Basic requirements of language use in official document writing

Basic requirements of language use in official document writing

As a public official, writing written materials is a very necessary skill. Some young people don't want to suffer. It is difficult to identify words as official document writing. In fact, mastering basic skills is very simple. What are the basic requirements for language use in official document writing? The following is for reference only!

Lenin pointed out: "Language is the most important communication tool for human beings." As a tool to reflect official activities, official documents are naturally inseparable from language, which is formed on the basis of refining oral language and conforms to grammar, rhetoric and logical norms.

The language of official documents is an extremely important issue in official document writing. It can be said that an official document, no matter how correct, vivid and profound its theme is, how sufficient, detailed and concrete its materials are, and how clever, reasonable and decent its structure is, will not achieve satisfactory results without perfect and standardized language as the carrier. Therefore, the use of language is directly related to the quality of official documents. Readers' understanding and mastery of the contents of documents, until they put them into practice, are achieved through the intermediary of language. Therefore, in writing, we must be cautious, work hard on "crawling, picking and grinding", seriously study and master the language characteristics and application rules of official documents, and write standardized and high-quality official documents to meet the needs of work.

Official documents are documents used by state organs, social organizations, enterprises and institutions in their official activities to deal with official business and play a role in contacting, conveying or announcing to the public. Official documents are very practical, and their contents are directly related to all fields of social life, to the work, study and life of people from all walks of life, and can have a direct or even immediate impact, which determines that official documents have language characteristics different from literary and artistic works and political articles. Therefore, for official document writing, the following requirements must be met in language use.

True and accurate.

Truth and accuracy are the life of official documents. Truthfulness, accuracy and truthfulness are the most basic and important requirements for a good writing style.

Reality means that it did happen. The materials written in official documents must come from the reality of official activities and the construction of socialist market economy, and from the life practice of the people, and shall not be fabricated or fabricated; Accurately speaking, it means not exaggerating, shrinking, embellishing, improperly praising or criticizing, and not whitewashing. Only when the content is true and accurate can it be convincing. Therefore, no matter what kind of official document you write, you must do "three don't write", that is, the content is not true, the materials are not implemented, and the understanding is not clear. To this end, in writing, we must do:

(1) Avoid ambiguity. A sentence or a paragraph can be understood in one way or another, which is called ambiguity. For example, one of the company's regulations on bonuses is: "If the sick leave or personal leave exceeds three days, the bonus of the current month will be deducted." This sentence can be understood as not deducting the three-day sick leave bonus, but also as deducting the three-day sick leave bonus. Because there is no limit to the base of "more than three days" in the contents of official documents, it is puzzling whether "more than three days" includes or not. So understanding and execution are different.

(2) Prevent improper praise and criticism. Praise or belittle an act, and the words used exceed or fail to reach the proper level, is called improper praise or belittle. For example, if someone completes a specific task under difficult conditions and says that he has made great achievements in reporting praise, it is overestimated; On the other hand, if only the success of China's first manned spacecraft test is regarded as a great achievement of socialist modernization, its significance is underestimated. Another example is to say "mistake" as "crime", which confuses the nature of the problem; The wording "the mistake is extremely serious and should be criticized" belongs to the fact that the degree of the mistake is not commensurate with the measures taken and is not handled properly. This similar language expression is inappropriate and inappropriate.

(3) Eliminate negligence, mistakes and omissions. There are many kinds of mistakes and omissions in official documents. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two categories: one is caused by carelessness. For example, in the process of drafting official documents, it is said that "there are four points below", but in fact only three points have been said, or a fifth point has appeared; "On the one hand" was mentioned before, but "On the other hand" was missing behind. Sometimes it is missed, thousands of miles away, for example, missing a word "no" means the opposite; Write one more "zero" or one less "zero" when quoting numbers, which is ten times different; If you mistake "100000" for "10", it's ten thousand times worse. Mistakes and omissions caused by carelessness are not difficult to find and correct after careful inspection. There is also a kind of mistakes and omissions caused by poor thinking and analysis skills, such as lack of necessary information and due analysis when reaching a conclusion, or listing situations and figures without subsequent argumentation.

(4) Pay attention to the proper use of words. Proper wording means that the wording should be consistent with the style of the official document written. The promulgation of government decrees should be solemn, the good news should be warm and cheerful, the wrong views should be rationally and forcefully refuted, and the requirements should be peaceful and euphemistic. In the official documents submitted for approval, the language should be humble and polite, and at the end, "hope", "please" and "instructions" should be used to show the respect of subordinates to superiors; The style of opinion documents should be rigorous, thorough and clear, and pleading tone should not be used; The language of imperative official documents must be firm and unambiguous to avoid ambiguity; Wait a minute.

(2) Rigorous and solemn.

