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Language requirements for official document writing

First, accurate

Seriously distinguish the meaning of words

Some writers in the West say that to express one thing, only one noun is accurate; to describe a state, only one adjective is accurate; to illustrate an action, only one verb is accurate. One of the main tasks of writing is to find this accurate noun, adjective, and verb. This is not necessarily true for literary creation, because literary language is not conventional, and the writer's creative language has its own characteristics and qualities, and it is difficult to say which words are absolutely accurate. This is used for official document writing, but it is more exact.

In Chinese, there are a large number of vocabulary with the same meaning or similar meaning, called synonym or synonym. In fact, even if it is a synonym, there are subtle differences in detail. For example, "excellent", "excellent", "excellent", these three words look similar, and a closer look has a degree of difference. “Invigoration”, “Agitated” and “Inciting” are not different from the direction and intensity of the action, but the emotional color is very different. Writing a document must be carefully considered in the nuances and emotional colors of the words.

Pay attention to grammar and logic

The normative nature of the document writing language is reflected in the sentence is that the sentence is grammatical and logical.

First, the sentence components should be complete. Chinese sentence structure has six kinds of sentence components: subject, predicate, guest, fixed, shape, and complement. Among them, subject, predicate and object are the main components, and attributive, adverbial and complement are supplementary sentence components. For each sentence, the backbone component is not necessarily unnecessary, but the omitted rules are omitted, and cannot be arbitrarily omitted and unreasonably disabled. For example: “The practice of factory leaders has been warmly welcomed by the whole factory staff. They have a high evaluation of their style of contact with the people and seeking truth from facts.” The latter sentence will be fragmented. Who gives the evaluation? The subject is missing, the grammar rules are violated, and the meaning is not understood.

Second, the collocation between the words in the sentence should be appropriate. Words must be matched with each other and must conform to the affair and habits. Otherwise, it will not work. Such as: "This spirit is full of villages and has spread all over the town." The spirit is invisible, saying that it is full of a certain space, it is already very reluctant, and that it has spread all over the corner, it is nonsense. . It was considered that the "flower of spiritual civilization has spread throughout the town".

Third, the sentence must be logical. Some sentences have no grammatical problems, but there are logical errors such as juxtaposition and self-contradictory. Such as: "They have strengthened the ideological education of the members and the youth." The members are part of the youth, and the members and the youth cannot be juxtaposed with each other. “All the agricultural products are basically included in the planning track.” “All” means all, “Basic” means incomplete, and the meaning of their expression creates contradictions. The reader does not know which meaning of the word is credible. Nothing to do.

Second, concise

Precise language, one to ten

In life, we all have the experience that sometimes one or two words can express the meaning of the words clearly and completely; sometimes, after saying a lot of words, the meaning to be expressed is still unclear. In theory, the mature language created by human beings is enough to express the conventional thoughts and emotions of human beings. As for the complex and subtle state of mind in literary works, sometimes it can only be understood, not eloquent, and can only be expressed by images. It does not appear often in official document writing. The reason why the useful words in the official document writing still have a lot of meanings is still not understood. Most of the cases are due to inaccurate terms, so I have to add sentences to make up for it. The result is that "the more words, the more chaotic."

Try to use short sentences

During the May Fourth period, the written language of modern Chinese was still immature. Many writers used the syntax of Europeanization to write articles. The sentences were written long, and the internal components of the sentences were many. Although they read different flavors, readers often need to repeat them repeatedly. In order to understand the complex meaning of the sentence. This phenomenon is now very rare. The practice of the famous writer Lao She is worthy of recognition. He said that he wrote articles and always liked to write short sentences, seven or eight words and one sentence, and ten words or so. He believes that writing this way, the reader is good to read, and the meaning is concise and clear. Some people have counted his famous article "Winter in Jinan", saying that there are only six sentences in more than 11 words, and only two sentences in more than 14 words. Please see the following sentence:

If there is sunshine alone, it is not surprising. Please close your eyes and think: an old city, there are mountains and water, all under the blue sky, very warm and comfortable to sleep, just wait for the spring breeze to wake them up, is this an ideal realm? Lao She used such a short sentence to write an exquisite and beautiful article! Although official documents and literature are different languages, the basic truth is the same. In order to be concise, you may wish to learn the old house.

Appropriate use of classical words

When I talked about the patterning of official languages, I have already talked about the inheritance of official documents to classical Chinese words. One of the main reasons for inheriting the words of classical Chinese is that classical Chinese words are more refined than modern Chinese. For example, the words "received by letter" should be replaced by "received letter, content is known", the text is doubled, but the meaning has not increased at all. And this is not really vernacular. It is necessary to change to "Your letter we received, and the contents have been read after reading", is the real vernacular, but isn't that a big sight?

In the use of classical Chinese words, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that it is not allowed to be swallowed and eaten, and that it should be appropriate, effective, natural, and fluid. An instruction written by Zhou Enlai in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China was a model for using words in classical Chinese:

Inspecting the cultural relics of our country with historical and cultural values, in the era of reactionary rule, there was often collusion between officials and businessmen, and smuggling and exporting, which caused great loss to China’s cultural heritage. Nowadays, the reactionary regime has been overthrown and the land and sea transportation has been unblocked. In order to prevent the cultural relics from continuing to be scattered, the "Provisional Measures for the Prohibition of the Export of Cultural Relics Books" has been enacted, and it is issued with the order.

In this passage, the ancient classical Chinese and the modern vernacular are perfectly combined, concise and clear, natural and smooth, and there is absolutely no staleness.

Third, simple

Not artificial, not born

Generous, solemn and simple, it is the basic style of official language. The official language language is taboo, artificial, and sleazy. In the "After the Beidou Magazine", Mr. Lu Xun once said that "no adjectives such as no one can be created without knowing others." Mao Zedong also made a similar opinion in "The Eighth Party of the Opposition," saying: "We have too many things to create", in short, 'no one knows.'" In the current practice of official document writing, this phenomenon It has not been completely eliminated.

There are two reasons for contrived and created: one is the illusion caused by vanity, thinking that the more the language is, the more it can show the author's talent, so he bluntly creates some new words that he thinks superb and show off to others. Another reason is that the use of words has not yet reached the level of handy, and its meaning can not be accurately analyzed. As long as you are correct in style and study hard, these problems are not difficult to overcome.

It is not a beautiful thing, it is not a fake, it is also a taboo of the official language. For example, praise a doctor for his medical skills, he said that he is "contemporary Hua Tuo"; medical virtue is noble, he said that he is "contemporary Bethune." When someone says that they work hard, they can't move and say that he has lost his sleep and forget to eat. He even said that he kept his job in the workplace for several days and nights. These beautiful words are neither true nor touching, and the effects are often counterproductive. Others are keen on some empty and frivolous words, such as: "The first-hand leader personally grasps, the members of the county committee are arrested, the members in charge are seriously grasped, the competent departments directly grasp, the relevant departments cooperate, the village party committees grasp the layers," these languages, maybe it The author is quite proud of himself, thinking that he has seized the experience and wrote a literary talent. In fact, there are nonsense and no experience at all; the words of the illusion are also not mentioned above.

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