car park where I work. On that day I wanted to make a quick start to my journey home. At 5 oclock, when I got to my car, I couldnt believe it someone had smashed into it. Actually, the damage wasnt too bad it wasnt a write-off and the car would still go. Then I spotted an envelope tucked under the wipers. At first, I thought it would contain the name and address of the driver who had done the damage but I was mistaken. There was a note saying sorry and two tickets for the best seats at that musical thats been sold out for months. The tickets are like gold dust so I wasnt complaining! Mary and I went the next night and we had a great time. When we got back home, we found that burglars had robbed us of thousands of pounds worth of valuables and left a note saying, Hope you enjoyed the show. Clearly, they knew we would be out and had made the most of the situation! Equivalent expressions in a formal style: (a) was fairly minor; (b) took advantage of; (c) without delay; (d) apology; (e) usually; (f) my assumption was incorrect; (g) the company car park; (h) returned; (i) to my surprise / disbelief; (j) unobtainable / impossible to obtain; (k) could still be driven; (l) very good / excellent; (m) it had been involved in a collision; (n) my initial assumption was [].

Letter 2 (An extract from letter to insurance company) On 12 December, contrary to my (0) usual practice, which is to park my car in (1) , I left it in the street next to the car park. On that particular day I wished to commence my homeward journey (2) .. . At 5 p.m. I left my office and walked to the car. To (3) it had, while parked, been (4) with another vehicle. There was some damage, fairly (5) to the front of the car, but it (6) .. . I observed, under the windscreen wipers, a white envelope. My (7) assumption that it would contain the name and address of the driver who had damaged my car proved to be (8) ......................... . There was no name and address but there was a note of (9) . And, as compensation, two (10) to a popular musical for which tickets are almost (11) . These tickets seemed a suitable recompense for the damage to the car. The next evening I attended the theatre, accompanied by my wife, and enjoyed the show very much. You can imagine our horror when, on (12) . home late at night, we found that our house had been burgled and thousands of pounds worth of valuables had been stolen. There was also another note, obviously from the burglars which said, Hope you enjoyed the show. Clearly, they had taken (13) . of the certain knowledge that we would be out of the house in order to perpetrate this crime.

Exercise 2. The following texts represent different kinds of official papers. However, in each text the level of formality has been disrupted at various points by the insertion of inappropriate vocabulary. Pinpoint the places where it happens, and suggest some other vocabulary items which would be more in keeping with the style of the passage.

Text 1 (Letter from a bank manager to a customer) Dear Ms Allen, Thank you for your letter of 1st September, requesting overdraft facilities of $500. In order that this overdraft facility can be granted we would first need sight of your contract of employment. Would you therefore kindly inform us of the School at which you will now be earning your daily crust. Yours sincerely, A. Curtis

Text 2 (Teachers report) James needs to realize that success is the result of hard work and consistent effort. At present, he is being a real pain because he is so bone idle in class. If he wishes to do well in the examination, and achieve a grade which will do justice to his considerable ability, he must pull his socks up and sharpish. Text 3 (Memo from a university professor to his staff) Can I remind you that travel claims must be submitted promptly. Other departments, I learn, are not paying claims which are more than two months late. In particular, please remember that the financial year end is now 31st July. Claims not submitted by 15th August will be substantially delayed by year-end procedures, and screw up our budgeting. Please get your claims in on time.

Text 4 (Extract from a hotel brochure) Reception of Guests The Hotel endeavors to have rooms ready to receive guests by noon, and it is hoped that departing guests will courteously assist in making this possible by getting a move on and not hanging about in bedrooms on the day of departure.