The so-called rigor means that official documents should be rigorous and comprehensive in declaration and reasoning, clear in organization, strict in logic, consistent and accurate in language meaning. This is determined by the practicality and authority of official documents. Any official document cannot be justified if it is written in vain and the language is inconsistent. This can not only reflect the rigorous and thorough work style of the organs, but also bring losses to the work. For example, official documents used to convey and implement the principles and policies of the party and the state and issue administrative regulations may be exploited by people who "have policies above and countermeasures below" if there is a slight omission in language expression. Therefore, the language of official documents should be impeccable and impeccable. Similarly, when dealing with other official documents, we should also strive to be rigorous and avoid mistakes.

Directly related to rigor is that the language of official documents must be solemn. The so-called solemnity means solemnity, and the style of writing is solemnity. Only when the language is solemn, there are no empty words and floating sentences, and there is no literary atmosphere, the official documents written will be more rigorous.

Language rigor is first and foremost a matter of ideological understanding. Only deep understanding and rigorous thinking can ensure the rigor of language expression. Secondly, the problem of language cultivation. Profound professional knowledge, accurate and appropriate words, can also ensure the rigor of the language. Therefore, in the process of writing, we must limit the words we choose, and we should not limit them casually when we should not, so as to avoid complications and mistakes. For example, in the sentence "be thrifty and avoid unnecessary waste", the word "unnecessary" here is redundant, because "waste" is "unnecessary" and deliberately restricted, resulting in complexity, but there are loopholes. The definition of some keywords should also be rigorous and meticulous to prevent ambiguity. For example, the definition of "accounting is an economic manager" is too broad, but it should be "accounting is a person with general financial accounting professional knowledge and can undertake general accounting work", so the definition is more accurate and rigorous.

In the long-term writing practice, the official document language has gradually formed a distinct solemn language family, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, it follows the classical Chinese vocabulary. Words such as "Zi", "Zi Yin", "On this occasion" and "Surprised to learn" are widely used in official documents, showing elegance and solemnity. The second is special vocabulary. Such as "appointment and dismissal", "dismissal", "submission" and "examination" are basically not used in official documents, and have a strong solemn color. Third, even syllable words are widely used, such as compound words and phrases such as "destroy", "conceal", "inform" and "praise", which are used neatly and symmetrically in official documents; The use of four-word idioms in official documents, such as breaking the law and discipline, not doing proper business, helping others, self-denial, honesty and honesty, and pleasing people's hearts, is also solemn and elegant. Fourthly, rhetoric devices such as antithesis and parallelism are widely used. For example, "change the way of working and improve work efficiency"; "Some ..., some ..., some ..." and so on. , it appears that the sentence pattern is neat, the syllable is symmetrical, and it is solemn and rigorous. The fifth is to use prepositional structure. Commonly used prepositions mainly include "for", "evidence", "about", "through", "except" and "right". Proper use can make the tone of writing solemn and clear.

(c) Be concise and to the point, with no nonsense.

Because official documents are used to reflect the situation of official activities, solve practical problems in official activities, and are an important tool for issuing organs to exercise their functions and powers to implement management, they should be written as vividly, concisely and not empty as possible. Concise and to the point means that the language used in official documents should be precise, not complicated, not long and vague, not concise, that is, it should obey the writing purpose and the need to express the main idea. The details should be detailed, and the ellipsis should be brief, so as to express the richest content with the least number of words. To this end, we should pay attention to the following three aspects:

(1) Understand clearly and grasp the essence; State the facts and grasp the key; To clarify opinions and put forward opinions and methods, we must grasp the center and conform to the actual business. The conciseness of official documents is related to the author's clear understanding and short content. It begins with a metaphor and ends with a sentence. If the official document author has a one-sided and superficial understanding of what he wants to reflect, then the official document he wrote must be meaningless.

(2) Be good at summarizing and grasping the characteristics of things. Today's world has entered the "information age". Faced with a large amount of information, document writers must be good at summarizing and refining, and accurately grasp the characteristics of things in order to get to the point. In particular, some official documents reflecting major events and important matters need to be summarized.

(3) Simplify the complex and accurately express as many actual contents as possible in the most economical words. There are many ways to simplify the complex, such as deleting redundant words, words, sentences and paragraphs, so that "every sentence is not tired, every sentence is not tired"; Flexible use of various special terms, such as "your bureau", "our factory", "our factory" (appellation), "Beijing", "Ye Jing", "Amethyst" (handling language), "proximity", "information" (quotation), "I hope to comply with", "I intend to apply", "No", "No" According to the actual situation, the proper use of these special terms is of great help to reduce redundant words.

(d) Easy to understand, without boasting.

The language of official documents should be plain and easy to understand, that is, the language should be plain and natural, clear and appropriate, free from affectation, avoid piling up flowery rhetoric, avoid abusing rhetoric, emphasize the magic in plain and plain, use narrative, explanation and discussion more, and use little or no description, exaggeration and rendering. This is an important feature of official documents. No matter what kind of official document, it has certain universality and mass, which determines that the language of official documents should not only pay attention to convention, but also be elegant, popular and plain. There are three main points:

(1) Don't make up words and use modifiers indiscriminately. The language of official documents should be concise and accurate, and there should not be too many decorative elements. Mr. Lu Xun said in the second episode of "Essays in the Pavilion": "If you want to understand, I think the author should first give up those seemingly unknown words, take out the living words from the mouths of the living and move them to paper, that is, learn from children and only say some words that he can really understand. As for the revival of ancient languages and dialect mandarin, it is naturally necessary, but one must choose and the other must have a dictionary to determine the meaning. "

Official document writing should truthfully reflect the true colors of things, and artistic exaggerations such as "Snowflakes in Yanshan Mountain are as big as seats" and "White Hair and Three thousands of feet" are not allowed. Appropriate exaggeration will become a famous sentence in poetry and a joke in official documents. In order to pursue vivid images, some authors of official documents often use some modifiers and image words in their writing, which not only makes official documents appear vague, empty and unconvincing, but also forms a posturing and artificial style.

(2) Don't confuse things with words. The words used in official documents should be popularized to avoid uncommon and obscure sentences. Some official documents often like to use some semi-written and semi-white words, for example, there is a ready-made "he" instead of "he"; The modern word "if" should be used instead of "if".

This practice seems to be full of pedantry, but in fact it has a strong sour taste.

(3) Don't quote too many classics. In the process of official document writing, some people like to quote classics to explain their views, which is allowed under certain conditions and sometimes can enhance the expression effect of language. But if you quote too much, it will be counterproductive and make people feel pedantic and flashy. Generally speaking, the quotation is limited to some official documents, such as leaders' speeches, research reports and other languages; However, general official documents are generally not allowed to quote classics, especially some solemn official documents, such as instructions, orders, notices, replies, etc. , can never be used.

(5) vivid and not conventional.

The writing of official documents generally requires plain, rigorous and concise writing, because official documents are highly policy-oriented and practical, especially some mandatory and normative documents, such as orders, instructions, notices, resolutions and regulations. This should be written carefully. However, this does not exclude the vividness of official document language. On the basis of ensuring the authenticity of the content, careful use of some rhetorical devices can make the content expression of official documents vivid and lively, so as to play its role more effectively.

The vivid language of official documents means that the content of official activities it represents must be innovative, rather than Yi Yun-style, plain and vulgar, without the characteristics of the issuing authority. This first requires the author of the official document to be innovative and the examples written in the official document to be typical. Secondly, you can't wear boots and hats in expression, which is a cliche. Official documents are not always "speaking Mandarin with a straight face". As long as you have innovative thinking, rich official activities, good writing style and grasp the language characteristics and requirements of official document writing, you can write official documents vividly.

The specific performance is as follows:

(1) accurate. This is the life of official document language, which is directly related to the quality of official documents. As the saying goes, "one word becomes an official document, but nine cows can't pull it out", which vividly illustrates the accuracy of the official document language. Here, in addition to the content elements, the scope of accurate reference depends to a great extent on the language elements, that is, the language expression should conform to the objective reality, the analysis of problems should be well-founded and logical, and the words and sentences should be appropriate and conform to the grammatical norms. Think twice about some words with similar meanings, carefully analyze the subtle differences between them, and choose the most accurate one to use.

(2) simplicity. Official documents focus on practicality, so in language expression, we should try our best to be concise on the basis of accuracy. Express as much as possible in extremely frugal words, so as to get twice the result with half the effort. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate a "carefully crafted" writing style, carefully scrutinize and modify language expressions, and try to delete those unnecessary words and phrases. This is not a pity. Finally, the state of "no redundant words in the sentence and no redundant words in the article" is achieved. Attention should be paid to the use of judgmental language, comprehensive language and popular language to ensure their simplicity. In addition, the proper use of some abbreviations can also make the language expression of official documents tend to be concise.

(3) solemnity. Official document is a tool for legitimate social organizations to handle official business, which has a high degree of policy and legal authority, so its language must be solemn and solemn. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to: narrative and declarative language should be used, and descriptive and lyrical language should be avoided; Use standard written language, not dialect. Otherwise, it will affect the solemn color of official document language.

(4) simple. Official documents focus on practicality and guide work. Therefore, in the use of language, we should also strive to be unpretentious, be straightforward to Chi-nese medicinal, don't beat around the bush, be obscure and secretive. Don't deliberately decorate, render and spread out. Otherwise, it will often backfire.

(5) vivid. Although the language of official documents is unpretentious, it should not be bland. Try to use some figurative words and borrow some rhetorical devices in modern Chinese, such as parallelism, layering, metaphor and exaggeration, but pay attention to some inappropriate rhetorical devices, such as pun, metonymy and symbol.

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